Open floor plans had replaced the unpopular cubicle office, and businesses were experimenting with a more flexible approach to the workspace. Hot desking has earned a poor reputation in the time since then.
What is hot desking?
Hot desking is an office design and desk allocation strategy in which employees do not have workstations. It is also known as desk sharing or desk hoteling. Instead, there are fewer desks overall, and seats are either filled on a first-come, first-served basis or reserved in advance, according to company policy.
How do you know if it is good or bad?
Let’s dig in and know more about the hot-desking booking system in India!
The positives of hot desking
- Flexibility
Hot desks are creative and efficient ways to maximize available space. Hot desks make more efficient use of the available space. When you look into a new dimension of your office space—the amount of time it is occupied—you can see how more people can fit in the same amount of space with flexible desk arrangements.
- Affordability
The math is simple! If a workspace generates more work, it will be less expensive. Even if your lease payment remains the same, hot desks help to reduce overhead, which improves your bottom line. You can save money by making better use of the same amount of space while also increasing the revenue potential of a fixed expense that is already in your books.
- Accommodation
Desks are unlikely to be needed by part-time employees, consultants, interns, or remote workers. They are ideal for hot workstations. They can use hot desking to find a temporary workplace wherever and whenever they need it.
- Freshness
Routines are established, creating monotony when you operate from the very same desk every day. Hot desks help employees stay alert and solve problems quickly. Hot desks can be used by employees to rediscover oneself and their routines as long as company culture and collaboration are not put at risk.
The cons of hot desk booking software in India
- Personalization is reduced
Employees may feel less individualized because there are no assigned spaces. The company culture and employees’ sense of belongingness to the company may suffer if the office begins to feel sterile and foreign.
- Hierarchical disruption
Yes, in organizations with more rigid and vertical hierarchies, the increased equality fostered by hot desking may be perceived as an unnecessary disruption. If your business emphasizes the differences between employees, managers, and executives, a hot-desking strategy must be adjusted to account for this aspect.
- Increase in IT resources
Hot desking may result in lower staff overhead expenses and office usage, but it may also result in higher IT costs. It might, at the very least strain an IT department’s resources. Introducing hot desk booking software in India is one of the strategies that may be used to control the situation. A system like this would free up IT resources for administering the new office arrangement, such as keeping networks and workstations up-to-date. Employees are also permitted to select their workstations at work.
- Strict health and safety regulations are required
You might need to put new health, safety, and cleaning policies in place to achieve the tidy atmosphere that hot desking promises. Employees must adopt new habits and exhibit good care and responsibility. Additionally, you must take into account workers who have more specific needs. You must make adjustments in a hot-desking environment so everyone can engage as rapidly as before.
- Routine modifications
There will be some disruption for workers accustomed to a routine and a regular arrangement and those who feel like they need more seclusion. Although they might be able to adjust, such problems could reduce productivity. In the interim, be prepared for some turbulence!.
- Communication breakdown on occasion
Even if it might get better, communication might occasionally falter in the beginning. Because people are in different locations, so finding staff can be challenging. To handle the situation, you’ll probably need to establish new communication channels and policies to ensure that important messages get to everyone who needs to hear them.
- Final thoughts
There is no denying that Covid-19 has altered how the world’s workforce operates, whether it’s working from an employee monitoring tool in India or a permanent workstation. Organizations and individuals alike, have had to rethink how they wish to operate in the future due to the pandemic’s changes. However, it’s reasonable to state that hot desking works for the right people given the advantages and disadvantages.
