Over the last year or two, businesses have gradually been shaping their long-term response to the changes within the world of work. The hybrid work model has many large enterprises re-evaluating their office space needs and traditional, assigned desks are inefficient when employees aren’t always in the office. Desk sharing offers significant benefits but requires a strategic approach to ensure success across a large organization.
Organizations have come to realize that there are plenty of upsides to moving towards a shared desk policy within the office. For starters, desk sharing allows large enterprises to right-size their office footprint, lowering lease, utility, and overhead expenses. Alternatively, they can redeploy the space they’ve freed up for other, more creative uses, and develop spaces that employees appreciate and that promote productivity.
In any case, for a shared desk policy to succeed, it must be as easy as possible for employees to reserve and use the desks when needed. It also needs to be as transparent as possible and be carefully planned so that the smooth operations of departments within the business are maintained. This blog explores the five most important considerations when making shared desk arrangements work.
Easy searching and booking
Employees don’t want to feel like booking a desk is a chore. If they must go through an administration team, make requests by phone call or email, or wait hours or days for a response, then they will quickly be put off and be more likely to stick with working from home. Ideally, they should be able to use a single online platform to search for all the spaces within the office that are available at their chosen time. They can then find one with all the attributes that meet their needs, and make a reservation quickly, easily and independently.
Variety of spaces
Employees will be coming into the office for different reasons, so they’ll need a desk space that suits their circumstances. For example, if they need to collaborate with co-workers, they might need a desk in an open-plan environment close to others. However, if they’re coming in for a quiet environment or for some focused time, then they’ll need somewhere private like a work pod or small office. Reshaping the office environment to maximize the range of desk space types available can remove much of the compromise of office-based work for many employees.
Prioritizing by team or role
Balance flexibility with the need for teams to work together, and this is where careful implementation of a desk-sharing policy is important. If desk bookings are run as a free-for-all, then it can be difficult and maybe even impossible for groups of people to book desks near each other so they can collaborate. Good workspace booking software achieves this through the ability to set customizable rules, i.e. certain spaces are only allowed to be booked by certain employees or departments at certain times.
Instant visibility of bookings
When employees have booked a space, they want to be 100% certain that it will be ready and waiting for them as soon as they arrive. Nothing will frustrate employees more than finding that somebody else has stolen the space they’ve reserved or has occupied it unknowingly. Shared desks, however, can be equipped with small information screens integrated with the booking solution, clearly displaying reservation information to anyone in the area. They can even be equipped with RFID technology that allows the employee with the reservation to ‘check in’ at the desk when their booking starts.
By implementing these strategies, large enterprises can leverage desk sharing to optimize their physical space, improve employee satisfaction, and ultimately, drive business success.
