After ‘Slate’ highlighted the many advantages of “Hot Desking” following the Bloomberg story, this new concept is trending all over the world. So what is this all “Hot Desking” about? Can you incorporate this one in your own cubicle? Hot Desking is the smart way to efficiently manage the small space among out-numbered employees. You are not assigned your own ‘private’ desk. Instead, you use a desk that is fully-equipped, yet shared by everyone.
1. What is Hot Desking?
Also popular by terms like ‘hotelling’, ‘hot bunk’, and ‘free addressing’, Hot Desking is been in use in Europe since the 1990s and is quickly gaining popularity all over the world. With the advancement of time and technology, cubicles are also changing rapidly. Rather than giving you a personal desk, that may or may not be utilized fully by you the whole day, modern offices switch nomadic office space into flexible shared space.
2. Trouble to space stickler:
Some of us love to mark boundaries. Yes, you love your computer, but you live in the 21st century! How many of us use smartphones, laptops, tablets for work? Then why not let others use your space when you don’t need it? Ownership issue may seem a problem in the beginning, but mobile working is in support with Hot Desking.
3. Table Etiquette:
When you own your private desk, you probably would end up in a “messy” desk. But sharing the same desk encourages you to clean up all your mess, which you never thought to do until the end of the day! No more flying papers, spilled coffee, or dirty desk (you can’t leave your trails behind, to tell others how bad you can be).
4. Move around:
As we know, “Sitting is the new smoking”, you shouldn’t mind moving yourself a bit from one place to another. Sip a cup of coffee, do your work on the iMac, save it to your drive, and move on to the couch, meeting room or standing desk. How hard could this be?
5. Unused desks:
Do you know that 4 out of 10 desks are unused each day and 3 out of 10 are unused at least a part of the day? These desks can be of the employees on vacation or those who travels a lot like a Sales person. Hence, to utilize the maximum space, companies are shifting gears towards Hot Desking.
6. Connectivity:
Of course, Hot Desking can clearly work for you, but there are some exceptions, though. To access your work easily on any gimmick, you ask a good internet and better connectivity options like Dropbox and Google Cloud. If your company lacks in this topic, it’s time to act on these issues first and then center on Hot Desking.
7. The Exceptions:
While Hot Desking concept can totally be pulled out by most of the corporate houses, yet there are few chores that require personal cubicle space. If you’re the President, video maker, receptionist, you certainly need your own space.
8. Implement Rules:
Before encouraging Hot Desking in your office, don’t forget that change does not happen over-night. There would be people who would not love this concept and would try to pass back into olden ways. Hence, implementing few strict policies like clear desks, organized team storage, non-exclusive work areas, etc can assist you to achieve Hot Desking.
The aim of Hot Desking should be to fail down the barriers and encourage working across teams with shared spaces. So, get up, and ‘change place to get a change’!
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