Colleague refusing to hotdesk at work – anyone else face this issue??

[Singleparent78]

Post-pandemic our offices have moved to a hotdesking set up as part of new hybrid working. Most FT staff now WFH 2-3 days/week and now, when they do come in, they no longer have ‘their own’ desk but instead sit at a series of desks which they book in advance – each desk has IT equipment, but staff have all been given laptops that they can bring in.

It’s not ideal but it encourages a good mixing of staff and ultimately saves money - with staff WFH it was possible to reduce the overall office footprint rather than have the same office with half populated desks. A lot of effort went into setting up the new hot desk system to ensure it was well kitted out and comfortable.

One Staff member has been refusing to come in and hot desk. Says it’s a policy that can’t be enforced, that this way of working is not in his contract.

He claims the desks aren’t access compliant – he doesn’t have a disability he just is complaining about the process of setting them up and doesn’t feel the set-up is compliant. He has been WFH for months now, refusing to come in and use the hot desks until he gets his own desk with a number of other requirements on his list.

HR have been useless, just saying I will need to make adjustments ‘to support him’ but my view is as he doesn’t have special requirements, just a general grievance, so needs to follow policy - otherwise what is the point of the policy?

Anyone else have this problem? How did you address it?

Or you'd get a desk in the morning, go in to a meeting and come out to fine someone using the desk I'd been at,

This. Or, as once happened to me, find someone else had sat there and not logged out so the desk and computer were unusable by anyone until they returned.

Hot desking is the devil’s work.

One thing your employer will need to consider is that if he wants to work from home full time his contract will need to be changed. The employer will then become liable for providing broadband

No. I have a wfh contract, when the office was closed permanently. We have to pay for our own broadband.

Half eaten chocolate bars! Where is this office I am on my way

Most of our NHS offices - the nicely constructed perspex jails around each desk have now been covered with post it notes "dibsing" the desks for particular days and times each week!

I've got to hot desk working around various bases and the idea of it is really freaking me out a bit I'll admit (I have autism)

A booking system for hot-desks is a must. Without one, you will have absolute chaos.
It was generally easy to administer. It was a shared file which could only be edited by one user at a time (admins in our case). I think by 3pm on a Thursday, you needed to have responses back from all employees as to their wfh status.
I made it easier on my team as if they had booked AL, I had access to that system, so knew who was off so saved them that ball-ache, so all anyone had to fill in was if they were going to be out of the office for other reasons (on-sites, wfh).
Technically, we were supposed to list all our out of office team members, but as my team liked working beside each other, I would switch desks around within my team first and then I'd list free desks. We were supposed to list all free desks and not switch within your team first, but that made no sense for my team as they needed to collaborate on certain things and it was easier to be close to the team members.
A by-the-book admin of course had lots to say about that but I advised her to do the same and gave her my reasons for doing it.

Within the team though, we had guys who sat on another team so to speak and it made sense for them to be with that other team. It was a while ago now but if you think of a team with mainly engineers on it and then you have a cost analysis guy and a media guy (within your team technically), they generally preferred to sit next to the people on those teams if you get me?
The cost analysis guy hated noise of people chatting and far preferred being with the more studious quieter types. The media guy was loud like me and he preferred to sit with the media team. Do you get me?
It's horses for courses but you need to try to make a working environment enjoyable. Most people spend at least 36 hours per week at work (wherever that may be). It's not comparable to a bus journey.

If you can't make it enjoyable, at least make it endurable! 😉

@Dalint that all sounds needlessly complicated. Is this a small company?

We've had hot desking since 2016 and never needed to book a desk.

If you do implement a booking system, there are some really obvious shortcuts which some people don't think of.

For example, if you know that John only comes in every Friday, then you don't need him to respond every week unless he's going to be off on a Friday.
I was actually praised for my ingenuity (not something that has happened before or since and it was obvious, not ingenious), by changing the policy within my team from sending a Please respond by 3pm Thursday with your desk requirements for next week to
Please only respond if you are going to be out of the office on days you're normally in the office as I have pre-filled your AL and your desk is booked unless you state otherwise.
One manager within the wider team thought this was fucking brilliant as he had a pain in his hole sending this fucking email every week to say 'I'm in the office all next week'.

People get stressed about things they think are stupid!

This employee needs to put a case forward for WFH and you need to put a case forward as to why he can't. If you can't accommodate him, he'll probably leave.

You don't have to have a policy for everything as dealing with individuals, no policy covers everything and stringent policies make people stressed and unhappy.
Just my opinion.

No, about 600 employees

I think the office had 300 desks, so technically not a desk per person but we managed to work it.

If there were surplus employees to desks in any one week, an email would go around asking whether anyone could wfh on the days there were not enough desks to go around.

Senior managers, even back then, liked to WFH one day a week as in the office they were bombarded by the other team members and found it difficult to get through paperwork.

I left one company after just six months as the HR policies were fucking horrendously rigid. No phones on desk. No private use of the internet. No personal calls. Must ring in before 9am if you are ill (email or text not accepted).
Then we had to stagger lunchbreaks every day to ensure that there was always a person from each part of the team in at all times and it was just so fucking rigid, it stressed me to hell. I fucking hated that job.

Surely that can't be right, they expected you to work while at work, let them know if you weren't going to in and make sure someone was available to help customers.

Those bastards.

That was the normal everywhere I ever worked. As Fatagain says, what bastards to set reasonable employment standards.

Surely they can't expect you to look at a blank screen all day when you've nothing to do.
Surely they realise that you have children and a home and bills and medical appointments.
Surely they realise that you're not paid for your lunchbreak?
Surely they realise that they're cunts. Lol

Surely they can't expect you to look at a blank screen all day when you've nothing to do.

Surely they’d expect you to ask for some more work if you’ve nothing do. They’re not the “cunts”.

If the whole team are hot desking, there should be no exceptions. Unless there is a medical issue. Or unless flexible working has been formally agreed.

It is extremely irritating to other team members who are not allowed to WFH

Everyone should be treated exactly the same

Surely they can't expect you to look at a blank screen all day when you've nothing to do. ask for something to do, or find something to do
Surely they realise that you have children and a home and bills and medical appointments. you want them to pay you not to be there or something? take time off and make it up like everyone else
Surely they realise that you're not paid for your lunchbreak? Are you sure they didn't fire you for being too dim to realise you take your break later when you're covering the phones

barking

I don’t think that’s particularly rigid. I think it’s quite normal.

When my company did hotdesking, we were assigned desks on a daily basis. You had to look at the rota to see where you’d been placed. You couldn’t choose a desk.

As an autistic adult, I really don't see why an invisibly disability should be disclosed to you? Are you HR? But then, I don't really understand why you care so much about this situation anyway. I can see how you might find the situation unfair, but he doesn't owe YOU an explanation unless you are HR.

@MummysBusy If there is an invisible disability at play how would you suggest that I, as their manager, support them or even know how to accommodate them?

He is probably on the autistic spectrum. Not always obvious unless routine broken. Have a bit more patience. Not your business really.

As an autistic adult, I really don't see why an invisibly disability should be disclosed to you? Are you HR? But then, I don't really understand why you care so much about this situation anyway. I can see how you might find the situation unfair, but he doesn't owe YOU an explanation unless you are HR

The OP is the manager. She is responsible for managing the employee. HR do not manage the workforce; they support managers to manage their teams.

The OP is not obliged to manage staff in a way that takes into account the thousands of invisible disabilities they might have but haven't declared. That would be unworkable.