CHICAGO–Considering a redesign of your credit union’s office floor plan to accommodate the latest fad in workspaces, hot desking? Many companies are, but at least one person is calling it a “cuckoo land” concept.
Just as open plan office designs have begun to fade, a recent survey of 400 multinational corporations has found fully two-thirds plan to implement hot desking within a few years. Hot desking is where nobody has their own work area and thus must find a new one every day.
But it’s a “corporate sh*tshow,” according to Geoffrey James, an author and analyst on business and technology. Writing on Inc.com, James said there are numerous reasons hot desking is just the latest “dumb management fad,” including:
Hot Desks Decrease Collaboration
“Hot desks are supposed to increase collaboration by allowing people who are working together on a project to sit together in the same general area,” wrote James. “What happens instead is that high-status workers become "settlers" who sequester the most desirable work areas (usually next to a window) and then use social pressure and the pecking order to prevent lesser status employees from encroaching on their territory.”
Meanwhile, said James, lesser-status employees become "vagrants" who must wander about, “carrying all their things like a bag-lady, until they find a spot to camp, regardless of who they're supposed to be working with. Then, if somebody needs to bring them into a conversation, nobody knows where they are.”
Hot Desks Create Cliques
Another supposed benefit of hot desking is that it allows different people from different organizations to work together and thus reduce organizational stove-piping, observed James.
“That's in theory. In practice, hot desking is like a high school cafeteria where the ‘cool kids’ stake out the best areas and sit together, while ‘outsiders’ sit wherever anyone will tolerate their presence,” he wrote. “These ‘outsiders’ don't make friendships or form their own cliques because they end up sitting each day with different people whom they don't know. Even introducing yourself is taboo because you'll be interrupting the other people's work.”
Hot Desks Spread Infectious Diseases
Even worse that open floor plans when it comes to spreading illnesses, James said hot desks only spread disease further. “If the work area has a permanent keyboard and phone handset, even a handy-wipe isn't likely to kill enough germs to make the area safe. BTW, keyboards are among the filthiest items in any office, probably worse than toilet seats, which get regularly cleaned.”
Hot Desks Increase Strain Injuries
Sitting at a desk all day is already harmful, including back pain and carpal-tunnel syndrome. James said hot desking only exacerbates the situation, because work areas are less likely to have ergonomic features and even if those features are present, few workers are likely to spend the necessary time and effort to adjust everything correctly. In addition, hot desked workers often injure themselves lugging around heavy bags and laptops, he said.
Hot Desks Massively Decrease Morale
According to extensive research, James said employees in hot desking offices feel isolated and disconnected from their coworkers and less trustful of supervisors.
“They feel less productive and less healthy, not because hot desking is poorly implemented but because hot desking strips away the last vestige of privacy and control in today's open plan office: your right to your own work area,” he wrote.
“There's no way to sugar-coat the truth—with the possible exception of those few high-status workers who can capture and hold down a desirable work area—employees loathe hot desking,” continued James. “Millennials hate hot desking. Gen-Xers hate hot desking. Boomers hate hot desking. (At last, something we all agree upon!) Hot desking may be the ultimate morale-killer.”