Why Serviced Apartments Fit Temporary Workforce Mobility better than Hotels

What You’ll Gain from This Blog

• Understand changing temporary workforce housing needs and mobility trends.
• Compare the costs and limitations of hotels and serviced apartments for extended stays.
• Discover how serviced apartments support employee wellbeing, duty of care and compliance.
• Learn how to simplify bookings, invoicing and changing workforce requirements.
• Find out how to integrate serviced apartments into corporate accommodation policies.

Serviced apartments for temporary workers are becoming the preferred choice as mobility programmes run shorter, more frequent and less predictable deployments. According to a survey from AirInc, 66% of organisations are using, or expect to use, new types of mobility beyond their existing programmes, including short-term assignments, commuting and extended business travel. Project crews, contractors, secondees and rotational staff often move at short notice, often with changing requirements.

Accommodation policy has not always kept up. Many policies were written for longer, more predictable assignments, which leads to higher costs, employees who need more than a room, and extra work for mobility, HR and procurement teams.

This article covers what temporary workforce mobility looks like now, where hotels become less efficient, what serviced apartments do better, and how to build them into your accommodation policy.

What temporary workforce mobility looks like now

Temporary workforce mobility now involves teams rather than individuals, and deployments change as projects progress. Stays typically run from one to six months, with people joining and leaving along the way.

Headcount can rise when a new phase begins, fall as work completes, or shift between locations. Organisations running several projects may need different sites and stay lengths at the same time. Some deployments are planned well ahead, while others need accommodation at short notice.

This pattern is common in construction, energy, healthcare, consulting and technology implementation, where contractors, engineers and project teams need housing for defined periods.

For mobility, HR and procurement teams, the task is more than finding somewhere to sleep. Accommodation has to cope with changing headcounts, shared occupancy, multiple locations and flexible dates, while staying manageable on cost and administration throughout the deployment.

Where hotels struggle past a few weeks

Hotels are built around nightly stays, which suits short trips. Over longer stays, several issues build up:

• Cost: A nightly rate that looks reasonable for three nights adds up to over sixty, especially with several employees staying at once.
• No kitchen: Employees rely on per diems and eating out, so expenses climb.
• Laundry: It becomes a recurring line item.
• Limited space: One room has to serve as bedroom, workspace and dining area, with nowhere for a team to work or eat together.
• Rate changes on extension: Extending can mean a different rate, a room move or renegotiating availability, particularly in busy periods.

Together, these make the total cost of a deployment harder to forecast, and teams risk having to find new accommodation mid-project. Hotels remain suitable for many situations. They become less efficient when accommodation has to work as a base for weeks or months.

What changes with serviced apartments

Serviced apartments change the model. Instead of pricing and managing each night separately, they provide a furnished base that can support a team for weeks or months.

Total cost, not nightly rate

A kitchen and in-apartment laundry reduce spend on restaurant meals, per diems and paid laundry. Longer stays are also usually priced on a monthly basis, which makes costs easier to predict. This lets procurement teams compare the full cost of a stay (accommodation, subsistence and practical costs) rather than the nightly rate alone. 

Separate space to live and work

Rather than one room, employees get separate areas to sleep, cook, eat and relax. Where a stay calls for it, desk space or a workspace can be selected as an option, so people can work without doing everything from the bed or a small table.

Duty of care and compliance

Employers need to know accommodation meets safety and property standards, and who is responsible if something goes wrong. Managing that across many hotel bookings or properties adds work and room for error.\

A single provider, such as TheSquare, gives companies one accountable point of contact. Properties are quality-checked and documented, and 24/7 support gives employees a clear way to report problems. If there is a maintenance issue or an emergency, mobility teams know who to contact and what happens next.

This matters most for programmes spanning several employees, properties, cities or countries, where a consistent process makes it easier to see where people are housed and which standards apply.

Less administration

Headcount rarely stays constant. A team of ten can grow to 30 mid-project and shrink again towards the end. With one point of contact and consolidated invoicing, apartments can be added, stays extended and departures managed without renegotiating each booking. That means fewer separate bookings, invoices and supplier conversations for procurement and mobility teams.

Retention and wellbeing

People on assignments of one to six months are away from family and home. A kitchen, separate living space, laundry and workspace let them keep a normal routine without depending on hotel services, which makes long deployments easier to manage. 

Building serviced apartments into your policy

Serviced apartments work best as part of the accommodation policy, rather than approved case by case. A short framework helps teams book quickly when a project starts or headcount changes:

1. Set a stay threshold. For example, stays of 30 nights or more default to serviced apartments, while shorter stays remain flexible.
2. Define standards and vetting criteria. For example, an equipped kitchen, laundry, wi-fi, regular housekeeping, safety checks and 24/7 support.
3. Agree commercial terms. Set rates by stay length, and how extensions, early departures and extra apartments are priced.
4. Plan for headcount changes. Decide how additional apartments are requested, how they are released, and what notice and approvals apply.
5. Keep an approved list. List providers and properties vetted against your standards and terms.
6. Name one owner. Give one team responsibility for bookings, changes, invoices and escalations.

A real example: Renault-Nissan Alliance

The Renault-Nissan Alliance had executives and project teams working across several sites. Housing them in hotels was expensive, suitable rooms were hard to find, and managing so many separate bookings took up a lot of time.

They switched to serviced apartments with TheSquare, choosing locations that suited each site, with full kitchens, separate living space and 24/7 support. The apartments could be adjusted as team sizes changed.

The result was lower costs, smoother operations, less risk and happier employees and executives. It also gave them a housing set-up they could reuse for future projects, rather than starting from scratch each time. 

Reviewing your approach

Temporary deployments are rarely fixed, so housing needs to work around changing headcounts and project requirements. If your programme still relies mainly on hotels, a policy or accommodation review is a practical place to start.

TheSquare supports businesses with workforce housing and corporate accommodation for temporary and project-based deployments. 

To find out how we can help your business, contact corporate@thesqua.re