Hot desking isn’t some new phenomenon. However, with the cloud, and all the various new methods of communications, the prospect of hot desking has become a more attractive option for lots of businesses.
If you’re pondering whether your business could thrive by breaking free from long-term office letting agreements and hopping onto the hot desk model, we’ve put together a guide to the key things you need to consider and the questions you need to ask yourself.
What is hot desking?
Hot Desking is a shared office space concept where multiple people work in one physical work station during a different period of time.
In practice, it means you rent a desk in a shared office and can work at the specific desk for as long as you wish that day. Usually, this way of serviced office working style is the most price-friendly one and is many times used by individuals who are entrepreneurs or travellers and want to work from the office environment.
They are also used by groups for a short or long period of time. This way of working ensures no long-term lease and makes it more flexible. This price-affordable solution is one of the most popular, following serviced offices and co-working spaces along.
Do you want to expand fast?
Expansion into other regions within the same country or abroad is accelerated when you have people on the ground in that location. Hot desking can enable you to hire someone to work for your business in multiple locations without establishing a full office or business premise there.
Breaking into new markets comes with risk; however, this risk is alleviated if you first establish your presence through hiring a hot desk or shared office space.
Are your employees seeking more flexible working arrangements?
Family life, daily commutes and extra-curricular activities – none of these are easy to manage when trying to battle the standard 9 to 5 working hours. This is why businesses worldwide, from start-ups to corporates, are tailoring working arrangements to attract and retain employees.
Would the ability to work at a local hot desk, enjoy a reduced commute and more flexible working hours appeal to your employees? Would it impact positively on recruitment? If so, then hot desking is definitely an option worth considering.
How much storage do you need?
Once the day is done, employees have to clear up all of the stuff before vacating a hot desk. If your line of work involves storage of files, carrying around notes, documents, writing pads, drawings etc, hot desking can prove a problem.
That’s why legal and accounting firms tend to go down the hired workspace route vs. hot desking. However, if your files are in the cloud and/or your employees merely bring themselves, a notepad and a laptop, the absence of storage won’t prove an obstacle to your business pursuing a hot desk set-up.
Do you require the use of certain technologies or hardware?
Will your employees require workstations with PCs or will they want to use their own company laptop? If they need to use a PC, will they need to have specific programs installed? Do some workers (creative designers or developers perhaps) need to use a Mac computer?
Hot desking suits businesses best where employees can come and take a desk and work from a company laptop with all of the programs and technologies they need installed or simply using cloud services via a PC.
How confidential is your work?
If you work with sensitive information, which you must discuss over the phone or face-to-face with clients, a shared working space might not be the best fit for your business. Confidentiality is key and if clients don’t feel that their data or business interests will remain private, they will likely go elsewhere.
If this isn’t such a key issue for your line of business, hot desking is very much a live option.
Is networking important to your business?
A key advantage of hot desking is that every day an employee comes to the shared office space, they will likely sit beside someone different – someone who might not even work for the same company.
This opens up endless networking opportunities for employees, especially for opening up B2B sales opportunities.
Do your employees require complete silence?
With different employees from different companies working in the same space, it’s not going to be like a library. For those who prefer to lock themselves away and put their head down, working in a hot desking space may prove a struggle as they will be relying on finding a free desk away from the crowd.
Those used to working in a busy open office space and those who motivate themselves by popping in their headphones will do just fine though.
The work environment as we know it is changing fast, and it’s a welcome change. If hot desking is the right fit for your business, why not try it out and reap the huge rewards.
