Clear desk policy or “no Linda you don’t need 10 teddies on your desk you’re a 42 year old woman”

[Strafficy]

I’m at the end of 2 weeks annual leave and clearing out emails.

Member of the team has taken the opportunity of me not being there to start an email thread with my boss about my clear desk policy and how unhappy she is. Boss rather bemused and “can you talk to XXX when she returns”

I started 6 mths ago and have asked all staff in my division to have a clear desk for a number of reasons

1. piles of paperwork everywhere some of it years old and I want them out of the habit of printing everything (one member of staff was printing all their emails!)

2. We are supposed to hot desk and it isn’t fair on part timers when they come in to sit at someone’s desk when it’s piled high with family photos/teddies/half eaten bowls of cereal

3. Frankly some of them are bloody unorganised and needed a kick up the arse

4. confidential information left all over the desk for anyone to see

This staff member has done nothing but complain about it since day 1. I’ve had just about enough now

Also we work fully on wi-fi and laptops.

And fully cloud based.

No shared drives - everything is on Teams and Sharepoint.

I love it!

@Mybalconyiscracking

I liked my desk, it was my territory, I spent 30 hours per week there. I liked some of my own photos, plants and bits. I also found it useful sometimes just to abandon a pile of paper on my desk until the next day, where was the harm? I am a professional woman, with a global role, I’m not a child but I miss my desk. I am working from home now and if I ever go back I will be hot desking, I think this is sad. I will miss the intimacy of sitting near the same people all the time and sharing their lives. I am glad I am the end of my career and not the beginning. office life I’d going to be a bit soulless for a while, until some “forward thinking” hip new company “ discovers” the value of giving people their own space..

I think if you want people in four or five days a week they should be comfortable. Not hot desking, not forbidden from having personal items out, not messing about taking things in and out of lockers every day. I’m absolutely fine with this if I can wfh most of the week, but not if fulltime office presence is required.

We recently made the move to the long table configuration someone else mentioned too. It’s shit. Not enough space to do a role that requires much physical paper shuffling, no privacy and far too close to everyone else. Again, fine for a few days a week but not every day. Google shrinking desks - it’s a phenomenon.

It’s practices like this that make me want wfh options. I wasn’t bothered about being in the office when I started my career almost 20 years ago (and there were pros like developing close relationships with colleagues), but the environment stresses me out now.

I'm so glad we have a very old fashioned office where everyone has their own big desk and 3 drawer pedestal. I also have a filing drawer cupboard thingy and a bookcase! I couldnt handle a soulless work station/ hot desk scenario.

Kaizen, 5S, and black belts. Good memories :).

For those who hate hot desking...no choice here.
Public sector, the local authority can't afford for us to have offices big enough to house desks for us all. thanks Boris

@GeorgePlace

For those who hate hot desking...no choice here. Public sector, the local authority can't afford for us to have offices big enough to house desks for us all. thanks Boris

I'm worried this will happen in many offices now with people asking to continue to wfh. Employers will ask why they should pay for underoccuppied offices.

In fairness why should an employer have a huge under utilised office
There is something really antiquated about wanting a designated desk that is solely for one person use
It is possible to not desk

What I hate is that we are no longer allowed to put memos up on our desk. I simply don't have the memory to remember the information unless it's staring me in the face. I waste a lot of time searching through electronic folders for phone lists and codes when what I really need are some coloured post it's in front of me.

Have you tried using a paper diary? I have my 'to do list' in my paper diary. I buy the kind with appointments so I put the tasks in at the specific time I intend to complete them. Anything like useful phone numbers goes in the notes at the back. Easy to have out at your desk and lock away at the end of the day.

@EspressoDoubleShot

In fairness why should an employer have a huge under utilised office There is something really antiquated about wanting a designated desk that is solely for one person use It is possible to not desk

Why should the wfh people make the office a worse place to be for the rest though?

" Easy to have out at your desk and lock away at the end of the day."

