ng system. “By using the hotelling system, we were able to consolidate from 18 floors in two buildings (in Manhattan) to nine floors in one building,” says Mike Hamel, now a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Office space is definitely one of the biggest overheads with accounting firms. It has been an issue over the years as to how it could be reduced. By measuring the amount of time consultants in various service lines spend outside the office, PricewaterhouseCoopers has been able to reduce the ratio of workspaces to employees to as little as one to four.Having access to a laptop enables the employees to access the company's intranet. Within the company’s intranet is a listing of office sites owned by them. Each office has a diagram of the office layout and anything else that the employees should know in respect to the office like locations of photocopiers, fax machines and secretaries. Once the employee logs in for the day, the system automatically assigns the employee to a cubicle that is free. The employee’s direct telephone number is automatically transferred over to that same cubicle. “All those affected by ‘Right Space’ have their own personal ID number,which becomes their ‘virtual’ telephone number. Telephone calls are to people, not telephone numbers or extensions. And a database automaticallyroutes calls to each individual, no matter where they are.” Another feature to this type of system is that it allows the employees to view where others are seated in the office. Being in an office building with hundreds of employees can be quite difficult to track someone down if seating arrangements are always changing. Walking up and down the aisles to locate employees is just a waste of time. With this system, all it takes it a simple click of a button and the intranet site can locate the exact cubicle anyone in the office. Employees can also book equipm...
