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Our office transitioned to desk hoteling. What it amounted to is a small set of people switching desks semi-regularly. The first month, everyone pulled down all

by beart 8y ago

Our office transitioned to desk hoteling. What it amounted to is a small set of people switching desks semi-regularly. The first month, everyone pulled down all their personal stuff. Six months later, most people never actually changed desks and ended up putting their personal stuff back up, 'claiming' desks as theirs anyway.

0xffff2 8y ago
Didn't "hoteling" start out as "hot desking", where the idea is that there are fewer desks than employees because some percentage of employees are out of the office each day? What the point of not having assigned desks if you still have as many desks as employees?
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  > What the point of not having assigned desks if you still have as many desks as employees? This is the point: > https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/ https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/ > As the unofficial story goes, Jay Chiat was skiing down a mountain in Telluride when it dawned on him that the conventional American office structure was antiquated and counterproductive; that revolution was not only inevitable but overdue; and that destiny had selected him, Jay Chiat, as its agent of change. So the boss can see himself as a trend-setting visionary. That link it pretty interesting, since it was clear that "hoteling" was awful 20 years ago in 1999. It's bizarre that I was reading about the how terrible 2019's trends in office space are when I was a kid.
- beart 8y ago
  In our case, we travel frequently so it isn't completely unjustified. However, in practice, everyone just started working remotely after the change so now there's rows of empty desks.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    For better or worse, when remote working gets normed in a company location or group it tends to naturally expand. A lot of people who are more or less indifferent between working in the office or staying home stop coming in because so many of their co-workers aren't there.

by beart 8y ago

0xffff2 8y ago

Didn't "hoteling" start out as "hot desking", where the idea is that there are fewer desks than employees because some percentage of employees are out of the office each day? What the point of not having assigned desks if you still have as many desks as employees?

CharlesColeman 8y ago
> What the point of not having assigned desks if you still have as many desks as employees? This is the point: > https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/ https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/ > As the unofficial story goes, Jay Chiat was skiing down a mountain in Telluride when it dawned on him that the conventional American office structure was antiquated and counterproductive; that revolution was not only inevitable but overdue; and that destiny had selected him, Jay Chiat, as its agent of change. So the boss can see himself as a trend-setting visionary. That link it pretty interesting, since it was clear that "hoteling" was awful 20 years ago in 1999. It's bizarre that I was reading about the how terrible 2019's trends in office space are when I was a kid.
beart 8y ago
In our case, we travel frequently so it isn't completely unjustified. However, in practice, everyone just started working remotely after the change so now there's rows of empty desks.
- ghaff 8y ago
  For better or worse, when remote working gets normed in a company location or group it tends to naturally expand. A lot of people who are more or less indifferent between working in the office or staying home stop coming in because so many of their co-workers aren't there.