Lock up where if you're hot desking? Will you definitely have lockers or will you have to carry that with you every day on top of the laptop as my friend has been told she'll have to do?

If you’re wfh how are you making the office a miserable place?how’s that work

We got hot desk. Can only fit 60% in with current spacing. At the end of the day all hot desks are sprayed down with disinfectant. Any teddy bears would be soaked but free of germs. But I don't work in an environment with kids so we don't have teddy bears.

@Gwenhwyfar

" Easy to have out at your desk and lock away at the end of the day."

Lock up where if you're hot desking? Will you definitely have lockers or will you have to carry that with you every day on top of the laptop as my friend has been told she'll have to do?

Yes you clear the desk. You’re given a storage locker for that purpose No extraneous detritus on your desk.

Do random confidential checks. Get property to conduct them. Get company boss behind it too so that this is company policy and not 'you'.

@EspressoDoubleShot

In fairness why should an employer have a huge under utilised office There is something really antiquated about wanting a designated desk that is solely for one person use It is possible to not desk

I think it really depends on the job. At my work hot desking just wouldn't work. Too much paper. Not everything is done via laptop/cloud based storage.

We had a client drop off records the other day to be worked on. 20 archive boxes full. It just wouldn't be possible to rock up in the morning and sit at any desk.

Yes it depends on the job, it’s achievable to hotdesk a lot of the objections are from
Yes I too I’ve been sent archived notes 30+boxes , they are locked away at night as they’re confidential they can’t be left sitting about. So the archived boxes are a bit of a moot point

My most recent experience was, where we tried to introduce it with hot desking

• shortage of lockers, lockers located far from desks
• shortage of desks, people walking round trying to find a desk, emails to team to say working on 5th floor today etc.
• lots of people needing fixed desks for health reasons anyway e.g. chairs, standing desks etc.
• clutter built up over time- personal items reduced but still brochures, print outs, knick knacks
• reduced team camaraderie
• not enough resource put into making us cloud based/paper free

I think management gave up trying to enforce people sitting in different places and we went back to small team clusters, lost the sense of the wider department we were in though as by this time it was hard to know where to find other teams.

@EspressoDoubleShot

Yes it depends on the job, it’s achievable to hotdesk a lot of the objections are from Yes I too I’ve been sent archived notes 30+boxes , they are locked away at night as they’re confidential they can’t be left sitting about. So the archived boxes are a bit of a moot point

In your place or work perhaps it's achievable but not all places.

Teddies on desks is so unprofessional. I don't think people should be allowed any personal items on their desks.

Why are so many people eating at their desks?

Well where else would you eat? Often you get a 30-60min break. There aren't always communal areas to eat in or benches outside the building. There isn't a local park and most town centres are quite a walk away and only have about 2 benches. Also it may be your only chance to get some of the weekly shop done or buy other essentials due to outside commitments or cost to get to the shops.

I can see that some people have no choice to eat at their desk but why do they have to be so messy about it?
Dropping crumbs into the keyboard and smearing everything with grease?

Did you see the bit I said depends on the job ⬅️that’s a clue
Work place culture and personal preference determine how well hot desking works
Some workplace culture don’t enforce it, and some individuals won’t adhere to it. A designated Desk can become a politicised thing linked to a preference familiarity and the perceived status of own desk

Out of interest if archived documents aren’t locked away how is confidentiality maintained?

Clear desk policy is fine. Mentioning the person's name and age and what specifically you've asked her to take off her desk is unprofessional and borderline bullying.

@Raaaaaaarr

Do random confidential checks. Get property to conduct them. Get company boss behind it too so that this is company policy and not 'you'.

Perhaps the company boss would respond in the same way as Larry Page, co founder of Google did? They may be in the personalised desk camp and take a dim view of a subordinate attempting to impose their personal ideology on the workplace. Obviously OP’s line manager doesn’t back her on this so why would someone higher up?

Can I just add a fifth reason to the op, it’s really selfish for the poor cleaning team who have to pick up all the crap to clean underneath.