Question 1

How do I implement hot desking successfully?

Accepted Answer

Hot desking is currently trending among businesses and is an indispensable aspect of the Office of the Future. It can be quite challenging to switch from a workplace that is used to fixed desks, to a flexible working environment. Here are a few tips to make the transition go as smoothly as possible.

Flexible in all aspects

Hot desking in itself is having the flexibility to choose whatever desk you work at when you arrive at the office. But why limit this flexibility to the workplace? Hybrid Working has become increasingly popular, with 60% of employees saying that this has become their preferred way of working. While Hybrid Working is a great solution for many, the problem that does arise is that people don’t know who of their colleagues will be present at the office. This can stagnate collaboration between coworkers.

Thankfully, this problem can be solved by providing your employees with a Desk Booking system, such as GoBright’s. This allows your employees to book desks at home, so they don’t have to waste time looking for a spot at the office. They can also quickly see which desks are occupied and by whom, which is useful for collaboration purposes.

Designing the Office of the Future

Now that you have incorporated hot desking and flexibility into your work culture, it is important to stimulate your employees to actually visit the office. How do you create a workspace that is more attractive to work at, than the comfort of their own homes? Office design is a key factor in this.

Your employees will want to work in a safe and healthy environment. The first thing you should implement in your office is height adjustable desks. You can choose desks that can be manually adjusted, but you can also choose to have technology do the adjusting for you. GoBright’s Desk Booking System can be complemented with GoBright Connects, in which your employees can install their preferred height. Since the Connects have a follow-me system, it does not matter which desk your employee uses in the future. Their preferred height is saved and the desk will automatically adjust itself when the employee is checked in.

Besides a safe and healthy environment, employees also want to work comfortably. Now that they’re used to working from home, the office should feel like a second home to them in order to make it attractive to work at. Because everybody has different preferences in terms of working environments, you should tailor your office to be fitting for everybody. You can do this by creating separate spaces, such as silent rooms and an office living room. The standard grey office full of desks is no longer attractive to work at for the majority of employees. This way, you’ll give your employees the sense of being home at work.

Question 2

What are the advantages of hot desking?

Accepted Answer

More and more offices are introducing hot desking into their work culture. At the core of hot desking is the elimination of personal desks. This means that employees work at a different desk every day. There are a few benefits that hot desking brings to employees and employers.

Better collaboration and social cohesion

Hot desking entails that employees take whatever desk is available in the morning, instead of having one fixed desk for themselves. This enhances collaboration between different employees and departments within your business. Information will be shared throughout the company between different people, resulting in better overall knowledge of the business’ whereabouts. Working together with different people also stimulates creativity and increases social cohesion on the work floor.

The most important advantage of Hot Desking is that it stimulates building relationships with more colleagues, resulting in a better working environment for all. In static working environments, it is only natural that certain groups of people start to form that regularly work together. It can be beneficial to prevent this, to stimulate communication between colleagues from different departments. People will start sharing information with each other throughout the company, leading to a better overall knowledge of the company’s business. Additionally, this better cooperation will lead to the flow of more creativity. Your employees get to know different aspects of your business and become inspired by their coworkers and environment to think outside of the box.

Eliminating wasted resources with occupancy management

When your employees have fixed workplaces, these desks remain unused if the employee has a day off or is not present for any other reason. This is a waste of resources and space. You may be able to save these costs by hot desking. Hot desking enables optimally using the desks and other workspaces at the office, as unused desks may be occupied by anybody else. If you combine hot desking with an occupancy management tool, you can measure how many of your desks are actually used. This information can be used to help reshape your office to fulfil the needs of your employees.

Tidy workspaces

People like to bring home to the office. This is why fixed desks usually have personal items, such as pictures and stationery. When your office makes use of hot desks, employees will have increased accountability in keeping their desks organised and clean. After all, someone else is going to use it after them. This will help keep your workspace clean. Employers can help their employees keep tidy by providing them with lockers where they can keep their personal belongings. You can choose for regular lockers, or digitally monitored lockers such as GoBright’s, which you and your employees can book from home.

Question 3

What are the disadvantages of hot desking?

Accepted Answer

Besides the advantages of Hot Desking, there are also some challenges to overcome. Below you find a short list with the most prominent problems of hot desking.

Uncertainty of having a workspace

The core of hot desking is the absence of static workplaces. Employees are supposed to come into work and decide ad hoc at which desk they want to work that day. While this likely won’t cause any trouble at smaller businesses, it may have an impact on employees of bigger companies, especially when the office has multiple floors. Your employee might take the stairs to a specific floor, only to find that all the workspaces on this floor are already occupied.

This problem can be solved by implementing a desk management tool. With software such as GoBright’s, employees can book a desk from home through the app and be sure of their seat in the office for the day. This way, they won’t waste time looking for an appropriate seat at the office. Additionally, GoBright offers interactive Mapping screens, on which employees can see which desks are available and optionally book a desk.

Adaption takes time

The principle of hot desking is flexibly choosing your desk when you enter the building. This could also be the biggest disadvantage of hot desking, if not well thought out. This can result in uncertainty about where you will be working that day. While this may be of minor inconvenience for smaller organisations with only one floor, the problems arise in bigger corporations. They usually have more floors or even buildings where people can work, resulting in the possibility that an employee arrives on a floor only to find that it is already full. They then have to physically look for a place to sit before they can start work.

When you make use of GoBright Desk Booking, you can book your desk in advance, eliminating this uncertainty. Our platform offers an interactive map (in the portal and in the app) that visualises the workspace and gives employees the opportunity to book the facilities they need. In addition, you can place GoBright Mapping Screens on your floors. This way, your employees can see in the blink of an eye whether there are seats available and where they are located.

Hierarchy disruption

Depending on your work culture, employees may experience hot desking as an unwelcome disruption of the established hierarchy within your office. For some businesses, the hierarchy is not that important. However, when it is an important aspect of your business culture, you might want to consider adjusting the approach to hot desking to fit your office.

Question 4

What is hot desking?

Accepted Answer

Hot Desking is a way of flexible working. Most people don’t need the same desk every day, all day long. As a result, desks often remain unused for parts of the day. With hot desking, you only use a desk when you actually need it. By using our desk sharing tool, you can reduce the number of workplaces and you can introduce diversity in the type of workplaces and you can introduce diversity in the type of workplaces. Working in a hot desking environment can stimulate collaboration and creativity.

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