Case Study · 04
RTO Workstation & Meeting Room Governance
Workstation allocation across 70+ offices and a Lark-native meeting room waitlist with auto-claim — space governance that actually scales with return-to-office.
Role
Lead Product Manager
Timeline
2021 — 2024
Team
PM, Eng, Workplace, Facilities, Regional admins
Scope
70+ offices · 40+ countries
Background
Context
Return-to-office turned space from a static asset into a live one. Offices that were comfortable at 60% utilization were suddenly running past 170%, and the old static seat map couldn't keep up.
At the same time, meeting rooms — the most visible workplace resource — had become a passive-aggressive battleground. People held rooms they didn't need, no-shows blocked everyone else, and admins burned hours rebalancing calendars by hand.
Why it mattered
Problem
Workstation allocation was being managed in spreadsheets per office, with no shared model of teams, neighborhoods, or rotation policies. Every region invented its own version, and none of them survived a reorg.
Meeting rooms had a booking system but no governance. There was no waitlist, no graceful release of unused rooms, and no way for someone who actually needed a room to get the one that was being held hostage on a calendar.
What I owned
My Role
I led both products as a unified space-governance platform, covering workstation allocation, meeting room waitlists, and operator tools. The solution helped employees access space more smoothly while enabling facilities and regional admins to manage floors without relying on ticket-based support.
How we built it
Solution Design
From Offline Collection to Online Allocation
RTO demand was previously collected through offline forms, spreadsheets, and manual coordination. We moved the process online, enabling employees, teams, and admins to submit, manage, and update workstation needs in one structured workflow.
A Shared Model for Limited Workstations
Instead of assigning every employee a fixed seat, the product introduced a shared workstation model. Teams, neighborhoods, rotation rules, and exceptions became configurable objects, helping balance limited workplace capacity with changing employee demand.
A Smoother Meeting Room Booking Experience
When no meeting room was available, employees could directly join a waitlist within the booking flow. The experience changed from “search → fail → repeat manually” to “book → no availability → waitlist,” reducing frustration and extra coordination.
Faster Room Turnover Through Auto-Claim
When a room was released, cancelled, or ended early, the waitlist could automatically promote the next eligible booking. This improved room circulation efficiency and helped unused capacity return to employees faster.
What changed
Before / After
Before
Workstation allocation lived in per-office spreadsheets with no shared concepts.
After
A unified model across 70+ offices, configured by regional admins.
Before
Meeting rooms were held by no-shows; needed bookers had no recourse.
After
Waitlist auto-claim reassigns released rooms, driving 56% reuse on otherwise wasted slots.
Before
Workplace tools lived outside daily flow, so few people used them.
After
Lark-native delivery brought 10K+ weekly active users without a launch campaign.
Outcomes
Impact
170%+
Workstation utilization sustained across 70+ offices
56%
Reuse rate on released meeting room slots
10K+
Weekly active users on the waitlist flow
40+
Countries covered by a single space model
What I'd carry forward
Learnings
Space is a product. Treating it like one — with a model, policies, and operator tools — made return-to-office feel less like a fight.
Meeting the user inside the tool they already use beats a beautiful standalone app every time. Lark-native delivery did more for adoption than any feature did.
Two-sided products need two-sided design. The waitlist worked because the operator dashboard worked.