Studies say this can deliver savings of up to 30% compared to a more conventional office.
Here's a step-by-step guide:
Planning and preparation:
- Start by reducing head-count through a quick redundancy programme, say 20% of staff
- Count the remaining staff with desks by way of a team walking the floor/s several times over a period off time, say a month, preferably including a holiday period such as Easter
- Arrive at a figure, and shave by 25%
- Find an office with floorspace to accommodate this number, plus lockers
- Fit out with required equipment, including computers, monitors, desk telephones, etc
- Ring-fence "special" teams such as HR and Finance and provide permanent desks for these
- Relocate, and rely on absence through holiday, sickness, external activities like residential training,conferences, etc and, (if applicable), working from home to make things fit
Hidden costs:
- Erosion of productive working time by "distractions" including spending time each morning finding a desk; unlocking and unloading your locker which now contains all of the stuff that used to sit in desk drawers and pedestals; adjusting your seat and monitor; cleaning the computer keyboard, mouse and desk telephone with generously supplied office wet wipes; and registering said telephone
- Effective team working is compromised by team members scattered around the office, especially counter-productive in a crisis
- Chances are you'll find yourself sitting next to someone who’s job / behaviour, (e.g. endless teleconferences), is so at odds with your own that it makes for a difficult day
- To be fair it can work both ways, and from time to time you may find yourself sitting next to someone really interesting, who otherwise you may never have met or got to know
- There is pressure to get to the office early if you want to improve your chances of sitting where, and with whom, you prefer
- People arriving after, say, ten in the morning sometimes find there are no free desks and have to return home to work, but assuming you do get a desk the end of the working day comes a little earlier, (or you leave a little later if you don’t mind missing your bus / train home), in order to spend time clearing said desk, and reloading and locking your locker
- A degree of working from home becomes less of a luxury and more a necessity in helping respond to the pressure of reduced office space, requiring trust and self-discipline, ideally framed / supported by documented working practice
- Studies say there may also be less than positive implications for morale and health
Behaviours:
- Some teams organise themselves so at least one of their number gets to the office early enough to not only claim a preferred desk in a preferred area, but also to drape coats and bags on the backs of chairs at adjacent and (at that time) unoccupied desks to give the impression of occupancy, so discouraging interest from others, though sometimes giving rise to awkward / unpleasant conversations
- Another tactic is employed by some at the other end of the day, when before leaving the office a final act is to discretely disable an item of electronic equipment, such as a mouse, so that next morning any attempt by another member of staff to claim that desk is likely to be abandoned ... until the guilty party saunters in, takes a seat and deftly rights the wrong
It's easy to overlook the negatives if it suits your purpose, and simply say we used to spend this big fat £number on desks and office space; now we spend this slimmed down £number and save £££s. There’s so much more to it. but those who make the decision to implement hot desking tend not to experience the "joys" themselves, in my experience somehow usually holding onto their offices.
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