When people discuss agile and collaborative working, an area often overlooked is hot desking. With all aspects of the working day increasingly placed under the spotlight, hot desking makes it easy to accommodate a versatile workforce in the modern workplace. As more and more companies and organisations begin to embrace it, Spaceway explores how hot desking can work for your business:
Technology
To start with, there needs to be investment in ‘anywhere, anytime’ connectivity. Today, this comes in the form of laptops, tablets and smart phones, allowing you to sit anywhere and be connected to the wider world. Communications platforms such as Slack are crucial to a hot-desked workforce, giving employees a sense of connection in a business-focussed way.
Get employees on board
Getting your staff to understand and believe in the value of hot desking is crucial to its success. You are asking employees to change their working pattern, which is something they may not be prepared for at first, so you’ll need to brief them properly about what it entails. Interestingly, when bosses lead by example and work from a hot desk (as opposed to in a large and isolated corner office) research suggests productivity tends to increase.
Organisation
Everything is easier if you are organised, including hot desking. Different people will be using the desks during different times of the week or even day, so it’s important to consider other people’s usage and refrain from such things as leaving post-its covering the bottom of the monitor and piles of paperwork beside the keyboard. Learn what you need and what is relevant for the task at hand.
Make it work for you
While open plan offices are great for collaboration, interruptions will inevitably occur, especially on a hot desk. However, you can let your colleagues know that you are happy to be interrupted during certain times or use a marker to make people aware that you’re not to be disturbed. It’s important to make the situation work for you, to get the best out of you.
So whether your business wants to increase flexibility, reduce costs, or introduce a different company culture, it is easier and far less stressful to change working habits, rather than premises, enabling an open minded approach to the modern working world.
Here’s how we created a more agile workspace with additional collaborative workspaces for Specsavers. This complete change in the way the company operated goes to show that by moving desks regularly and sitting with different people, you will undoubtedly learn new things and benefit in the long term.
If you wish to discuss further about how a modern working environment can work for your business, contact Spaceway today on: 0800 085 1022