In a world of hybrid work, hot desking is becoming more prevalent

Having a desk of one’s own is becoming a rarer occurrence in the workplace. A survey out this week from Morgan Stanley finds that about a third of office workers in the U.S. say their employers have introduced what’s known as “hot desking.” That’s where workers aren’t assigned a dedicated place to work, but can grab any old desk that’s free. It’s a cost-saving measure that’s more common now than it was pre-pandemic, but not all workers like it.

The term “hot desking” is thought to stem from a military practice called “hot racking,” where service members working different hours might share the same bunk.

“You don’t have your own bed because you work in shifts, and you just show up and sleep wherever anything’s available,” said Dror Poleg, author of the forthcoming book “After Office.” “And yes it is warm.”

He said the idea is the same in the workplace. 

“So, the desk remains warm, because there’s always somebody there,” he said.

These days only about half of the desks in an office are being used, according to Ronald Kamdem, one of the authors of that new report from Morgan Stanley. He actually spoke to me from a hot desk. 

And he said if employers can get workers to share the same desk — keeping it hot, so to speak — they could save money by using smaller offices. 

“They’re going to see an opportunity for cost savings, if they can sort of reduce their space,” Kamdem said.

Kamdem said companies could put those savings toward renting more desirable offices, say, near public transit hubs. 

Also, hot desking lets employers see what areas of an office workers want to use.

“You can just see that, you know, some areas are avoided altogether,” said Poleg. “So you can ask yourself, why aren’t people going here? Does it smell? Is it too hot? Is it too bright?”

Hot desking means people only have some control over where they work. They might end up in a noisy section of the office, for example, when they want to concentrate.

They also have to schlep everything they might need with them — laptops, files, snacks — and they might be far away from their close colleagues. 

Manju Adikesavan has researched hot desking as a PhD candidate at CUNY. 

“People really struggle if they don’t have their team workers close at hand, and it actually defeats the purpose of being in an office,” she said.

She said some employers divide up flexible workspace by team, so a close colleague is more likely to be one hot desk over.