Ideas for making hot desking less painful

[MercedesDeMonteChristo]

We are shortly moving to a new office and he decision has been taken to hot desk. I am a fan personally, but I know others aren't and I am in charge of the move (though not the decision maker).

I want to set people up for as much success as possible and we are a small team of 16 so I expect people might fall into regular seating patterns.

Every desk will have

• Screen
• Keyboard
• Mouse

I want to add

• laptop stand
• matching adjustable risers for the screens (currently some have them, some are using paper reams etc)
• lockable hot box

Then I want to have a sort of welcome bag on the first day on each desk and so far all I have come up with it

• screen wipes for anyone who might want to wipe keyboards etc

What else can I add to the welcome bag and have I missed anything from the set up?

It's to encourage members of different teams to collaborate more.

Ah, there's a buzz-word involved. Collaboration! It all makes sense now .

No we don't. I just thought it would be nice. I won't do them just for the sake of it, but if there are actual useful things as suggested up thread, like a phone charger that can be added to their hot box then I will do it. If not, then I won't.

When I worked for a company that hot-desked, we each had a locker, so I kept all my desk bits in a little bag in there so I could just grab and go to a desk, then scoop it all back into the bag at the end of the day. Was actually quite a nice, calming way to start every day, tbh, even if it was just getting a pencilcase, planner, mug, coaster and mini photoframe out of a cotton bag...

How will taking someone's permanent desk away encourage them to 'collaborate' more?

I don't understand the causal link there.

We'll be providing lockable boxes for desk paraphernalia and there will be some room for your paracetamol etc in there. It will be a lot less space for shoes/trainers etc than we have now, but we have some storage for that if necessary. Crockery etc is provided but if people want to bring their own then I am sure we can create a shelve for such things if they won't store them in the kitchen.

Lockers. If you want to hot desk you need to have lockers.

Sorry cross posted, so is the idea that the team lump around these lock boxes every day to their new desk?

I like hot desking! Think it works great and if your company is set up for flexible working and WFH then the staff will just get on board with it as they are used to modern office working. Some of these posters are stuck in the past or never actually worked a corporate job.

I don't get MN, people ignore the question and then suggest ways to change the thing you can't actually change.

Chatting to different people and building better relationships. I was going to go into why this might be a good thing, but justification for the decision or how much other people hate hot desking is not really the subject of this thread.

Does everyone use the same laptops? If yes, I would get a load of chargers and wire them up through the desks so they live there permanently. Means people can just plug in and play instead of having to get on their hands and knees to charge their laptops every day!

TheHodge Hot boxes hold your laptop, pens, notepads etc and are lockable and sort of replace the letter trays/magazines racks things we might normally have on our desk. In most places these then go in a locker so that you can store your shoes or whatever too. We aren't investing in lockers yet, but may well do so once bedded in.

There are 16 of us in under 1,000 sq ft, we are hardly going to be lugging anything anywhere.

Alicia My observation in my roles where hot desking has been the norm is that lots of alternative spaces are available for use too and those who are positive about it tend to get a lot out of it. I think it is becoming the norm in most office spaces, certainly where I am almost all of my office based friends work this way.

Ah yes, each workstation will have a docking station, so they just plug in and off they go.

Is your question ‘how do I make it nice for my colleagues and encourage them to like hot desking’ or ‘how do I make hot desking work’?

They are not the same, of course. If you are the organiser prepare yourself for a tidal wave of whinging, closely followed by brand new diagnoses of back, neck and shoulder problems and/or SAD. The aim of which will be to choose a plum desk by a window which nobody else is allowed to use in case he or she disturbs the alignment of the newly-diagnosed person’s chair or office equipment.

Soon afterwards, 50% of the desks - the best ones, where nobody can look over your shoulder - will cease to be hot because of the new health conditions identified just after hot desking is introduced.

Oh yes, I have seen it all!

I'd make an anti-bacterial spray available. I know my daughter uses one every day in the office where she works. I clean an office once a week, (not hot desk) and I always clean desks and electronics.

Some of these posters are stuck in the past or never actually worked a corporate job.

I've worked in a corporate job for over 20 years. I've been 'hot desking' for the last 18 months and it's a royal pain in the arse. Wasting time every morning adjusting chairs and desk set up because the last person to sit there was a foot taller than I am. Clearing up other people's coffee cups and wiping crumbs off the desk. If I'm arranging a visitor from another department, not knowing where I will be until the day. Computers running slowly because they're clogged up with eleventy-billion 'roaming profiles'. All because someone on high with their own personal office full of pot plants and photographs thinks it will be more 'collaborative' - or insert any other buzzword of the day.

