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Hot Desking: The New Work Style
Hot desking is a type of office structure organization system that distributes available resources in the most efficient way. Other benefits of hot desking include encouraging new relationships between coworkers, which may lead to chance interactions that perhaps could evolve into greater work ideas.
Hot desking may also remove the stagnancy of a typical office cubicle structure, promoting greater worker productivity and satisfaction. However, hot desking is relatively new and opinions, from both professional and employee viewpoints, vary.
Many new companies, especially those that work in the high-tech industry, are adopting hot-desking throughout their office buildings for various reasons and purposes.
Hot Desking Benefits:
- Efficiency: Hot desking is efficient because it takes advantage of flexible work hours. For example, if an employee is only working from 9 am to 5 pm, that means his or her desk is unoccupied between 5 pm and 9 am the next day. For the employee who may be most productive at night or in the early morning, the two employees may share one desk. This means that a company may be able to provide a workspace for more employees than available desks, which may lower office costs when hiring new workers.
Breaking Rigid Thinking: Workers who follow a constant routine when working may develop habits of thinking within a box and status quo. However, by allowing workers to sit in different places, interact with different people, and create their own work schedules, businesses promote employees to have diversity in their daily schedules which may contribute to diversity in thinking.
- Promoting Forward-thinking Work Ethic: Employees very much are influenced by the companies that they work for. By implementing hot desking instead of the standard clock in or cubicle-based office structure, companies prove or demonstrate to their employees that they are futuristic, forward-thinking, and flexible. These three qualities may increase worker morale and improve office dynamics, from one of work being tiring to work being fun.
Hot Desking Disadvantages:
- Lack of Permanent Space: Employees that work within a hot desking situation lack permanence within the office. Because they do not have a desk or area that is specifically designated for them, they may feel detached or less loyal to the company. Workers are also inconvenienced in that they must carry their belongings with them at all times, instead of having an on-site area in which they may leave materials such as paperwork, writing utensils, or personal belongings. Some office buildings that utilize hot desking assign lockers to employees, but these lockers may be small and still inconvenient for the workers.
- Unclear Work Hierarchy: Because employees are encouraged to sit anywhere they like in some offices or are assigned randomly in others, the standard work hierarchy between different levels is broken, which may cause inconvenience or confusion. One aspect is that employees may not be close to other employees working on similar projects or their managers, and thus when they need to communicate, it may be difficult to do so easily. Another aspect is that social rules on where employees are allowed to sit may form, defeating some of the benefits of hot desking.
Works Consulted
Arain, Nadia. "Ups and Downs: Hot-desking v Co-working." Virgin. Virgin, 11 Dec. 2015. Web.
20 Nov. 2016.
Collins, Ben. "'Hot Desking' Is A Big Trend -- Here's Why A Lot Of People Hate It." Business
Insider Australia. Business Insider, 11 Apr. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.
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The Farm SoHo will wow you and your guests with its rustic charm and inviting environment. New York City's most engaged community of startup teams, developers, remote workers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. They have converged to share ideas, innovate and learn in a collaborative and nurturing environment. Their story began in Missouri where they found a gorgeous barn that needed a second chance. They dismantled the barn and brought it to NYC and rebuilt in in their loft in SoHo.
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Lucas Seyhun created TheFarmSoHo, the first coworking space in NYC, back in 2014. He is a serial entrepreneur that has been part of many failing businesses. Eventually, this became the knowledge base of his success. Before his entrepreneurship career, Lucas was part of the US Military—a key building block of his resilience. Growing up, Lucas’ family was economically challenged, but this gave him the ability to be financially creative and build companies out of thin air.
