facilities_workplace_management v1.0.0

name: facilities_workplace_management description: Run a physical or hybrid workplace day to day: plan space from actual attendance counts, keep every lease and renewal date in one owned register with decision deadlines worked back from notice dates, run scored safety and welfare checks, cover office services and vendors, and run an office move or closure that loses no people and no kit. Use when taking over a site, setting up facilities routines, preparing for a lease break, expiry, or renewal, auditing space use, building a safety check, or planning a move.

Facilities Workplace Management

Purpose

Keep a workplace running on records, not memory. Four things decide whether a site is well run: space that matches how people actually attend, lease dates that surface months before they bite, safety checks that end in owned actions, and services with named cover when the usual person is away. This skill sets up all four, plus a move runbook for the day the site itself changes.

It covers a single office or a small portfolio run by a generalist. It does not replace a lease lawyer, a fire risk assessor, or a chartered surveyor. Where a decision turns on lease wording or a regulated assessment, this skill gets the facts in order and flags the point where a qualified professional has to rule.

Workflow

1. Build the site file first

• Create one site file per site before any other work. It holds the address as the lease states it, floor plan, headcount with access, desk count by room, the lease register entry, the services list, and the last safety check.
• Name one owner for the site file. If the owner leaves, the file is handed over in person, not discovered later.
• Record what you verified and when. A floor plan from before the last refit is a lead, not a fact. Walk the site and count desks, rooms, and exits yourself at setup.

2. Plan space from counts, not headcount

• Count actual attendance for at least four ordinary weeks. Use booking data, access logs, or a manual count at 10am and 2pm. Avoid launch weeks, holidays, and all hands events, or mark them as peak cases on purpose.
• Keep three numbers apart: headcount with access, average daily users, and peak daily users. Planning on headcount alone overbuys space in a hybrid pattern. Planning on the average alone fails on the busiest day.
• Run the utilisation tool and read the flags before proposing any change:

python3 scripts/workplace.py utilization --desks 36 --headcount 42 --avg-users 24 --peak-users 33 --usable-sqft 5200 --annual-cost 182000

• The tool reports desk ratio, average and peak utilisation, vacancy at peak, area per person, and cost per desk, per average user, and per peak user. The worked example above gives a 0.86 desk ratio, 66.7 percent average use, 91.7 percent peak use, and a cost per average user well above cost per desk, which is the honest price of hybrid attendance.
• Apply the decision rules: peak above 100 percent means people will hunt for seats, fix attendance patterns or add flex space before adding fixed desks. Peak at or above 95 percent is tight and breaks on one team day. Average below 40 percent means test repurposing, subletting where the lease allows it, or giving space back before renewing as is.
• Sort space by type as well as count. A site can have spare desks and still fail if focus rooms, call space, or accessible workstations are the scarce type. Count each type separately when complaints point that way.
• Recheck after any headcount change, attendance policy change, or team move. Put the next recheck date in the site file.

3. Keep one lease and renewal register, owned

• Enter every site in the register in references/lease-register.md. One row per site, one event list per lease. Record the fixed start and end dates first and on their own. Then list each break, renewal option, rent review, and rent step separately, with its holder, its notice period, its last service date, and its conditions.
• Work the decision deadline back from the notice deadline, never forward from today. Run each live event through the tool:

python3 scripts/workplace.py lease --site "Unit 4, Example Park" --event break --event-date 2027-06-30 --notice-months 6 --today 2026-10-24

• That run reports a notice deadline of 30 December 2026, a decision deadline of 1 October 2026 at the default ninety day lead, and a status of DECIDE_NOW when checked on 24 October 2026. The legal window is still open. The internal deadline has passed. The next action is a decision in front of the decision maker, not another reminder.
• Set staged reminders at 12, 9, 6, and 3 months before each notice deadline. Assign a named owner to every event. Require evidence, the served notice and proof of service, before any event is marked closed.
• Audit the register against the signed leases every quarter. One site in full on rotation, dates sampled on the rest. Update the register the same day any lease changes, and keep the old row in history.