I hated hot desking and ended up leaving the job in the end. I agree with pp though, you need to bring cleaner with you. I found even if I popped to the loo I'd come back to find someone in my seat using my laptop or phone as there wasn't anywhere else for them to go. Also, I had specific coloured notes, clips and pens that I would bring with me every day and use for various things. I quickly learned that I could NOT leave those things out at all even for a minute as they would disapear. Somehow organise your stuff to be kept in your bag because otherwise people will nick it as they don't see it as 'your desk' and 'your stuff'.

My question is the first I think. I have seen hot desking work in much larger organisations. The places it has not worked are where people are expected to work solely from their laptops.

Luckily we have chosen the office in consultation with the full team and we currently have barely any natural light or functioning air con or heating.

As I said out of 16 people, only 3 expressed any issues with hot desking at all with 13 people all actively suggesting and wanting it, only 1 person is vehemently against it and that person has been job hunting since before this process so I expect them to be successful soon. As we recruit we will obviously talk about how we are set up and this may put some off, as a previous poster above, and that is fine. Sometimes I don't chose to work somewhere for all sorts of reasons. We have a young and agile team (their age and therefore their view of this may or may not be relevant, I don't know) who are largely up for it and we would expect to attract people who don't mind working this way going forward.

Hot dealing in an environment with 18 desks available for 16 people? Did I read that right?

Your biggest challenge might be to stop people just ignoring it and sitting at the same desk every day.

Also, how people will react when they arrive at 'their' desk only to find someone else in it.

I am a big fan of hot dealing. I have lots of projects and much prefer to sit amongst the people on the project at least some of the time rather than my 'official' team with whom I rarely work.

We all tend to sit at the same desk if it is available. Given we know we hot desk people who object to others using theirs desk are just laughed at.

Will your technology all work smoothly. Is there any way you have budget for it specialists you be floor walking in the first couple of days to resolve any issues quickly.

How far away is the printer and how often do people need print outs? Can you set up the printer so that paper only appears when you swipe in? Avoids all those oh shit didn't mean to send confidential stuff when you are too far away to retrieve it. That's how we found out what everyone earned.

We used to have desk lamps which some people liked some didn't. Mine had a 'daylight' bulb in it which I found helped when reading.

Chairs are a bigger bugbear than the desk. People like their own chair. You could label both the desk and chair to tie them together so people don't start swapping around, or let people have their own chairs. Worth checking that nobody has any special requirements, one of our team had back issues and had a special chair brought in and setup for him by Occupational Health.

Again, with a team of 16 some of these issues are unlikely to be a problem.

Spending hours of company time 'consulting' on changing to hot desks while admitting people will most likely sit in the same desks every day as they are all permanent and there are more desks than people seems like the biggest waste of money and time I have ever heard. Plus the purchasing of all the equipment you need to set them up as 'hot desks'. Seriously what is the point?! I've worked in offices for 15 years and despair at this stuff.

• Decent sized locker to hold laptop overnight (I've always taken mine home but lots don't) and to hold shoes etc you used to be able to leave overnight

• good dealisinfectant wipes available everyday to wipe keyboard and mouse

• wireless headset for soft phone

• adjustable screens and sit/stand desks

• neighbourhood for each area (HR/finance etc). We also have spotifer so you can locate where people are sat at any given time, freaking invaluable

• decent backpack/laptop bags

I've hotdesked for a year and 8 years prior worked mainly remotely or at different offices to I'm very used to it, and much prefer it than going to the same boring desk every day

Again, with a team of 16 some of these issues are unlikely to be a problem.

Are all 16 people exactly the same height and weight, with exactly the same eyesight and no orthopaedic problems?

Myself and everyone I know hates hot desking. I personally think it is quite disrespectful to staff. You spend 40 hrs a week at work of course you want a space of your own. It 2ould genuinely put me off a job. But unfortunately it's so common. I think you need ample space for personal things. So a decent size locker. I think a very good stash of wipes at each desk is very important too.

As it is pretty shit for the team I'd also think about starting communal lunches or coffee break as tbh they aren't going to be happy so you née dto mitigate that.

We are a small team, if everyone sits at the same desks, in spite of the majority saying they want to do this we aren't going to be policing it. The Management team have committed to sitting in different spaces leading by example, down to the CEO. Sometimes with heads down or lots of people out at meetings etc it can be very quiet so the added bonus of the communal space with more buzz is also available.

We've invested in the tech recently to enable people to work more easily from wherever they chose and the space we are going to is set up very well for people working this way.