Hotdesking - is it fair for some but not all of team to be forced to hotdesk?

[Waferbiscuit]

I'm a manager in a wider team of about 40 staff. We introduced hotdesking post-pandemic. The plan was for the entire team to move to a set up where all desks were hotdesks, where no one owned a desk, and where we circulated across desks in different parts of the building.

Fast forward 2 years and only half of the staff are working in this way. The other half refused to give up their desks and offices for a variety of reasons - for health reasons, anxiety, ways of working - e.g. a team have to work together closely, so want desks together, privacy and because 'they don't want to hotdesk.' Our lead manager has stopped bothering trying to push the change to 100% hotdesking because it caused too much grief and pushback so now we have this weird set up where half of us are peripatetic working from squashed-together desks in corner rooms and the other half have their nice dedicated personal desks in much more spacious, civilized offices.

It's worth noting that many of the people who retained their desks and offices are men and many of the roaming hotdeskers are women.

Staff have complained about the unfairness of this but the lead manager isn't bothered.

Could this be seen as discriminatory - that we are imposing a policy that only some have to follow and that it's mostly, women, not men who are affected? Has anyone else had this issue - and how was it addressed/resolved?

No I didn’t give my opinion actually. Anywhere. Personally I hate hot desking. I hate not knowing where I’m going to sit and not having my own space. But instead I told OP how we dealt with the same issue in my office, which was the point of the OP.

Nope, i’d ensure that both groups had perks, not just one.

it would be helpful for there to be a proper anonymous survey among all staff. And also for management and HR to have a look at how things are worked out and make it fairer.

For example: teams that really do need to work together, and really do come into the office on certain days, should be able to be grouped together.

People who have to have reasonable adjustments made to their workspace (due to disability) must be able to guarantee getting exactly the right space every time (whether that is the same one or if all spaces are adjusted to their needs)

People who work with sensitive documents a lot, people who work with sensitive documents sometimes etc need adaptions to their monitors, for eg.

Setting those requirements to one side you could make it so that you can't book the same desk every day, or that you need to book a different desk every day or whatever.

Am assuming you have secure lockers or something to put your work things in?

Where i work we are encouraged to use all the desks. In reality i have my favourite, our HR person has one where nobody can work behind them and the 2 partners also tend to use the ones with a monitor set-up they prefer. But anyone can book any desk. We do have one team who need to discuss things when they are all there, and they book the one space we have that has 5 desks in - but not every day. We also have 3 "focus boxes" which you can use whenever you like, can't be booked and are not allowed to hog all day. it works very well.

you need a desk booking system. That is all. We have a clean-desk policy - when you leave everything is put in your locker, the only things on the desk are 2 coasters and a monitor.

We have one person who needs a special chair. it has a notice on it because none of us works in the office every day and chairs do tend to wander. Nobody is allowed to adjust the chair settings and up to now it has been fine, even though that person comes in once per month at most.

We have a hot desking policy. The desks have a monitor and a chair and nothing else. I refuse to adhere to it. I’m in the office 5 days per week. I’m not spending 20 minutes every day unpacking/packing up my desk. Especially as our management decided to simultaneously introduce hot desking and remove all personal storage at work. So I’d have to drag all my stuff (keyboard, mouse, headset, stationery, files, textbooks) to and from work everyday if I obeyed their stupid policy.

It's discriminatory if the impact is to discriminate by gender or anything else.

I agree with a PP who said do an anonymous survey of all staff.

Ask them how often they change desks, which building they're in (unless the numbers would no longer make this anonymous) and how they perceive the fairness of the implementation of hot-desking.

I hate hot-desking and it never seemed to make sense to me after the pandemic. They attempted this at my office but we all naturally just went back to having our own desk and the next move they went back to having our own desk. It’s much better.

Hot desking makes me worried about others habits and I also feel less of a team member weirdly.

ok so what you might want to do is

1. note down the comments here of how other people's companies implement hot-desking
2. point out how it is discriminatory if people have to have special set ups
3. that clean-desk hotdesking (which is the only way to do it, tbh) only works if you have secure lockers
4. for good measure maybe point out that it certainly looks as though men get offices/fixed desks and women fit around that (or if you can divide it between pt/ft workers?) and that if you have a new-hire who sees it like that, they may have issues

good luck! (i like hot desking, and i work in IT so we have the same/similar laptops that have the same connections, and each workspace is set up so that each of the company laptops can be connected)

My current team has a hot desking policy. It's a pain because there are definitely staff who would be upset if you sat in "their" desk on days they are in.

And there aren't enough under desk pedestal drawers for everyone to have one (especially as some more important staff have several). The whole thing just feels unnecessary and demoralising.

We have a similar policy. After covid they removed desks from the office so it is impossible for the whole organisation to all be in and work from the building again. It can be frustrating when they are no desks and you end up working at these pop in desk where you will be there for an hour max as these chairs have low backs on so can cause back issues. I gave feedback and it was ignored so ergonomic well-being is not important.

I learned to go in later in the week as it is quieter and you can get a desk. Some people refuse to give up ‘their’ desk as they don’t like change and others don’t come in for months even though the policy states twice a week in the office. The problem is the organisation does not care when the issue is raised as the favourites are protected. I don’t know what a union would say.