4. Run safety and welfare checks that end in actions

• Walk the site with the check sheet in references/safety-check-sheet.md. Mark each line pass, fail, or na. The sheet covers exits and fire, building and housekeeping, welfare, equipment and electrics, and records.
• The baseline comes from the duties themselves. In the UK, HSE requires toilets and washbasins, drinking water, rest and eating space, good ventilation, a reasonable temperature (guidance in the approved code says usually at least 16C, or 13C for strenuous work), suitable lighting, enough space, a clean workplace, maintained premises, and traffic routes free of obstructions. In the US, OSHA rules cover unobstructed and lit exit routes (29 CFR 1910.37), monthly visual checks of fire extinguishers with annual maintenance (1910.157(e)), and first aid availability (1910.151). Check the rules for your jurisdiction, building, and work type, and add task specific lines for any workshop, lab, kitchen, or warehouse area.
• Score the sheet and work the failure list in the order it returns:

python3 scripts/workplace.py safety sheet.csv

• The sheet is CSV with headers item,result,severity,action,owner,due. Weights are critical 10, major 5, minor 2. Any critical failure grades the whole check STOP, whatever the percentage. Fix critical items first. A scored example with one lapsed extinguisher check grades STOP at 56.4 percent, with the extinguisher listed first, ahead of the major and minor failures.
• Give every failure an action, an owner, and a due date before leaving the room. Recheck failed lines on their due dates and file the recheck with the original sheet.

5. Cover office services and vendors

• List every recurring service in the site file: cleaning, waste, security and access, maintenance and callout, water, plants if you have them, supplies, post and deliveries, and the landlord or agent route for building level faults.
• For each service record the provider, the contract end or review date (also entered as a register event if missing it costs money), the day to day contact, the out of hours route, and the cover person inside the business.
• Test the cover twice a year. The cover person places one real call or request per service. A cover arrangement that has never been used is an assumption.
• Keep a short fault log: date, fault, who was called, response, fix, cost. Patterns in that log are your evidence at contract review and your early warning for a building system that is failing.

6. Run a move or closure as its own project

• Follow the worked plan in references/move-plan-worked-example.md. Appoint one move coordinator and a deputy. No shared ownership, no decisions in side conversations.
• Start from both leases. New site access and fit out dates at one end, last day, reinstatement duty, and deposit conditions at the other. A move planned without the old lease wording will meet that wording later, at the expensive end.
• Give every destination space an ID and label every box, item, and cable with that ID, never with a person's name alone. People change desks during a move. Rooms do not.
• Run IT as its own workstream: inventory, photograph setups before disconnecting, transport, reconnect, and signed off testing for network, phones, printers, screens, and access control.
• Close the old site with evidence: final walkthrough photographs, meter readings, keys returned against a receipt, reinstatement checked against the lease, and the deposit claim started.
• Two weeks after the move, review what was lost, damaged, or over budget, and file the review with the new site's register entry.
• For a closure with no new site, run the same plan minus the fit out: people and records first, then kit disposal with data wiped and recorded, then the exit evidence pack.

7. Run the monthly and quarterly rhythm

• Monthly: one safety walk on the check sheet, fault log review, attendance counts refreshed, register events inside twelve months reviewed.
• Quarterly: register audit against leases, services and cover review, space counts rerun through the tool, site file updated.
• Yearly: full site review against the lease events ahead, insurance and assessment dates confirmed, move or stay case started early enough that the register deadlines stay comfortable.

Output Contract

• A site file per site: verified address, plan, counts, services list with cover, and the date and name of the last check.
• A space report from the utilisation tool: desk ratio, average and peak utilisation, vacancy at peak, area and cost per user, the flags, and the change proposed with its reason.
• A lease and renewal register following references/lease-register.md, with every event carrying a holder, a notice deadline, a decision deadline, a named owner, a status, and an evidence location.
• A scored safety check following references/safety-check-sheet.md, with every failure carrying an action, an owner, and a due date, and a recheck record for each failed line.
• For a move or closure: a dated plan on the worked example shape, a destination ID scheme, an IT workstream list with test sign off, and an old site exit evidence pack.

Operating Rules

• Never present a lease date, deadline, or condition from memory. Read it in the lease or the register entry that quotes it, and say which one you used.
• Never mark a lease event closed on a verbal assurance. Closure needs the document and its location in the register.
• Never let a safety percentage hide a critical failure. The STOP grade stands until the critical item is fixed and rechecked.
• Label legal points by jurisdiction. UK and US duties differ, and building type changes the rules again. This skill organises the work. It does not give legal advice, and contested breaks, dilapidations, or injuries go to a qualified professional.
• Keep personal data out of the site file. Attendance work uses counts, not named movement records, unless a specific safety duty requires names.
• If a count, a date, or a check cannot be verified, say so in the output and leave the field marked unverified. A register with one honest gap beats a register that looks complete and is not.