The nature of consulting doesn't square with the idea of a fixed workplace. Booz
Allen's consultants, for example, may work 100 percent of the time on a client site
for the duration of a project, rarely checking in at the firm's own offices. Other times,
a client might allow for teleworking, which means the consultant will split his or her
time between working from home, the client site, and a Booz Allen space.
For a consulting firm, a traditional work environment — where each employee has
his or her own space, regardless of how often they use it — just doesn't make sense
financially, environmentally, or culturally.
"We realized that the buildings were being underutilized," said Brinda Sen Gupta,
lead associate in the firm's Strategic Innovation Group. "Employees weren't using that
space because they were going in to client sites. So, we wanted to create efficiencies
by lowering the square footage per person in the space by doing the hoteling system."
W W W. W O R K D E S I G N . C O M 0 7
The strategy behind Booz Allen's
flexible approach to work
