Have you ever heard about hot desking? If this concept is new to you, you are in the right place.
We’re going to break down what hot desking is, what are its benefits and disadvantages—and why your office needs it. Now.
For those who still work from home, thinking about their desk causes a bit of nostalgia.
Some think of when they saw colleagues pass in front of their workstation, others disappeared behind piles of documents and post-it notes, others still decorated it according to their tastes, with photos, plants, and other gadgets.
The desk was like the home of each employee in the office.
In a post-pandemic era, few people are required to return permanently to the office and, therefore, to their desks.
For this reason, modern workplaces are adopting a more flexible model called hot desking.
If this concept is new to you, you are in the right place.
We’re going to break down what hot desking is, what are its benefits and disadvantages—and why your office needs it. Now.
What is hot desking?
Hot desking is a flexible environment where employees can book a seat for a single day.
It gives employees maximum flexibility to collaborate on a project, work in a satellite office, or change their perspective from time to time.
These are often short-term bookings, on-demand, that employees make the same day or a day in advance.
Hot desking is often found in hybrid workplaces, which allow employees to choose where to work.
If an employee doesn’t come into the office every day, from 9-5, then it doesn’t make sense for him to have a permanently assigned desk.
That would leave vacancies for long periods, resulting in a waste of resources and high real estate costs for employers.
While flexible working hours and hot desking depended on the corporate culture of the individual company, Covid-19 has essentially made them imperative.
Hot desking gives you precise information on the usage of each seat, so you can disinfect the space before it is booked by someone else the next day.
But hot desking existed long before Covid-19 and the benefits will outlast that of the pandemic as well.
The benefits of hot desking
Even before the pandemic, companies were looking for ways to modernize their offices. Not only to foster teamwork, efficiency, and productivity but also to attract new talent.
Today's workforce expects flexibility, collaboration, and innovation. Hot desking helps companies meet these needs and more.
Below you will find the main advantages of hot desking, both for companies and employees:
1. Safety and hygiene
Hot desking gives you the ability to determine which seats are available for booking based on your office's capacity and social distancing guidelines.
This way you can be sure that employees have a safe space to work in the office.
Having a log of daily use can be useful to quickly and easily indicate to the cleaning staff which stations to disinfect.
2. Flexibility
It gives employees the freedom and flexibility to work where they are most productive.
If they plan to come to the office, they can book a desk where they can work best without being bound to a space.
If, on the other hand, they need to work from home, they can free up a workstation in the office.
3. Collaboration and productivity
Having a different person next to you every day can have a positive impact on productivity and collaboration.
Hot desking encourages employees to meet and talk with team members they wouldn't normally interact with.
Instead of teams sitting in silos, hot desking encourages more cross-functional interactions.
4. Cost savings
Traditional permanent seating assignments are expensive because they require more space.
Employees who work from home or smaller, more remote offices leave their workstations unused.
Hot desking reduces this wasted space allowing businesses to reduce real estate costs and make better use of existing space.
5. Data-based decisions
It gives you insight into how your space is being used so you can spot trends and make the most of your space.
Plus, get insights into making smart and informed business decisions as you plan for future real estate needs.
6. Tidy workspace
Finally, hot desking makes workplaces tidier in general.
With fewer personal items or stacks of paper cluttering up your desk space, you get a cleaner, more organized office.
Furthermore, fewer customized objects and cleared workstations translate into fewer surfaces to sanitize and precautions to have for everyone's peace of mind and health.
The disadvantages of hot desking
Of course, hot desking may not be the best solution for every business.
There are negative aspects that could affect employees.
Let's see together which ones:
- employees may not have their own space to customize
- having a new station every day could be annoying for employees who enjoy the routine.
- hot desking could make communicating in person more difficult if you don't have an easy way to know where your team members are sitting.
One of the best ways to know if hot desking is right for your business is to evaluate your company culture and the evolving needs of your employees.
If your office focuses on safety, efficiency, flexibility, and mobility, you are more likely to benefit from hot desking.
Desk Booking by Nibol
Since you're considering hot desking for your workplace, you'll want to look for a solution that works seamlessly with your existing tech stack and keeps your space flexible.
Nibol offers a new hot desking solution that meets these requirements: Desk Booking.
With Desk Booking, you can map all the desks of your company in an easy and organized way. With a simple gesture, your employees can see all available workstations and choose the one they prefer to work from.
In just a few clicks you will be able to create a more dynamic environment, to keep track of the position of each one (knowing which stations are to be sanitized), and to make the team more productive and happy to go to the office in complete tranquility.
Find out more about how to use our desk booking softwrare to simplify hot desking and create a safer and more flexible work environment.
