Flex office, private offices or hybrid: which model to choose?

By INOWAI · Marie ANSAY Senior Consultant Office · June 2026

What the numbers tell us first

Before choosing a model, let’s face the facts:

• 74% of European companies have deployed or plan to deploy a flex or hybrid model by 2026.
• -22% : the average reduction in floor space observed during lease renewals in Luxembourg between 2022 and 2024 (INOWAI Research).
• 52% only: the actual occupancy rate of traditional offices in Europe. One office in two is empty at any given moment.
• 1.8 days of remote work per week on average in Luxembourg in 2024 — a structural figure, not a cyclical one.
• €58/m² : the prime CBD rent in Luxembourg in Q1 2025 (INOWAI Office Barometer). At that price, every empty square metre has a cost.
• 67% of employees in flex offices say that the quality of shared spaces is decisive in their satisfaction.

The conclusion is simple: an unused office is money lost. And with remote work structurally embedded, the question is no longer “should we change?” but “how do we optimise?”

The question doesn’t arise for everyone

Let’s be direct: regulated professions don’t really have a choice.

Lawyers, audit firms, banks, insurers — the confidentiality of exchanges, legal obligations and the nature of the work require private offices and assigned desks. The closed model is not a matter of preference, it’s a structural constraint.

But even in these organisations, the question arises for internal departments. Marketing, HR, communications and support teams don’t face the same constraints. And that’s where it gets interesting. An 80-person law firm can perfectly well have its partners in private offices and its support teams in flex, with redesigned shared spaces. That’s often where the 15 to 20% of recoverable floor space is found.

For the others — tech, services, consulting, scale-ups — the question is wide open. And the answer deserves a proper analysis, not a decision made at the moment of signing a lease.

In concrete terms: how much can you save or unlock?

Here is what we observe on the Luxembourg market.

With a real attendance rate of 60% (3 days out of 5), a 100-person company only needs 65 to 70 desks in a well-designed flex setup. On a typical floor area of 1,500 m², this represents 300 to 400 m² freed up.

At an average rent of €40/m²/year (excluding prime), that’s €12,000 to €16,000 in annual savings — or the same amount reallocated to spaces that genuinely create value.

Because that’s the other option, often the smartest one: not to reduce, but to transform.

These freed-up square metres can become:

• Acoustically isolated focus rooms — for calls, writing, thinking. These are the most requested spaces in flex offices and the most often missing.
• Informal collaboration spaces — sofas, standing-height tables, brainstorming zones. The kind of thing that makes people want to come into the office when they have the choice to stay home.
• Modular meeting rooms — to welcome clients and partners in a setting that reflects the company’s image.
• Rest and social spaces — promoting wellbeing and interaction between employees, and the appeal of the workplace

The goal is not to have fewer offices. It’s to have offices that truly serve a purpose (useful, lively and attractive offices). Better-designed spaces retain talent, increase productivity — and give employees a real reason to choose to come into the office.

Three models, one good starting point: analysis

The assigned private office

Each employee has their own desk. Relevant for regulated professions, confidential roles, and profiles that require continuous presence. Its drawback in a hybrid context: it generates empty desks that cost money without adding anything.

The flex office

No assigned desks. You settle in according to your needs of the day. Effective if the attendance rate justifies it and the spaces are genuinely well designed. Poorly executed, it becomes a source of friction and disengagement — the opposite of the intended effect.

Loss of bearings (a feeling of depersonalisation), difficulty concentrating, a weaker sense of belonging, unequal access to the best spots

The hybrid model

Flex zones, assigned desks for certain profiles, dedicated focus spaces. It’s the model most often seen in our advisory engagements — and generally the best suited to the reality of organisations where several types of roles coexist.

From analysis to fit-out: tailored support

Choosing your model can’t be improvised. It starts with measuring actual usage — not what you imagine, but what the data reveals. Then with projecting future needs. Then with finding the right space and negotiating the right lease.

INOWAI supports its clients at each of these stages, ahead of any real estate decision.

And to go all the way to the fit-out, we work with byld, our partner architecture firm, which offers fit-out simulations and costed scenarios for each configuration. Pure flex, hybrid, partial transformation — byld models the options, helps you visualise what your future space can really offer, and ensures that every square metre works for you.

Would you like to simulate your optimisation potential or identify the ideal floor space for your organisation? Contact our INOWAI OFFICE team.