Understanding the impact of office relocations on employee travel times

Any office relocation, whether to consolidate premises, expand, contract or simply to get facilities which better fit the needs of the business, is planned carefully to make the transition to the new office as smooth as possible for everyone involved. As the length and quality of an employee’s journey to work is an important factor in where they choose to work and live, one of the first questions anyone facing an office move will have is how they will continue to get to work, and what their new commute will look like.   

Steer has helped over 100 organisations understand the impacts of their potential office moves on employee travel times and cost, identifying where the average journey to work will be shorter or longer, and which groups of employees will be most affected by a change in office location.

We have access to a variety of data sources which enable us to model average travel times from an employee’s home to the existing office, and then compare this travel time with the average travel time to potential future office locations. We identify the average change in travel time for all employees.

We can also identify the groups of employees who would experience significant changes in their travel time (e.g. by business unit, team or home location). We can adjust the model to take account of future transport connections and services (e.g. the Elizabeth line, timetable changes), and we can calculate average drive times for employees who drive all or part of the way to work. The outputs of our work are typically a report containing graphs and tables of the impacts as well as maps showing the geographic spread of the results.

Successes & outcomes

Understanding the travel time impacts of a relocation in detail can help businesses choose between different location options; help them to consult with employees about the relocation; inform the scope of any relocation support packages to be offered, and tailor the support provided to workers. Our travel time analysis has informed the relocations of several high-profile businesses to new business districts in central London as well as the relocations of many other public and private sector organisations outside of London. We have also delivered projects for healthcare agencies looking at reconfiguring services at hospitals.