Does anyone actually like hot desking and/or open plan?

[BMXsummoner]

I’ve recently started working for a company that does hot desking in a very open plan space. Prior to this I had always either had my own office (albeit entirely glassed so anyone nearby could see what I was doing) or my own desk in a cubicle type setup. Reasons I hate it:

• wasting a minimum of 5 minutes every morning and afternoon getting everything I need for the day out of my locker (power cables, headset, notebook, water bottle etc.) and getting set up at my workstation and then packing it all away again at the end of the day
• related, nowhere (like a set of desk drawers) that is convenient to store anything that would make my workday easier or nicer (snacks, extra stationery, painkillers, cardigan for when the office temperature is set to freezing)
• further time wasted if the work station I choose is defective and the monitors don’t work or connect to my laptop
• drab, impersonal workplace where no one can put up photos etc.
• putting up with all the inconsiderate arseholes in the office (the pen clicker, the chuckler, the stinker, the guy who gets 11ty million phone calls a day with his loud obnoxious ringtone)

I fucking hate it. I get why companies might think it’s a great idea (all the bullshit about fostering team work while saving money on floor space) but do any workers actually like it??

@MajorCarolDanvers - I find that the people who are trying to recreate the old style of working take a while to set themselves up. They have laptop stands and want a specific chair and lay out snacks etc. No criticism of them making it more comfortable for themselves but I’ve definitely noticed those who are vocal about hating hot desking do take a while to set up in the morning.

I hate it because invariably there were good seats that people hogged and gave you a dirty look for daring to hot desk in their favourite spot. There was also 'reserving' seats for their favourite mates. Maybe my open plan hot desking workplace is shit but it reminded me of school where you moved from one class to the other and kids would block off seats for their mates or hog all the best spots. It made the first half an hour of the working day awkward. I prefer everyone knows where they sit in advance and stick to it or just work from home which is amazing.

I’m mid 30s and have never worked in any other set up.

I’ve never really not had it, so it seems normal to me.

It does allow wfh so that’s one plus.

I find it quite sociable and nice to be around colleagues but that might be due to wfh the rest of the time.

There are also colleagues who insist on sitting next to the window but then moan if we wanted it open.
There are colleagues who eat on their desk so their keyboard is disgusting.
There are colleagues to rip little tiny shreds of paper and leave their desk a mess.
There are colleagues who change the settings of computer, chair, keyboard is raised and they don't return things to how they were. They faff about in the morning setting it all up and then clock off 5 minutes early to do their packing up routine.

Never hot desked but I used to work in an open plan office before WFH and loved it. We did some personality tests at work recently and found it so interesting that people’s ideal workspace can be so different. I get quite fed up WFH so have to have radio/podcasts on in the background. But appreciate some people want silence and a cosy enclosed space to concentrate. My old office was open plan, but had “pods” and little sheds you could work in if you needed quiet and alone time.

I detest open plan. I work fully remote now and will never go back.

The only part I like is that you get to sit with different people from your team and if you sit in a bad spot you can sit somewhere else next time. Although often people have their regular seats anyway. We’re in and out of the office in my role so I understand why they do it but I now have to wipe all equipment down too as I’ve got so many illnesses through sharing computers

I found it harder to make phone calls and concentrate in open plan. It was so fucking noisy and interruptions all the time. Around lunch time there is a competition of hot food smells, there is a lot of chatter and noise, machines noise, phones ringing and not getting answered. Open plan are a nightmare if you're an introvert or sensitive to noise and distractions.

This wouldn’t wash at all where I work (civil service). I can’t imagine people getting away with saving seats like this!

In my old dept you had to book desks before arriving which you’d think was similar but actually works well, because then everyone knows which desk they’re going to. It also stops the (broadly )8-4 people feeling superior to the (broadly) 10-6 people! Not saying we just work those fixed hours but as an example of equal work days.

I only go in to the office for supervision or meetings now, but we've hot desked for 16 years.

I hate it. I have some specific adaptations because of arthritis. There's nowhere to keep my keyboard (we have lockers, but not big enough for a keyboard), I have to hunt half the building for my chair, which has always been adjusted despite being labelled "do not adjust", my footrest, and unless I'm lucky enough to get a seat near a window, I end up with a migraine because of the shit lighting.

In my previous role (same organisation and building) we had an office of our own and the 2 of us with adaptations had dedicated desks.

Thankfully, we've been exempt from the requirement to be back in the office 20% of the time, because we do a lot of calls that discuss very personal stuff with clients. No-one wants to listen to me asking people how precisely their incontinence affects them when I'm doing a PIP form!

I saw this recently which covered a lot of it for me. (Better on LinkedIn but for some reason I can’t copy and paste that)

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing yeah see that's better at least there is an organised system I can work with that but arriving early and then hogging seats with your bag and coat and giving you dirty or disappointed looks that you dared sit near them is horrid. I promise I don't smell or talk loudly lol

Hot desking is better than home as I don't have to clear all the tech equipment away every day! I literally turn up, plug in my laptop, take my few things out my bag and I'm away. 2 minutes at best. Much quicker than moving furniture and plugging in monitors at the beginning and end of every day (yes, I realise that some people have dedicated office spaces at home and don't have this issue).

