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?

I am a freelancer and work all over fancy trendy coworking spaces. This I miss are:
Somewhere to store a smart jacket and smart shoes to change into
Storage for water bottle and coffee cup
Coat hooks when it’s raining

My hot-desking team is a lot bigger than OP's, but it's useful for us to have senior management at fixed desks, so people can find them easily. Nobody has an office, but we have study booths for private bollockings and bitching chats. Senior managers need privacy screens on their monitors, and their secretairies need to make sure it's clear when they are out of office so someone else can use their desk for the day.

I loathe hot desking with a passion. The things which would help me be okay with it would include: no eating at your desk, good standard of IT so there isn't a desk with an ancient computer which barely works (as per my last job), lockers for your stuff and good chairs.

You could grow cress on the keyboard of one of dh's colleagues. I couldn't bear to touch it. Don't let that sort of stuff happen.

Thanks for the ideas and I will give consideration as to whether it is worth it for the welcome packs and perhaps just spend the cash on bubbles.

We have a lot of things mentioned in place and many of the issues raised are about bigger spaces to be honest wasn't really my question, but appreciated nonetheless.

As I mentioned already of course we aren't going to insist that anyone disabled or autistic with specific requirements sticks rigidly to what we have decided and of course we will listen to feedback as we have up until now and we aren't going to police it. We are 16 grown ups who hopefully can manage this and honestly, if I really don't like the way something works (whatever that may be) then I have left roles. It's fine when things change, whether that be the people you work with, the way you work, the location of the office etc to decide it isn't for you. It may well not be for some new applicants, but it also will be fine for others.

For the record, the hot desking idea was first raised by a group of about 8 and then considered.

If you're insistent on hot desking maybe a compromise is to allow people to set up a chair and label it with their name so that they (and their colleagues) know it's set up for a particular person. There's few enough people that playing swapsies in the morning shouldn't be too onerous.

Why did those eight people say they wanted to hotdesk OP?

The problem is that offices hire consultants who know nothing but are well-versed in psychobabble to advise on this sort of thing - the consultants say it's a Good Thing, and no one has the courage to challenge it.

But think about it. These consultants are sales people - and good ones, they must be to peddle their snake oil psychology so successfully. Hot Desking might well be brilliant for People Like Them - sociable extroverts. For others, it's awful.

The modern workplace trumpets itself on its flexibility and agility, but is totally incapable of recognising that not everyone is the same - people have different needs - the CEO's way of working might not be best for everyone.

And if it's Change it must be a Good Thing. Woe betide anyone who happens to work better in an environment that the people who don't actually do the job have now decided is obsolete.

And meanwhile, those of us who've been with the company since the CEO was in nappies sit and watch the wheel go round, be reinvented, and go round again.

Is this a work day for you OP?

You seem to be spending a lot of time defending a decision that you say is irreversible. If there are only 16 I can't see it's a big issue.

Each person having a locker is handy ... it's really annoying not to be able to leave a few personal items at work eg I have paracetamol, throat sweets, deodorant and a hair brush.

As an introvert, I find hot-desking is often helpful, because it's harder for people to find me and I can avoid annoying extroverted people on days I can't handle them. While I rarely sit outside our team, I have the option of it, and it has sometimes led to interesting chats with colleagues I wouldn't otherwise know. I would get very bored sitting in the same place every day; I benefit from the regular change of scenery.

Hot-desking absolutely does stop people mulching down in their own fetid pile of messy, self-promoting junk, and the office is a nicer, tidier , calmer environment for it. No-one feels like they're trespassing on someone else's 'patch'. I have a nice picture of my kids as my phone wallpaper; I don't need a faded, dog-eared print-out sellotaped to my desk partition, next to a pile of books that would be much better as searchable pdfs, a plastic employee of the month award from 2003 and a pile of business cards that would be better as linked-in contacts.

To PP whose colleague has achieved the water-cress keyboard of retching: in our office, none of the desk keyboards ever gets that bad, because the same person isn't using them every day and the keyboards are cleaned every evening. Keyboards are throw-away cheap anyway unless you've bought poncy apple ones in which case you've only yourself to blame. I haven't noticed colds getting worse as a result; people sneezing on crowded trains is much worse, but I have Big Passive-Aggressive Scarves to show them my disdain.

Hot-desking isn't all bad with the right environment and the right provisions for people who have particular needs.

Glad the OP is erring towards the champers option!

Hot desking works great if the office is properly set up for it, and has sufficient space. I like the fact the office is clean, no mounds of paperwork plied up on desks or loads of personal crap cluttering the surfaces.
It’s nice, in theory, to be able to select where to sit and it’s therefore easy to avoid the annoying people.

