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?

And I remember there being an inspection of your chair and desk. How does this work with hot desking? WFH is different in the sense that it is usually optional since lockdown.

"managers act as an anchor point for staff so have a desk"

How convenient.

@Waferbiscuit

But it's grating that some staff have their own desks and big huge offices that are not being optimised in their use while we are squashed into a cramped room with 8 desks side by side. It's not the end of the world but is causing a chasm in our team between the haves and have nots.

That happens in places with fixed desks and who don't hot desk too!

In all the places I've worked - 40 years, so most of that was before WFH etc., there's a hierarchy of "working up" to get the best offices/views/desks, etc. When you start, you get the crap desks and you move as people leave, and if you stay long enough (or get promoted) you get the better views/better desks, your own office etc., and the people who've been there less time or new starters get your old desk, and so it goes on. Just "dead man's shoes" really in a lot of places.

That was also "unfair" to part timers as it was usually "early bird catches the worm" for the morning after someone has left, it was the first in, who'd move their staff to a nearby desk with a better view etc., before others of equal standing came in, so if you were part time and didn't work Mondays, you were probably never going to be there in time to grab the vacant desk of someone who left on the Friday!

Life is unfair, it'll never be fair. Desks really aren't a hill to die on!

It sounds like your employer is refusing to pay for an office big enough to accommodate you so your senior management is to blame here, and not those colleagues who are simply holding on to their current offices. You're blaming the wrong people.

Not if they did it well

"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."

This is really awful!

"In all the places I've worked - 40 years, so most of that was before WFH etc., there's a hierarchy of "working up" to get the best offices/views/desks, etc. When you start, you get the crap desks and you move as people leave, and if you stay long enough (or get promoted) you get the better views/better desks, your own office etc., and the people who've been there less time or new starters get your old desk, and so it goes on. Just "dead man's shoes" really in a lot of places."

I've never really seen that. Everywhere I've worked the office allocation has been down to actual hierarchy even though I've worked in places where length of service counts for quite a lot. And you couldn't just get in early and 'bagsy' an office. HR or the boss would decide who got which office. I've seen conflict over things like having a window, having two windows, having own office to have meetings (even when that person doesn't have meetings), size of the little meeting table inside the individual office.
It's not something I've experienced myself, but parking spaces are also apparently big power play things.

I have a great view in my office now and some people may be jealous, but the reason why we have a corner office is because we're 3 and most offices are for 1 or 2 people so it's logical that we have a slightly bigger one.
People in the 2-person office did lobby for individual offices, but that seems a waste when people wfh half the time.

Well, many/most of them don't want to hot desk so yes, they'd be making it the same for some and worse for the others.

You could put a microwave near every group of stalwarts. Leave the hot desking area clear of microwaves.

After 2 weeks of stinking soup and curry, they'll all want to hot desk.

I have a dedicated keyboard and mouse as reasonable adjustments for a disability. I cannot hotdesk and anyone who tries to make me will be looking at formal complaints and legal action.

What if you turn up and all the desks are taken? Do you get a day off? Why not just get there early to get your favourite desk each day if it matters.

That weighs in at 11kg for me doing the same. I tend to WFH as a consequence.

Hot decking is horrible but it sounds as though your organisation (with more people than desks and hybrid working) has no choice.

In which case either everyone or no one should be doing it (exceptions being those with disabilities / health reasons not to hotdesk). What’s happened in your workplace is very unfair and discriminatory with majority women affected. Can you escalate to HR or a senior manager? You can ask for your complaint to be confidential.

Because then it becomes a race to get there early and women, who tend to be doing the school run, lose out again.

Some of you on here should not be managers.

where i work we all have our own dedicated keyboard and mouse. So if that is your reasonable adjustment you'd hotdesk like the rest of us and just put it in your locker at the end of the day. If there are other requirements that require a lot of adjustments to the workspace, that would be different.