My company has a policy that you can have a permanent desk if you are in more than 3 days a week. And we've fallen into an unspoken rhythm that people tend to work in the same hot desk every time, so get used to having their own space to some degree. I can't imagine having a total free for all hot desk area - people tend to want to sit with people they know/close colleagues?

I don't think employers care whether employees like it or not, it's flexible and thus more financially palatable.

If hot desking means that you sit down at an empty desk, using your own laptop, keyboard and mouse, then ok.
If it means you sit down at a workstation, and use a keyboard/mouse used by other people. Yuk!
Imagine the person in your office who chomps crisps at their desk, eats apples and types at the same time, doesn't wash their hands, sneezes. Aargh. I've got anxiety even thinking about it.

10 years ago we had a team of cleaners who wiped down all the desks each night, now the single cleaner runs a hoover up the middle of the office and my desk has had the same coffee ring marks on it for weeks (I'm not cleaning them off myself as an experiment to see how often they clean!)

Also it's funny how the bosses almost always either bag the same desk or just must have a private office.

Open plan and hot desking not just annoying for many people, it's indirectly discriminatory for people with neurodiversity.

I have dyslexia and dyspraxia and it even bloody says in my occupational psychologist's assessment that trying to work in an open plan office will be hugely detrimental to my productivity.

However, no employer will actually let me work mostly or entirely remote, even when I point out that it's a valid reasonable adjustment. I am always treated like a diva or not a team player and told that it can't be permitted and "everyone has to do X number of anchor days in the office, that's the rule".

What they fail to understand is anchor days in the office become masses of work that I then have to complete on my evenings or weekends because it's impossible for me to focus in an open plan office.

The pandemic was the happiest and most productive period of my working life, because I was entirely remote and could finally get my work completed within working hours. It's depressing how many employers are forcing everyone back into open-plan.

I hate it for the following reasons:

Open plan office is too loud. Can't concentrate. Can't make delicate client calls.

I have chronic pain / fatigue and carrying bag with laptop / drink / notebook leaves me feeling shit by the time I arrive.

I'm short. I have to adjust every chair I sit on. I imagine whoever since on them after me hates it too.

Shoehorned more people into the office than there are parking for by a very long way.

Hot desking is great as long as everyone is flexible.

however some people have ‘their own’ hot desk, and groups have their preferred corner. This leads to a desk is lava situation when you try a pick a desk no one wants or you may suddenly find yourself in a group where you are treated like a bad smell no one wants.

The reality is hot desking is an economic decision by businesses. If they provided desks for eveyone when they work on a hybrid or it even flexi system it would cost significantly more and would result in lower salaries.
There’s also a cultural shift away from visible hierarchies in the form of individual offices which I don’t think is a bad thing.

I don’t have an issue with open plan. I might as well just work from home if I’m going to be sat in a room by myself anyway.

I sit at an open plan desk and move to a focus area or pod if I have a video call or need some concentration time.

@ChristmasCakeAndGin that’s what our office set up is like …. book a desk and turn up to find Jim’s egg sandwich remains on the keyboard and facial hair 🤮

I’m less bothered about open-plan than I am about the shrinking space available at work pre-Covid. When I started working, if you didn’t have an office, you at least had a chunky spacious desk. ‘Desks’ now are small flimsy planks that are generally bolted to the surrounding desks in lines. As a result I’m too close to everyone around me for comfort and the bolted together aspect makes me feel like a galley slave.

I actually prefer hot-desking if I have to be in that environment as at least I won’t end up consigned to a shit desk until the next shake-up.

A crappy little plank of mdf with the option to go and sit in a booth or on a sofa when they’re available is no substitute for a decent workspace.

I found open plan unutterably grim when I did it. Too much noise - the annoying chatter type of noise. Temperature always wrong (usually too hot). Too many people bothering you with nonsense (but somehow never around when you needed an answer to something). Never felt as relaxed as I do in my own space. Completely unconducive to good work.

I don't have any strong feelings about hot desking, I've done it but only as a short-term thing (shift work for a couple of weeks, or travel work for a for days) so it's always had an end period. Would hate it as a long-term thing as it's basically the same shit as open plan but without even being able to rely on your own desk.

@WorkingWhileStressed totally with you on this one. ASD and worked 15 years in an open plan office and struggled for many reasons.
At least I had my own space, hot-desking would have finished me.
I now WFH and will never go back to an office environment.

It's much better to be colocated with your team than each person in their own office. Greatly reduces the friction of communicating and working together.

The problem is with hybrid working, a lot of places haven't adapted their space by adding breakout spaces for people to do teams calls, so people have them at their desk which is disruptive. I do end up wearing headphones a lot which feels quite anti social, but people know they are welcome to still wave at me if they have something to discuss.

I like hotdesking when I always have the same desk 😆 it means people clear their desks and the office doesn't just end full of clutter and junk like it used to. But then I only need a laptop to work. Actual hotdesking where you have to find a random desk and would be nowhere near my team would suck, and be very detrimental to our work.