sed, ensures that information sharing is not reduced or lost due to space utilization. Hotelling may be the new wave of the future, however communicating this to employees may be more difficult than anticipated because of some of the social elements that will be disrupted by installing the new system. Hotelling does have its downfalls, but the benefits certainly exceed the costs for any organization willing to install such a system. With the increase of communication devices such as intranets, cell phones, laptops, modems, emails, and voicemails, accountants have more mobility as to where they can do their work. This is extremely beneficial to those accountants who spend most of their time at the client’s workplace. Most of their larger clients populate the downtown core of major cities. Therefore, for most accounting practices, it is logical to have their main offices also situated in the downtown core. The big issue revolving the practice is the fact that being situated downtown gets extremely expensive, especially for a line of business where the employees occupy the office less than half of the time. Hotelling systems can alleviate the costs of residing in the downtown area. Hotelling is a system whereby no employees have certain seating arrangements or desks. Each individual is responsible to log into the system each time they come into the office. The system then assigns them a desk that is available. Not occupying a desk everyday is wasted space that can otherwise contribute to reduce overhead. Since accountants do not spend most of their time in the office, it is logical to have a larger layout of cubicles rather than separate and much larger offices within the provided area. Through hotelling, the firm hopes to restrict the growth of its office space - particularly in its pricey downtown locations. Having an office layout only consisting of cubicles can reduce space and allow for more employees to be hired. “…Coopers & Lybrand estimates that its ‘Right Space’ (hotelling) initiative has saved the firm £2.5m on an investment of around £500,000 - with potential to save more than £5m in the next three years…reducing space requirements in London by 40% and in Birmingham by 20%.” Before Pricewaterhouse merged with Coopers and Lybrand, Coopers and Lybrand LLP was a technological leader in the accounting industry. They moved to paperless accounting before any other firm. Everything was basically done on laptops thus, accountants everywhere they went could carry information. As a technological leader in its industry, Coopers and Lybrand decided to try this hotelling system. “By using the hotelling system, we were able to consolidate from 18 floors in two buildings (in Manhattan) to nine floors in one building,” says Mike Hamel, now a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Office space is definitely one of the biggest overheads with accounting firms. It has been an issue over the years as to how it could be reduced. By measuring the amount of time consultants in various service lines spend outside the office, PricewaterhouseCoopers has been able to reduce the ratio of workspaces to employees to as little as one to four. Having access to a laptop enables the employees to access the company's intranet. Within the company’s intranet is a listing of office sites owned by them. Each office has a diagram of the office layout and anything else that the employees should know in respect to the office like locations of photocopiers, fax machines and secretaries. Once the employee logs in for the day, the system automatically assigns the employee to a cubicle that is free. The employee’s direct telephone number is automatically transferred over to that same cubicle. “All those affected by ‘Right Space’ have their own personal ID number, which becomes their ‘virtual’ telephone number. Telephone calls are to people, not telephone numbers or extensions. And a database automatically routes calls to each

Some topics in this essay:
Wireless Network, , PricewaterhouseCoopers Office, Mike Hamel, Human Resources, Coopers Lybrand, Canada Inc, Lybrand LLP, Consulting Vancouver, AT&T PCS, hotelling system, seating arrangements, coopers lybrand, information sharing, space utilization, office employees, permanent desk, office space, contribute reduce overhead, private office, office layout,