Hot desking
Encyclopedia
Hot desking originates from the definition of being the temporary physical occupant of a work station or surface by a particular employee. The term hot desking is thought to be derived from the naval practice, called hot racking
, where sailors on different shifts share bunks. Originating as a trend in the late 1980s to early 1990s, hot desking involves one desk shared between several people who use the desk at different times. A primary motivation for hot desking is cost reduction through space savings - up to 30% in some cases.
This work surface could be an actual desk or just a terminal link. In any event the concept of the hot desk is that the employer furnishes a permanent work surface which is available to any worker as and when needed. There is no personal domain pertaining to a particular worker and physical facilities are employed as and when needed. A collection of such workstations is sometimes called a mobility centre.
Hot desking is regularly used in places where not all the employees are in the office at the same time, or not in the office for very long at all, which means actual personal offices would be often vacant, consuming valuable space and resources.
With the growth of mobility services, hot desking can also include the routing of voice and other messaging services to any location where the user is able to log in to their secure corporate network. Therefore their telephone number, their email and instant messaging can be routed to their location on the network and no longer to just their physical desk.
In some cases, the employees are designated to a certain area but because of the hot desking situation, all available seats must look the same. Therefore, in order to enable workers to make sure they are sitting in the right group area (or "neighborhood") sometimes colored walls, mousepads, or acetone nameplates are used. Then workers are designated to sit anywhere in the red zone, for example, or the blue zone. The groups in the company are then identified by these group colors.
Hot Racking
Hot racking is the sanctioned practice within military organizations of assigning more than one crew member to a bed or "rack" to reduce berthing space. The practice dates back at least to the sixteenth century, and today is particularly applied aboard submarines, where maximization of space is...
, where sailors on different shifts share bunks. Originating as a trend in the late 1980s to early 1990s, hot desking involves one desk shared between several people who use the desk at different times. A primary motivation for hot desking is cost reduction through space savings - up to 30% in some cases.
This work surface could be an actual desk or just a terminal link. In any event the concept of the hot desk is that the employer furnishes a permanent work surface which is available to any worker as and when needed. There is no personal domain pertaining to a particular worker and physical facilities are employed as and when needed. A collection of such workstations is sometimes called a mobility centre.
Hot desking is regularly used in places where not all the employees are in the office at the same time, or not in the office for very long at all, which means actual personal offices would be often vacant, consuming valuable space and resources.
With the growth of mobility services, hot desking can also include the routing of voice and other messaging services to any location where the user is able to log in to their secure corporate network. Therefore their telephone number, their email and instant messaging can be routed to their location on the network and no longer to just their physical desk.
Hot desking tools
With the emergence of hot desking and the growing amount of technology in the workplace there has been the development of tools to aid the simplicity and efficiency of Hotelling. Generally the Hotelling system is maintained by a piece of software which integrates with the company's communication systems and is tailored to the office of each individual company. These software systems usually also allow the company to manage many resources such as conference rooms, desks, offices, and projectors and other types of media.In some cases, the employees are designated to a certain area but because of the hot desking situation, all available seats must look the same. Therefore, in order to enable workers to make sure they are sitting in the right group area (or "neighborhood") sometimes colored walls, mousepads, or acetone nameplates are used. Then workers are designated to sit anywhere in the red zone, for example, or the blue zone. The groups in the company are then identified by these group colors.