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?

We got desk and it works very well. All desks have a desktop and mouse and phone. That’s it. We each have a locker where we keep our stuff and most people keep their stuff in a little basket which they move from desk to desk. Each team can book a bank of desks one day a week to sit together.

I’m very happy with it and apart from moans and groans at the start it has worked well. We all value the opportunity to sit next to and get to know other people. There are a couple of people who have fixed desks either because they have ASD and can’t deal with change or because they need to be in a discreet area for confidentiality reasons but other than that it’s first come first served.

Some sort of antibacterial cleansing desk wipes. After working in an office for a long time there's no way I would sit at a different desk before wiping it down... I.e mouse, the desk bit & telephone also quick wipe over the keyboard. There's so many germs/illnesses in offices & desk sharing is a sure way to spread flu/cold/viruses fast.

Although I'm not so sure anyone else could be arsed to do what I do ( that's just me ) There are one or two filthy cretins in my office & I would be really pissed off if I had to sit where they had touching everything without a wipe down

One of the things I like about hotdesking is not building up years of flies and clutter in your work area. I'd say one of things you could do is actually enforce clear desk at the end of the day - even if people sit at the same desk all the time. I had to do a massive clear out of (as it turned out) useless manuals files etc when we moved to hotdesking and now I much prefer the clean crisp desk space o have. We had a boss who was a bit hard line about people clearing their stuff into locker at the end of the day we were all a bit eye rolly thinking why, if you're just putting it straight bank in the morning! But it forces you not to build up poles & piles of stuff.

What might be useful is some sort of 'caddy' to facilitate this something that can fit a notebook, pens your mug, hand cream pic of the kids/dog etc in. Just pop everything in at the end of the day and back in locker.

• files and clutter not flies and clutter

Longhairmightcare I guessed that was a typo but I couldn't help picturing mounds of dead bluebottles littering the desk.

We hot desk and every desk has two screens, a laptop dock, keyboard and mouse. Trouble is that people use different laptops and not every desk has the right leads for every laptop so you end up having to work only on your laptop on software that was designed for a much bigger screen. It’s a bigger problem than it sounds. Personally I hate hot desking. It’s a huge pain in the arse.

I now run a co-working space with drop in hot desking so slightly different as it's always different people/companies using the space. But, on thing I would say is get the basics right. Chairs that don't require an MA in engineering to adjust, desks which are equal (as in, none which have jaggy edges so people click their tops etc), make sure the lighting across the desks is the same too, so you don't have one or two desks with crappy lighting or directly under the air con etc.
Make sure everything can, and is, kept clean and hygienic. Plenty of wipes, plenty of bins, encourage no eating at the desks (providing they have somewhere nice to go) and just basically make sure that no work station is "the crappy" one.

What is the office layout like? It seems to be quite cramped if you have 18 desks, a communal space, private offices, break out areas and pods in a 1000sqft office?

All of those things are not in our space. Its a serviced building, so we have private space with the desks, the communal space is just around the corner from our office and includes benches to work at, sofas, coffee areas etc and pods. So the sq ft is just for us - desks and some storage. It is reasonably high end so everything is new and nice.

We really are in a very depressing building and office at the moment but have invested in tech and will invest in making the workstations functional and as adaptable as possible.

I’ve been working in an office that is all hot desks (and has more people than desks) for a few years now, and this is what works well:

• Each team has their own area of desks, and there are a couple of rows are desks that are all hot desks for anyone to use (it’s a large office). So you’re with your team, but not at the same desk every day.
• Each block of desks has a carton of antibac wipes so you can clean your desk if you need to.
• There are footrests for every other desk, so if you’re short like me you can usually find one!
• Everyone has a locker for personal items, plus team storage for important files.
• Almost everyone hot desks (some people have specialist software so they’re on the same computer), and almost everyone works from home one day a week due to the desk shortage. This includes the directors and their assistants (though they are in the nicest corner of the office with the most windows!).

It mostly works well, but on busy days it can be tough to find a desk if you’re in late!

I think they all counted the desks, and just said yes that would be great, knowing full well they would just use the desk that they preferred and just let the 'decision makers' get on with it.

Ahhh that makes more sense! Sorry I thought all of that was included in your office

I work from coworking spaces and the things I hate the most are having to carry around smart shoes / jacket (I’d rather walk commute in trainers and a waterproof jacket). Plus water bottle and reusable hot drink cup.
Plus my laptop which I hate carrying all the time.
So if I was working from the same space every day is really really want a locker or locked drawer for my laptop if I don’t need it overnight and storage space for shoes and a jacket. Plus good clean cups and glasses available for drinks.

OP: must people take their work laptops home with them every day? I would not want to. I want to leave it at work.

What IS a laptop stand and how is it helpful?

We are 120 people for 75 desks... I got to sit somewhere new, today. :) How much space will each of your workers have? I think my space is 120 cm and it isn't enough. Bane of my life is all the cables: charger, mouse, headphones (essential), docking cord. Sometimes they wonder onto the mouse pad. Argh. But we do have 2 screens + laptop. I [heart] 3 screens.

Some things we don't have... Enough ram in the laptops so they can actually drive the screens & software. Spare laptops in case one dies or gets damaged/nicked.

We hot desk. We have a laptop which is plugged into a screen on whatever desk you end up on. The early birds will always sit at the same desk, however I'm usually amongst the last in so will sit anywhere there's a space. It's not been a popular policy and makes us feel even less valued- we all liked our own territory.
However, we were only forced to hot desk as they reduced the number of desks to less than the number of staff . Absence/ working at home usually means there's a desk somewhere. Not sure why you need to hot desk if you have more desks than people tho.