WORKPLACE STRATEGY – LEADING INSURANCE GROUP
A leading Belgian insurance group — approximately 1,000 employees across multiple entities — faced a structural decision: reduce office footprint while preserving, or even improving, the collective performance of a highly hybrid workforce.
AVERAGE OFFICE OCCUPANCY
EMPLOYEES AFFECTED
UNIFIED HQ – MULTI-ENTITY
SURFACE & LEASE REDUCTION
THE CHALLENGE
The organisation operates a multi-entity headquarters in Belgium, bringing together approximately 1,000 employees across Life and Non-Life divisions. Despite a stated intent of 1–2 days of office presence per week from management, actual occupancy had settled at around 14% on average — with wide variation between teams.
An upcoming real estate decision — a significant reduction in surface area — opened a critical window. Left unaddressed, the reduction risked further fragmenting an already weakened collective dynamic. The office was increasingly used for collaboration, but without a stable spatial or organisational framework to support it.
The question was not simply how to fit more people into less space — but how to use the constraint as a trigger for genuine collective performance improvement.
PROJECT OBJECTIVE
Understand actual usage patterns through occupancy measurement and employee surveys
Align the management team on shared principles and ambitions
Define spatial scenarios that support collaboration, culture and wellbeing
Structure operational frameworks (Team Agreements) for sustainable hybrid work
Establish a budget estimate and implementation roadmap
APPROACH
AREMIS structured the programme around three complementary workstreams: making the situation visible through data, building shared arbitrations with leadership, and translating decisions into operational frameworks. Each phase built on the last — ensuring no decision was taken without evidence, and no analysis left without a concrete output.
01
Physical occupancy data collected across the building — revealing the ~14% average and the significant variation between teams and time slots. Evidence that replaced assumptions
02
Employee survey capturing satisfaction, working patterns, friction points and expectations — providing a granular view of the gap between actual usage, intentions and spatial offer.
03
Structured interviews with the Management Team — surfacing real ambitions, tensions and constraints behind official positions on hybrid work and office attendance.
04
Facilitated workshop with the full Management Team — aligning on guiding principles, arbitrating between competing objectives and reaching explicit decisions on collaboration, culture, attractiveness and wellbeing.
05
Three spatial scenarios developed — macro-zoning, anchor zones, hub structures, desk ratios — translated into a target spatial concept with a preliminary budget estimate.
06
Guiding principles formalised and Team Agreements structured — giving managers and teams a concrete framework for hybrid work. Digital tools assessed; a deliberate choice made not to deploy an additional reservation tool.
DELIVERY
The programme was designed to move from diagnosis to action without losing momentum — each phase producing concrete outputs that fed directly into the next. The result was not a report, but a set of decisions the organisation was ready to act on.
OBJECTIFY – MAKING THE SITUATION VISIBLE
Physical occupancy sensors, a Workplace Experience Survey and Management Team interviews were deployed simultaneously. The data revealed a ~14% average occupancy, significant inter-team variation, and a clear gap between managerial intentions (1–2 days of presence) and observed reality. A Data Walk session was organised to share findings directly with leadership — creating a shared factual foundation before any decision was taken.
ARBITRATE – ALIGNING LEADERSHIP
A structured Management Team workshop translated the data into explicit arbitrations: what role should the office play? What level of collective presence is expected — and how? What are the non-negotiables around collaboration, culture, attractiveness and wellbeing? Three work organisation and spatial scenarios were developed and reviewed, leading to a shared target concept — macro-zoning, anchor zones, hub ratios — with a preliminary budget estimate.
OPERATIONALISE – BUILDING OUR FRAMEWORK
Guiding principles were formalised and shared across the organisation. Team Agreements were structured to give managers concrete tools for governing hybrid presence. A deliberate assessment of digital reservation tools concluded that deploying an additional tool was not necessary at this stage — a considered decision rather than an omission. The programme concluded with a full implementation roadmap and budget trajectory, ready for execution.
PROJECT AT A GLANCE
CLIENT
SECTOR
LOCATION
AVG. OCCUPANCY (BEFORE)
SURFACE REDUCTION
RESULTS
The programme delivered what the organisation needed most — not a space plan, but a shared vision of the role of the office, translated into concrete decisions on spaces, ways of working and rules of use.
SURFACE & LEASE REDUCTION
A significant reduction in surface area and lease costs — achieved without sacrificing the conditions for collective performance, by designing for actual usage rather than theoretical peak occupancy.
SYNCHRONISED COLLECTIVE PRESENCE
A shared framework for hybrid presence — guiding principles and Team Agreements — enabling better synchronisation of office days across teams and reducing the friction caused by unpredictable attendance.
SPATIAL CONCEPT & BUDGET
A validated target spatial concept — macro-zoning, anchor zones, hub structures and desk ratios — with a preliminary budget estimate and implementation roadmap ready for execution.
MANAGEMENT ALIGNMENT
Explicit, documented arbitrations from the Management Team on collaboration, culture, attractiveness and wellbeing — replacing informal assumptions with shared principles the organisation can build on.
A SIMILAR CHALLENGE AHEAD
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