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Hot desking

Most people now understand that the term "hot desking" refers to the provision of one or more desks for use, on an ad-hoc basis, by staff members who are not permanently based in the office. Hot desking can make expensive office space more flexible and highly productive. It has been shown that users can work in a hot desking environment as well as they did in their own personal, dedicated, office space - all it needs is forethought, planning and a little imagination.

As with many business concepts, the practice evolves and new terminology has now been developed to distinguish between the various types of flexible working that support hot desking. For example :

• Cubicles and Caves are both terms used to refer to 'private' places within an open plan office, formed by screening and/or partitioning, to offer a degree of privacy or quiet. They have the advantage of being demountable, increasing flexibility, and lowering relocation costs. Where cubicles/caves are adopted to provide hot desking, storage should be discouraged or provided in a mobile form.
• Hotelling refers to hot desking when workers can ring in advance to pre-book the area and support facilites they need for a work session. These facilites are then arranged by a 'concierge' to minimise downtime.
• Motelling is similar to hotelling but does not involve pre-booking - workers simply turn up and arrange their facilities 'on the spot'. This is probably the closest to the traditionally understanding of what is meant by "hot desking".
• Guesting is rare but refers to mutual arrangments between two (or more) organisations to provide hot desks for each other's employees because, for example, it makes sense on a geographic basis.

Thus, though the principle of hot desking remains the same, there is a wider range of ways in which it can be facilitated.

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