The topic of desk sharing and hybrid working seems to be on everyone's lips at the moment. But is your company really suitable for enabling hybrid working and offering desk sharing, for example? In this article you can read in which cases your company does NOT need desk sharing.
If you don't know what desk sharing means for your company, let us enlighten you now:
Desk sharing is a workstation model in which employees no longer have permanently assigned workstations and there may be fewer workstations than people. Employees should be able to flexibly choose a suitable desk every day. Especially in combination with the possibility of home office and flexible working time models, the concept offers many advantages.
The Corona pandemic is forcing many companies to rethink flexible workplace models and specifically working from a home office. Experience has shown that this can work well in many sectors and professions. But suddenly there were many companies where countless desks remained empty.
This raised the legitimate question for many: do we really need so many permanent workplaces and the associated costs on a permanent basis when it seems to work in other ways? Desk sharing is a promising approach to achieve exactly that.
Desk sharing can be implemented in different ways.
The main difference is whether employees can book their places in advance or have to look for a free place every day at the beginning of a working day. If an option to book is offered, this is referred to as hoteling. This booking can be made either via selected persons or independently by the employees via suitable software.
When employees look for a free seat on arrival, this is also called hot desking.
The concepts can be mixed, e.g. to offer both fixed bookable spaces for daily work and special rooms or areas for Activity Based Working.
However, if all employees are just sitting at the same workstation anyway, you don't need desk sharing software!
Do you have no alternative for telephone calls or simply for a bit of peace and quiet or privacy? Likewise, a complete desk is not always necessarily needed. Sometimes, for example, there are days when employees have a lot of appointments and therefore only need a seat in between to work on emails. Provide additional seating, e.g. a sitting area. Quiet zones, telephone rooms or simply meeting rooms are a remedy.
If one is to choose a place flexibly, one must be able to rely on basic equipment that is the same everywhere. Employees should be able to sit down at any place and work as usual. Employees must have the option, as with fixed workplaces, to ergonomically adapt the workplace to individual needs, e.g. through height-adjustable desks.
In addition, provide each employee with a securely lockable opportunity where personal equipment or equipment needed for the individual task can be stored, e.g. lockable roller containers or lockers. This way, not everyone has to transport everything between home and work every day.
Without flexible work options or work locations, your employees cannot move freely and flexibly around your office and work when and where they want.
It is important to ensure that workplaces are all equally clean so that employees can feel comfortable at each desk. With the so-called"Clean Desk Policy", your employees commit to leaving the workplace tidy and completely free of personal belongings before and after work. This is the only way employees can choose any desk and be sure to always find the same basic conditions. Employees can, of course, bring individually important things with them, but they must remove them at the end of their working day. In addition, no sensitive information may be left on the desks.
If employees potentially change places on a daily basis, a suitable hygiene concept must be implemented, e.g. daily disinfection of desks and equipment. With the help of software for booking workplaces, cleaning staff can easily determine which places were used on a given day and disinfect them specifically.
Desk sharing only works well if all employees work with it. If you have already mapped existing processes via a booking software, another desk sharing software makes little sense.
Standardise your booking tools and booking process and ideally not only use the "standard" desk sharing software so that you have one software for this use case. Think ahead and think of other use cases.
Alittle tip: Locaboo allows you to implement just such different booking processes :-)
If space is freely available on a first-come, first-served basis, stress, uncertainty and loss of productivity can result. You can avoid these problems by offering a system for booking seats at short notice, e.g. using suitable software.
This way, employees can bindingly book a workstation for the next working day that suits their respective working hours and tasks. And if everything is already fully booked, one can start the next working day directly from the home office instead of driving to the office in vain.
Trying to realise this process with an Excel list, on the other hand, is neither transparent, nor up-to-date, nor easy for employees to book or organise. In this way, you guarantee that there will be no flexible workplace booking.
Possible advantages of desk sharing for your company are primarily found in the great potential for savings and the better use of existing resources. Costs for office equipment, energy or rent are significantly reduced through multiple occupancy.
Further advantages can be found on the side of the employees who, for example, have an incentive to work flexibly by alternating between home office and presence. This is an organic way to improve networking among employees and at the same time promote creative activities through frequent changes of location. In addition, each employee can use popular workplaces.
On the other hand, desk sharing only works with employee acceptance. Additional stress for employees can be caused by poorly thought-out concepts or rules that are not followed - this makes for a worse working atmosphere. If there is a works council in the company, it should be involved in the decision for and implementation of desk sharing. This way you ensure that you offer a productive and pleasant working atmosphere for your employees.
If you know how desk sharing can work successfully in your company, feel free to contact our Locaboo Sales Team.