5 ms·

Saves a lot of money - why have individual desks if you're giving every employee a laptop anyway and we might only turn up once or twice a week? Only need to pa

Saves a lot of money - why have individual desks if you're giving every employee a laptop anyway and we might only turn up once or twice a week? Only need to pay for 60% of the floorspace you otherwise would have to, and you get the benefits of in-person collaboration, as well as reasonable cost savings of remote working. There's no hierarchy to seating, and although it's an open office, disturbances are quite well contained.

pc86 8y ago
But the problem occurs when you only have 60 real seats and 65 people show up expecting or needing to work colocated. It's easy to say that some people would just leave then, or a few people would work in a conference room, or something like that, but it's a legitimate problem if I show up to work because I have to be there for something, and now I need to leave for the morning and hope the situation resolves itself.
- ubersoldat2k7 8y ago
  Using a scheduling tool like the one used for conference rooms might be the solution.
- wastedhours 8y ago
  We have around 300 people in our HQ, and in 3 years I've never encountered that issue. I appreciate it's an issue to think about, but if you have a laptop and plenty of breakout spaces, combined with the expectation you're not going to turn up every day - it rarely pans out.
  - wolco 8y ago
    We have quarterly meetings with everyone in person and this always happens.
    - wastedhours 8y ago
      > We have quarterly meetings with everyone in person and this always happens. Well, yeah... if you've designed your office to deliberately not hold all employees, then having a regularly in-person event in the office for all employees is evidently going to be a problem. But either don't hold all-hands meetings in your general workspace where every employee will need a desk, or for 4 days a year where it's an issue, vs 250-or-so where it's not, work around it? I'm definitely not attached to my employer, but based on the balance of pros and cons by embracing this approach across all staff, I'd find it hard to rationalise moving back to a different environment.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I suppose it would get annoying if you commuted into an office regularly and constantly had to hunt for a free place to sit. But camping out in a conference room or breakout area every now and then because the office is busy for whatever reason has never been a big issue for me. I actually spend more time in other company locations than my "home" office location anyway (where I had a desk but recently gave it up).
    - rhizome 8y ago
      I suppose it would get annoying if you commuted into an office regularly and constantly had to hunt for a free place to sit. Apparently, it does. Self-link with some good additions, along with a previous storypost about this kind of thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3345896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3345896
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    I believe it happens in our company from time to time (I live on the other side of the world, so I don't get to see it). Basically people are encouraged to plan ahead about coming in to the office so that they can make sure there is enough space. It's definitely an issue that some people complain about. It will obviously depend a lot on how the space is managed. If a company likes to see high utilisation of the space (so they aren't "wasting" money), then you will have more contention for chairs, desks, etc. If the company doesn't mind having some empty seats most days, then it will be easy to accommodate days where more people show up.
- alexgmcm 8y ago
  Maybe people could register desks or rooms in advance? I mean I'd be pretty pissed if I commuted into the office just to be told there's not enough deskspace today...
  - ghaff 8y ago
    As I recall, when Sun was all big on hot-desking at one point, you could reserve a space but I don't know if you reserved a specific location or just a desk generically. I suspect though that if had a program like this and were near capacity, you'd almost certainly want to reserve specific locations; otherwise people will end up wandering the office looking for a space. However, TBH I don't find this an issue. I'm often at various company locations and I can always find a space to plop myself down and work on my laptop whether it's some sort of enclave or just the cafeteria.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  That's the same problem of airplane overbooking. Everything has a cost, the false positives (empty desks where no one's coming) and the false negatives (people without desks). You have, as in the movie "Fight club", to figure out whether p * c0 < (1-p) * c1 or the other way around.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Fractional reserve hotdesking.
  - FabHK 8y ago
    No worries, Starbucks is the desk of last resort.

pc86 8y ago

But the problem occurs when you only have 60 real seats and 65 people show up expecting or needing to work colocated. It's easy to say that some people would just leave then, or a few people would work in a conference room, or something like that, but it's a legitimate problem if I show up to work because I have to be there for something, and now I need to leave for the morning and hope the situation resolves itself.

ubersoldat2k7 8y ago
Using a scheduling tool like the one used for conference rooms might be the solution.
wastedhours 8y ago
We have around 300 people in our HQ, and in 3 years I've never encountered that issue. I appreciate it's an issue to think about, but if you have a laptop and plenty of breakout spaces, combined with the expectation you're not going to turn up every day - it rarely pans out.
- wolco 8y ago
  We have quarterly meetings with everyone in person and this always happens.
  - wastedhours 8y ago
    > We have quarterly meetings with everyone in person and this always happens. Well, yeah... if you've designed your office to deliberately not hold all employees, then having a regularly in-person event in the office for all employees is evidently going to be a problem. But either don't hold all-hands meetings in your general workspace where every employee will need a desk, or for 4 days a year where it's an issue, vs 250-or-so where it's not, work around it? I'm definitely not attached to my employer, but based on the balance of pros and cons by embracing this approach across all staff, I'd find it hard to rationalise moving back to a different environment.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I suppose it would get annoying if you commuted into an office regularly and constantly had to hunt for a free place to sit. But camping out in a conference room or breakout area every now and then because the office is busy for whatever reason has never been a big issue for me. I actually spend more time in other company locations than my "home" office location anyway (where I had a desk but recently gave it up).
  - rhizome 8y ago
    I suppose it would get annoying if you commuted into an office regularly and constantly had to hunt for a free place to sit. Apparently, it does. Self-link with some good additions, along with a previous storypost about this kind of thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3345896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3345896
- mikekchar 8y ago
  I believe it happens in our company from time to time (I live on the other side of the world, so I don't get to see it). Basically people are encouraged to plan ahead about coming in to the office so that they can make sure there is enough space. It's definitely an issue that some people complain about. It will obviously depend a lot on how the space is managed. If a company likes to see high utilisation of the space (so they aren't "wasting" money), then you will have more contention for chairs, desks, etc. If the company doesn't mind having some empty seats most days, then it will be easy to accommodate days where more people show up.
alexgmcm 8y ago
Maybe people could register desks or rooms in advance? I mean I'd be pretty pissed if I commuted into the office just to be told there's not enough deskspace today...
- ghaff 8y ago
  As I recall, when Sun was all big on hot-desking at one point, you could reserve a space but I don't know if you reserved a specific location or just a desk generically. I suspect though that if had a program like this and were near capacity, you'd almost certainly want to reserve specific locations; otherwise people will end up wandering the office looking for a space. However, TBH I don't find this an issue. I'm often at various company locations and I can always find a space to plop myself down and work on my laptop whether it's some sort of enclave or just the cafeteria.
thanatropism 8y ago
That's the same problem of airplane overbooking. Everything has a cost, the false positives (empty desks where no one's coming) and the false negatives (people without desks). You have, as in the movie "Fight club", to figure out whether p * c0 < (1-p) * c1 or the other way around.
dredmorbius 8y ago
Fractional reserve hotdesking.
- FabHK 8y ago
  No worries, Starbucks is the desk of last resort.