Your organisation might start hot desking for various reasons: culture change, building refurbishment, budget costs or improve flexible working. Hot desking is an organisation system where multiple employees are sharing a work station. For example, there are 100 staff for 80 desks. If this is familiar to you, share your experience by editing this article.
Things you'll need
- To succeed, you'll need 'anytime, anywhere' connectivity
- A ‘follow me’ type of phone system
- IT solution
- Buy-in from staff
Set up technology
Phone
There will be investment for a system to allow employee to make and receive calls from and to any hot desk phone. This is also called ‘follow me’ type of phone system.
IT
An IT solution is often the use a laptop that you can plug into any pc in the building. That way you can sit anywhere and access your personal desktop.
Get staff on board
The real key to hot desking is getting everyone to understand just what you hope to achieve right from the start. Make sure staff have instructions for logging on to the computers and use the phones properly. You are asking them to change their working style and it may affect their productivity.
Don't forget to train the manager. Managers will need to have the tools to support their staff in this new flexible working approach. They need to clearly define people’s objectives and might need training to achieve this.
Top tips to make it comfortable
Clean desk
Avoid leaving decomposing fruits, family pictures and piles of messy paperwork on the desks. If you are hot desking, anyone should be able to sit at your desk. Keep it clean, clutter and paper free for the next person. Some companies have lockers to keep personal items.
Set up
Adjust your chair and screen for correct typing position. Use wipes to wipe down keyword, mice and phone handset.
Enjoy
Moving around the floor or building will allow you to understand other colleague's role better and get to know other member of staff. So enjoy!
Benefits
Well managed this flexible approach has many advantages including:
- Happy management with better performance
- Happy employees with reduced stress and absenteeism are more likely to stay with the organisation
- The obvious: more efficient use of office space
Further information
- Voluntary Action Camden have a hot desk in their office which they make available free of charge for their members to book and use.
- This case study from Genesis Housing (PDF Download) shows how the organisation saved over £1million in accommodation costs alone by flexible working.
- Read about how Cystic Fibrosis moved from an outdated traditional office to a modern well laid out space with hot desking.
Contributors
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W Editor
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Rob Brennan
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Mark Barratt
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Chris Milway
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Paul Webster
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