Why Do Some People Experience Hot Desking Disadvantages?

Posted Wednesday 8th May 2019

Speak to several different people who have tried hot desking and you’ll receive several different takes on it. Some will no doubt have embraced it and find no downsides to working this way. Others will detest it. But most people probably fall somewhere in the middle. Many do enjoy it, but there might be some hot desking disadvantages they’ve experienced that they’ll tell you about.

No sense of permanence

Some people prefer a desk they can call their own. That’s fine – we all work in different ways. Some have so much equipment and paperwork it is not practical to move desks each day. However, others dislike the freedom it gives them to move from one desk to another from day to day.

They may not have had prior knowledge of hot desking

This is a big reason why some people struggle to adapt to this method of working. For example, they might simply turn up at work knowing they are switching to hot desking, yet they may not know anything about it. This is an easy problem to solve, simply by exploring how it works and what to expect ahead of time.

They are not prepared to work like this

By prepared, we don’t mean willing. We mean prepared in a physical sense. It may be necessary to change the way they work, i.e. by limiting the amount of paperwork they use at work. Since nothing can be left behind when the desk is vacated, it doesn’t make sense to now carry everything they used to leave in their own desk.

Remain open minded

This is by far the most important element to remember. Some people automatically put themselves at a disadvantage by writing off the idea of hot desking before they have even tried it. This may simply be because they are resistant to the idea of change.

Maybe you are naturally like this too. Many of us are. But think about the changes you have made for the better in your life. Hot desking might turn out to give you the freedom you have always wanted to feel at work. Do you get bored going to the same old desk every day? Switching to hot desking gives you the freedom to work wherever you like. They say a change is as good as a rest – hot desking makes this a possibility and a reality.