It’s shit when you haven’t got a locker so everything has to be carried everyday, and getting in a few minutes later than normal means spending the day perched on a bar stool or squished with 8 others on a table made for 6.
It’s even more shit when the directors have their own spacious offices which they barely use whilst you struggle to find a desk with a monitor.

if I really don't like the way something works (whatever that may be) then I have left roles.

Is that going to be your passive aggressive way of telling people, ‘if you don’t like it, you can leave?’

I’m glad I’ve never worked at a place with hot desking. Would loathe it.

Not sure what you can put in your pack for that though ;. Did you do a vote on it?

The only thing that would make it better would be another more comfortable area where I could sit apart from the hot desking.

Is that going to be your passive aggressive way of telling people, ‘if you don’t like it, you can leave?’

Modern flexible workplaces are amazingly good at 'managing people out' when their idea of flexibility doesn't fit in with the workplace's paradoxically rigid definition of 'agility'.

Want the flexibility of choosing to have your own desk or to hot desk? Suddenly, flexibility is an absolute no-no. You must hot desk - no argument - because we said so.

Why don’t you make it optional?

If you want to them do it. The rest can have their own spaces.

It’s so ridiculous one place I worked at kept going on about agile working and fewer fixed hours at work. It didn’t ever happen because really real flexibility isn’t wanted.

There is lots of communal working space.

I won't tell anyone anything about their own choices. I am merely stating that when I have been unhappy enough in positions I have taken the decision to leave or be positive and try to make it work me etc.

My only expectation of people is that we are all adults and if we are not happy we can take steps to improve things, which may mean getting in early everyday if that is important to you, it may been reassessing your position if you really cannot live with it, it may mean trying out more of the communal options alongside to see if there is a way that works.

We had a discussion and a secret ballot, just like we did with the actual space we picked. So no one was under any obligation to say that they wanted this when they didn't so the 13 actually expressed that this was their preference.

For the interested poster, not, it is a non-working day. I have just responded really, though I have repeatedly pointed out that the thread wasn't about the decision but about what I might include in any packs if we have them.

It didn’t ever happen because really real flexibility isn’t wanted.

That's it in a nutshell. "Flexibility" is just a dressed up way of saying 'do as I say'.

The thread is titled 'Ideas for making hot desking less painful'. I thought the OP would be talking about a situation where there was an unavoidable shortage of desks. But, no, they have surplus desks. OP and the CEO have already made it 'less painful' for themselves by giving themselves allocated desks.

In other words, the answer is staring the OP in the face - if it's not necessary and people find it 'painful there is no need whatsoever to do it. But, like almost every corporate employer, they will continue to ignore the blindingly obvious, clear, easily implemented thing that people actually want, in favour of continuing to worship at the trendy buzz-word shrine..

When you say ‘Getting in early if that’s important to you’ in your post at 15:53, do you mean getting in early to get your preferred desk? Or are you just talking about flexible working in general?

Both really, the only person who has actually voiced real reservations always gets in at 7.30am because we have flexible working and she would continue to do so to bag her preferred desk I assume.

I think I am done now, there have been some useful suggestions and I have taken on board that a lot of people think that a welcome pack would be unnecessary so I'll give that some thought.

If everyone is really so keen on it, why did you need a thread asking how to make it 'less painful'?

If everyone is keen to do it anyway, why don't you make it optional - if everyone really does think it's a marvellous idea, you don't need to make it mandatory.

If you really believe it's a good idea, give up your own allocated desk.

You won't 'take on board' those suggestions because, like a great number of employers, you're just not interested in genuine flexibility.

Less painful was perhaps the wrong way to put it. I posted for ideas for the welcome pack.

Not making it optional because it is not my decision.

I already said multiple times, I plan to not have an allocated desk. But I am also not the decision maker. The current CEO is happy to let me, others might want their EA next to them in allocated space. I am not the decision maker, but can chose and have done.

I don't need to take on the suggestions because many posters didn't make suggestions they said they hated hot desking and the reason why. A small minority of posters have answered my question, which was about the welcome pack - a further number have given suggestions that they feel might make it better.

I'm also not the employer!

Apologies, I didn't mean to suggest you were the employer as such or that it was your fault. I'm just a pissed-off hot desker, I suppose.

Oh, well, I'll keep waiting for the day when the wind changes and some trendy psychologist has this marvellous new idea about giving everyone their own desk .

Hope the new system goes well for your team, OP.

Thanks Screaming - I hope so. Worse case people just sit where they sit. I just wanted to make the first day positive.

Thanks for all the suggestions and advice.