Just to answer the questions - and apologies for drip feeding:

• the people who have FIXED desks and aren't expected to hotdesk are both part-time and full-time. Everyone is entitled to WFH 2 days/week and onsite 3 days/week (FT and then the prorata equivalent) whether they have a fixed desk or not. So that means many of the fixed desks/office spaces are empty during the week.
• But the fixed desks are NOT on the hotdesk booking system and staff would go bonkers if they saw someone else using their desk or office.
• Some of the most senior people are expected to hotdesk which isn't a bad things but making having confidential meetings/conversations difficult
• About 80% of men in the office have a dedicated desk or office and don't have to hotdesk. I majority of women in the office hotdesk. I think that's very problematic.

Is there a reason they won't just go back to fixed desks and create a seating plan and give everyone their own desk? Even if some people have to share desks when the other isn't in? I'd prefer that to hot desking.

@LadyCrumpet There isn't enough room for everyone to have fixed desks now. The organisation could 'BUY' more space but don't want to.

Even if you hot desk, people tend to gravitate to the same desk each day, if it's free. Basically desks are first come first serve, but people will still naturally favour being in the same one each day.

So surely you and the others who hot desk in the real sense could just come in early and sit in the offices of these men.

Just because they sit there often doesn't mean it's their desk, they have no right to it unless they just happened to get there first. That's the company policy.

They don't own the desk. They didn't bring it in from home!

Again, a seemingly common sense assumption, but in my mostly male workplace there are lots of school/nursery run dads. We're a very flexible employer in general so many do it over their wives with more rigid schedules.

I don't think the sex of people here is relevant enough to claim discrimination it depends onto the org structure.

Certain ranks and businesses units tend to be male dominated, that's not an excuse for different conditions. As I stated if the male dominated departments were full-time and office more often not an excuse to deny them permanent desks because 'women are PT or don't do these roles'.

Ugg! Been there, and never seen it working. It throws any ergonomic setup out of the window, as there is no one setup that works for all. Having some hot-desk, especially if these are the crummy desks, and some not is totally unfair.

Ok, so not only is it merely a case of 'shouting the loudest' - mostly men - winning.
But there's also a level of official allowance by not adding these desks into the booking system!

This is outrageous, a massive failure of leadership and yes, discriminatory. You cannot have a senior woman hot desking while more junior men have nice desks and better offices simply because they refuse to budge.

But also, senior people should be fighting for their teams. OP, YOU as a manager shouldn't be allowing different people to do different things in the same team.

Why are people pandering to these men?

I could understand it - somewhat - if they are senior or very valuable employees that are hard to recruit and retain.

Who cares if staff 'go bonkers' it is a workplace and anybody who displayed unprofessional conduct not in keeping with policy should be disciplined.

I think it works ok where desks and chairs are adjustable and there are personal lockers. I used to love the hot desking as everything was clear every day — no piles of papers everywhere. Adjustable mouse and keyboard kept in lockers, use a laptop. Work iPhone so no desk phone. Always someone different to work next to etc. but the manager has to enforce it, and it’s hard to do it the office space isn’t purpose designed for it and still has remnants of an old system or people are allowed to keep their stuff everywhere. Cupboards and lockers for every individual and every team are needed.

If someone isn't in the office that day, "their" desk is fair game for anyone else to sit at, even if it's their permanent desk.

I used to be an external auditor and would go to a different firm to audit for typically 1-2 weeks at a time. We were just given random desks to work at, which would almost certainly "belong" to permanent staff who weren't there that day, whether they were on holiday, out for meetings or part time, or whatever. We'd often have to move peoples' stuff out of the way including photos, soft toys and all kinds of other stuff. Each day we'd go in and would be allocated different desks as the other staff came and went through the week. No one seemed to care.

We never gave it a second's thought that the main user of the desk may be put out by us using it. No one ever complained or made things uncomfortable.

In some places I worked, the part timers had to desk share, mostly they'd be in on different days, so would happily co-exist, but sometimes if they were in together, they'd just use another desk that was spare that day.

In one particular job, I had a particularly naff desk, so whenever the senior partner was away (holiday or out for meetings all day), I'd just go into his office to work - I'd often have meetings and would usually have to use a dank/dark meeting room otherwise, so the partner was happy enough for others to use his office when he wasn't there, especially for client meetings.

I've never really seen this "territorial" aspect where staff don't want anyone else using "their" desk, especially when they're not actually there to use it themselves. Seems particularly strange that some people make it so personal they don't want anyone else to use it (disability adjustments aside).