Subj : Re: Still alive
To   : Vincent Coen
From : Kurt Weiske
Date : Wed Apr 06 2022 02:34 pm

-=> Vincent Coen wrote to Kurt Weiske <=-

VC> I do seem to recall that some companies even did hot desking? in the UK
VC> but I think that they had chairs and no never came across it as about
VC> that time I was a commercial pilot, with only the occasional bout for
VC> programming or in those days Test management when not on schedules.
VC> The change was a nice break.

With hybrid remote offices, hot desking makes sense. If you have a
percentage of your workforce working remotely at any time, you can shrink
your office footprint commensurately.

Come in, pick a desk -- or reserve a desk before you come in online.

The problems arise when you have someone who has their potted plants,
pictures of their cats, pictures of their kids, *their* personal laser
printer so they don't need to walk 20 feet to the shared printer, and so on
- you end up with a whole office that rotates in and out around them.

I worked at a company that ramped up their VPN solution and offered remote
work. Part of the deal was that you had to give up your desk space. Out of
100 users, 90 desks went back to people who needed to be onsite, and the
other 10 were turned into hot desks for remote workers to use when they came
into the office. It worked out well, as we'd just started rolling out Skype
for Business phones, and people were reachable by their desk phone numbers
wherever they were.

At another branch, it failed miserably because the users wanted "their"
desks waiting for them when they came into the office.

Mind you, these were in two of the most impacted and costly real estate
areas - San Jose and San Francisco.

Post-covid, I'm not sure how hot-desking will fly, unless you have stringent
cleaning protocols.




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