Universities Modify Office Spaces to Accommodate Hybrid Work

The shift to “hoteling” workspaces enables universities to maximize existing buildings and reduce the need to build new ones, supporting sustainability goals. It also accommodates a workforce with diverse work styles and needs, he says.

“We’re all on this space utilization journey,” Moss says. “Institutions may be at different points of the adoption curve, but we’re all on the journey.”

University of Iowa Takes a Measured Approach to Shared Workspaces

The University of Iowa built a coworking space in late 2021. Administrators support hybrid and remote work, and they are taking a deliberate approach to eliminating assigned desks. The challenge: changing a culture where many staffers feel attached to having their own dedicated workspaces.

“It’s gradual. The first bold step was creating the coworking space so hybrid and remote staff would have that option,” says Rod Lehnertz, the university’s senior vice president for finance and operations.

The space, called CoWork Commons, occupies a former retail space in a converted mall across the street from campus. The facility features six conference rooms equipped with Sony smart TVs and Logitech Rally Bars, all-in-one videoconferencing systems featuring a camera, microphones and speakers. The main office space offers different furniture configurations, from restaurant-style booths and soft armchairs to tables with straight-backed chairs.

WATCH: Four workplace technology trends to pay attention to in 2026.

The facility has a 90-person capacity and offers Wi-Fi powered by HPE Aruba equipment, printer-copier machines, a kitchenette and lockers. The main space has plenty of wall- and floor-mounted electrical outlets. Staff can reserve conference rooms through Outlook or tablets outside each room.

Use of the coworking space is limited, as the university currently allows many hybrid workers to retain their assigned desks. The university’s post-pandemic rightsizing efforts reduced 68,000 square feet of leased space, saving $1.1 million annually, and eliminated 300,000 square feet of obsolete buildings. Workers went fully remote or relocated to other buildings through what Lehnertz calls “better organization of spaces to host them.”

This approach reflects Iowa’s balancing act. While hybrid work offers work-life balance and more efficient use of campus space, removing assigned desks can affect morale and create retention risks.

The university is considering modifications based on feedback that CoWork Commons is too loud for focused work, Lehnertz says. The university may expand the space to include quiet rooms.

“It’s used in spurts,” Lehnertz says. “I’m not alarmed by the fact that it’s underutilized today, because culture does not change quickly. I expect more and more will use it, and there will be momentum in time.”

DISCOVER: Technology has changed the modern workplace.

Technology in Stanford University’s Hybrid Workspaces

Stanford University embraced hybrid work before the pandemic, but adoption has accelerated since 2020. As a result, the university has begun modifying existing office spaces to accommodate hybrid workers through shared desks and hoteling arrangements.

The transition has been gradual but campuswide. Stanford employees can now reserve shared office spaces in several dozen buildings out of the school’s several hundred through an online system. University leaders now encourage that flexible workspaces be added in new construction and major building renovations.

Stanford’s Redwood City, Calif., campus illustrates this shift. Four office buildings, located five miles from the main Palo Alto campus, have the capacity for 2,700 employees from university IT, finance and administration. When the Redwood City campus opened in 2019, each employee was assigned a desk. Now, it includes hoteling spaces, with Stanford planning to significantly expand shared workspace arrangements across departments.

“We’re going to densify and go from assigned to more shared spaces so we get higher utilization,” says Matthew Ricks, Stanford’s senior director of IT facilities infrastructure and resilience.

The findings of a 2017 workforce assessment informed planning for the Redwood City campus, highlighting the need for collaboration technology to connect employees across multiple locations. Stanford’s goal was to move back-office employees off the main campus so it could repurpose that space for classrooms and research.

While designing the office space, Stanford established collaboration technology standards so employees can communicate and collaborate from any location. Stanford adopted Zoom for videoconferencing and Google Workspace for document sharing, and it deployed Cisco videoconferencing equipment in main campus conference rooms.

“This was all geared toward improving our ability to work from anywhere,” Ricks says.

Stanford intentionally designed the Redwood City campus to be flexible so it could start off with assigned seating and later switch to “hot desking” spaces. It features open workstations with sit-stand desks and ergonomic chairs.

Each shared or touchdown workspace features the same setup: one 34-inch Dell monitor with an integrated webcam, a Windows laptop docking station, cables for MacBooks, and Logitech keyboards and mice.

LEARN MORE: Overcoming collaboration configuration challenges.

“We kept everything standard, with no customization, so you can easily move people around and turn an assigned space to a shared space,” he says.

The Redwood City campus also includes enclosed office spaces, 25-square-foot phone rooms for private calls and conference rooms with Cisco videoconferencing equipment.

Each floor features reliable Wi-Fi; an all-in-one printer, scanner and copier; office supplies; mail slots; refreshment points; and lockers. Stanford also adopted Cisco softphones and reduced the number of VoIP desk phones.

Even though many hybrid workers currently have assigned desks, some spots sit empty when employees work from home. Stanford sees opportunities to optimize space by transitioning more employees to shared workspaces and expects to triple shared desks from 25% to 75% in the coming years.

“It’s going to be about consolidation, densification and getting more out of the space,” Ricks says.

UC Davis Adopts Office Hoteling Spaces

Meanwhile, the University of California, Davis fully embraced flexible work schedules after the pandemic. Today, more than 50% of the 18,000 employees at its main Davis, Calif., campus take advantage of hybrid work, says Tammy Kenber, the university’s chief human resources officer.

To support the change, UC Davis modernized its office arrangements, with approximately 60% of workspaces designed for hoteling and 40% assigned to employees who predominantly work on campus. About 10% of staff work fully remotely. Every school, college and division has tailored hoteling spaces to suit their specific needs, Kenber says.

For example, the university moved administrative services from leased space off campus to university-owned buildings to reduce costs. Davis administrative staff are now colocated less than a mile away from the main campus, while UC Davis Health’s administrative services relocated from the Sacramento medical center to office space several miles away.

Each hoteling workspace features single or dual monitors with webcams, keyboards and mice. UC Davis has also standardized on Zoom and Microsoft Teams for virtual meetings. Employees can use Outlook to reserve workspaces and meeting spaces in advance or the morning they need them, Kenber says.

“Standardizing hoteling spaces ensures employees can sit down, plug in their laptops and instantly get right to work,” she says.

UP NEXT: What does the future hold for hybrid work?

In the new administrative buildings, UC Davis’ integrated planning and design team modified spaces based on each department’s needs. For example, the employee and labor relations team, which negotiates with unions and handles sensitive employee issues, needs privacy, so it uses secure spaces alongside open collaborative areas with cubicles.

Besides customizing spaces for departments, the university also added huddle spaces and conference rooms of varying sizes throughout the administrative buildings, equipping the conference rooms with videoconferencing equipment.

Overall, flexible work schedules and hoteling workspaces benefit both employees and the university. Employee engagement scores have increased, while the university uses flexibility as a competitive advantage to recruit and retain top talent, Kenber says.

“Employees tell us how much this flexibility means to them, and we know their engagement has a direct impact on our organizational outcomes,” she says. “It positively impacts the student experience when our employees are engaged and feel valued.”