Things to Consider Before Implementing a Hot-Desking Policy

Hot desking is an office organisational solution that allows employees to ‘book’ desks for a day or a few hours at a time. This is usually done through an online or app-based booking system. 

Hot desking is a particularly useful tool for hybrid organisations, since it allows you to reduce your overheads by moving to a smaller office — while still ensuring that everyone has access to the space they need to work. 

Thinking about launching a hot-desking policy in your organisation? Here are a few questions to ask yourself before you do. 

Employees sometimes need to discuss sensitive information — or simply need space and quiet to focus. For this reason, you might want to consider making private rooms or pods available for your employees to book, in addition to desks in an open area. Setting up these bookable private areas is generally a better use of space than reserving offices for particular employees, especially if they’re only in the office part of the time. 

Some employees like to personalise their workspaces with things like photos, trinkets and stationery — but this isn’t possible with a hot desking setup. It’s a good idea to talk to your employees before you launch your hot desking policy about how they’ll be able to personalise a space when they’re working in it and what they’ll need to remove at the end of the day. 

Before implementing a hot desking policy, you’ll need to decide whether employees will bring their own individual equipment to work with them, or whether it will be provided with each desk. 

Many organisations take a hybrid approach to this: each employee has their own laptop that moves around with them, but other equipment like monitors, keyboards, telephones and even stationery is provided with each desk. 

Want to know if hot desking is worth it? Here are some of the benefits that a hot-desking policy could bring to your organisation: 

Most people’s jobs don’t look the exact same every day. Hot desking allows your employees to work flexibly, using the office as and when they need it and booking different spaces according to their workload. For example, employees could book desks in quieter areas on days when they know they’ll need to focus, but opt for a desk in an open office space on other days.  

If you’re operating a hybrid work policy, you probably don’t need an office that’s big enough for 100% of your workforce. But you do need to make sure there’s space for employees to work comfortably and effectively when they need to. Hot desking can allow you to save money by opting for a smaller space while ensuring that employees will still have the space they need to work. 

Hot desking means that employees sit next to different people every day. This creates more organic opportunities for people from different parts of the organisation to come together, share ideas and collaborate.  

When employees are working from home part of the time, it doesn’t make much sense to assign them desks and offices that sit empty when they’re not in the office. Even if you decide not to (or can’t) downsize your office, you’ll be able to use the extra space for things like private booths, breakout spaces and even social areas.  

When hot desking is done properly, employees leave their desks clean and free of personal items, ready for someone else to use the next day. This can help you to maintain a tidier, cleaner, and less cluttered office space for everyone. 

Here are some of the downsides of hot desking that you should consider before you implement it: 

Employees sometimes need to discuss confidential information, which is difficult in an open-plan office space. To make things easier, you should ensure that your office plan includes private rooms or soundproofed ‘phone booths’ that your employees can book when they need privacy. 

Some people might be reluctant to embrace a hot desking policy, simply because they’re resistant to change. They may be used to everyone having their own desks, and enjoy the familiarity of working in the same setting every day that they spend in the office. 

In these cases, you may be able to win people around by explaining some of the benefits of hot desking in a way that makes sense to them. For example, company leaders are more likely to be convinced when you explain the cost savings that hot desking can represent. Other employees might be more interested in the possibility of booking quiet spaces when they need to focus on their work. 

Hot desking inherently means that employees have less control over their work environment on days when they’re working in the office. For example, if one employee needs to focus quietly on their work while another needs to spend most of the day on phone calls, it might be difficult for them to work next to each other. 

Again, one simple solution is to allow employees to book quiet spaces on days they need to focus. You could also encourage hybrid employees to schedule their focused work for days when they’re working remotely. 

Hot desking can make it more difficult to track down a colleague, even when they’re in the office. Instead of knowing they’ll be at their assigned desk, you might have to waste time looking for them. 

However, most of us are accustomed to communicating using online tools — even when we’re in the same building as our colleagues. This means that this is likely to be less of a problem than it would have been just a few years ago. 

Here are the answers to some FAQs about hot desking to help you decide if it’s the right choice for your organisation: 

Hot desking allows you to optimise your office space by eliminating the need for empty desks when people are working remotely. It also helps employees to work flexibly, form relationships with their colleagues and keep the office neat and tidy.

Hot desking can be a good idea if you work for a hybrid organisation that needs to reduce its overheads by moving to a smaller space. It’s also a good idea for organisations that want to encourage flexibility and increase cross-functional collaboration among their employees. 

These days, many organisations take a hybrid approach to work. While this can have many benefits for employees and management alike, it can also make it tricky for HR teams to do their jobs effectively. 

Personio’s HRIS software allows you to digitalise the HR experience and ensure the employee journey runs smoothly from onboarding to exit. By using Personio to simplify and automate HR processes, you can get back the time you need to focus on what matters: people. 

Want to find out how Personio could help streamline your approach to HR? Book a free demo to find out more.