OK so you need to look at how other companies do it well. Where I've worked no one has an office, even C level. Maybe the CEO. But there are loads of meeting rooms and bookable quiet rooms. You seem to be doing both, which is why it's not working. And yes if someone needs a special desk/chair then they can be exempt. You'll save loads by implementing this properly and most of the staff even the reluctant ones will actually like it but see what everyone wants/needs and build some of that in. Create some incentives. Good technology is critical. Ultimately though if the manager isn't going to support it though, it will fail

hi, just to say that where I work, we moved to hot-desking post pandemic. how it works is that there is a booking system, so I can book for a half or whole day. all desks have a monitor, mouse keyboard, and a dock - so all I need to bring is my laptop (and prior to the pandemic, I did that anyway). There is a clean desk policy, so you don't leave stuff on a desk. We don't have under-desk drawers either, but there are small lockers for e.g. mugs/coffee/headsets etc.`(altho, not as many lockers as people). It works fine. but it certainly isn't fair if some people 'keep' a desk/office, and others have to work around that. We all have to hot desk, but do have two bookable offices if need a private space, and a pod and a high desk where you can have a conversation etc.

OP I'm very confused at what's going on here.

In my workplace (large org thousands of people on site), when hot desking was introduced, every single desk was cleared. No exceptions. Even senior leadership has to hot desk.

Clean desk policy at a site level, no faffing about with personal desks. If you leave anything personal it'll be thrown away or taken to lost and found.

Anybody with issues has to go through the full Occupational Health process requesting a specific desk as a reasonable adjustment.

If the org policy is to have no personal desks there's nothing stopping you all from coming in early and sitting at the personal desks.

Leadership really needs to resolve this also get your staff to play the same game and put in complaints/requests for their own desks.

Hi all - thanks for your comments. To be clear 50% of staff in the team have retained their offices and desks, the other 50% have to sit in the 3 or 4 designated hot desk areas where desks are squashed together and, frankly, the spaces are substandard.

They did a survey a while ago but those people who complained were less than 50% of staff (surprise!) so they decided to keep the set up!

I'm just not sure some but not all team members hotdesking makes sense or is fair. Yes, there are a few with fixed desks who need to have them for health reasons/disability etc, but the majority just clung onto their original desks and office spaces and refused to let them go/hand them over to hotdesking.

Also just to add that we do have a very good hotdesk booking system but to me that's not the issue. The issue is that half the staff aren't required to hotdesk and have been able to retain their own desks and spaces.

It's totally unfair and if I worked there, it would make me want to leave

Now it sounds like your issue is the fact that the hot desk area in general has less space than the permanent desks?

Yes, that sounds like the key issue - that the hot desks aren't fit for purpose.

Do you work from home and in the office? Where I work there are some staff that are pretty much 100% office based and have dedicated offices & desks. The rest are mostly home based but can book a hotdesk in one of 2 hot desk offices on days we come on site. I go in roughly once a week.

If I was mostly office based I would be pushing quite strongly to have my own desk though. I have hip problems and if I end up on an uncomfortable chair it can really mess me up for a few days. It's also really annoying to have to adjust your workspace every day, I'm quite a short woman so going in to use a desk that's been used last by a tall man is going to need everything adjusted- monitor height and distance and the chair too. I also prefer a footrest but they're not available on most of the hotdesks. It's ok for a day here and there but impractical for every day.
So yes I think it is a bit discriminatory to allow some to hot desk and not others and a badly adjusted desk or chair can really exacerbate hip and back pain like mine.

Is this also more of a rank/role issue?
The people refusing to move, who happen to be men are also erm more senior/in revenue generating/'important' functions.

The women are more junior/support/ 'less important' roles.

Which camp is more difficult to recruit for?

Also you haven't answered whether there's a difference in office presence!

2 days a week is the most I'll hotdesk

Are the desks of those people who refuse to move on the booking system? What would happen if a few of your team got together and booked out all of an office of their desks one day? Perhaps could help highlight the issue

Oh right, so you'd just make live harder for everyone. If they scrapped hot desking, they'd make life better for everyone.

This. If you're in the office 4-5 days a week, why shouldn't you have your own desk, if only to have a safe space to put your things?

It really depends on working patterns.
We work hybrid. There's no good reason for a desk to be sat empty half the week. In any case people use their office days more for in person meetings so most aren't at desks all day anyway. People have lockers to store their stuff (most drive in any case).

5 days a week... ridiculous. If the company can't provide a comfortable workplace then they shouldn't make people come in.

The other half refused to give up their desks and offices for a variety of reasons - for health reasons, anxiety, ways of working - e.g. a team have to work together closely, so want desks together, privacy and because 'they don't want to hotdesk.

Health reason - valid if they have whatever HR deem reasonable e.g. letter from GP.
Working closely together - valid if management say so - evidence needed.
Privacy - valid if management say so - evidence needed.
They don't want to - bullshit.

It sounds very badly managed.

I would fall into the "they don't want to" category and yeah...if I could get away with it (and seeing everyone else get away with it) I probably would. It would be a horrible working atmosphere though.

It pisses me off when managers won't manage.