• Collaboration
• Hybrid & Remote Work

How Hot Desking Solutions Can Help with Finding Colleagues in a Hybrid Workplace

Summary:

• Hot desking supports collaboration in hybrid workplaces by encouraging on-site employees to connect and share ideas. This enhances team cohesion and creativity.
• Maximizing office space through hot desking allows companies to downsize or repurpose space by only using the number of desks needed for on-site staff at a given time.
• Key technologies for hot desking include user-friendly booking systems, remote monitoring and analytics, and video conferencing to ensure seamless collaboration between on-site and remote workers.
• YMCA’s hot desking success demonstrates the value of flexible desk booking systems and mobile video conferencing to support hybrid team collaboration.
• Hot desking helps hybrid offices remain adaptable by promoting efficient use of space and technology, leading to a more collaborative and connected workplace for everyone.

How Hot Desking Solutions Can Help with Finding Colleagues in a Hybrid Workplace

One of the biggest perceived challenges of hybrid work is that spending less time together in the office means fewer opportunities to socialize. Not only can this impact the mental and emotional well-being of employees; it can also reduce opportunities for team building and cohesion on group projects.

Investing in video conferencing solutions can help off-site team members feel more connected to their peers, but you should also take steps to improve collaboration between people who are physically coming to the office. Hot desking can help encourage employees to mingle, share ideas, and develop more productive working relationships.

The Need to Encourage Collaboration in Hybrid Spaces

In traditional office environments, the workplace was a place where people could run into each other at the water cooler and have conversations between tasks or meetings. It’s important to note that this kind of socializing wasn’t wasted time—it actually provided opportunities for team members to share ideas and encounter new perspectives.

It might seem difficult to quantify the value of these activities, but their absence can be felt keenly. Employees who feel isolated from their peers are often less productive and less creative because they have fewer opportunities for this kind of natural synergy—at least, that’s what many believe.

Better Collaboration Starts with Your Space

But mandating that people come back to the office isn’t the answer. As we’ve written elsewhere, the benefits of hybrid work far outweigh the challenges, from better use of corporate real estate to additional flexibility for individual team members.

Instead, the solution is to make sure your office space maximizes opportunities for productive collaboration. This creates a win-win-win situation where everyone benefits:

• Individual employees retain the freedom offered by the hybrid work model
• Teams become stronger and more cohesive as members have more opportunities to interact
• The office becomes a place where people want to work, improving workplace occupancy

Learn More: Encourage Employees to Come Into Work by Making the Office More Useful

How Hot Desking Promotes Team Building

Hot desking is one of the best ways to organize a hybrid office to improve cohesion among on-site employees. Allowing individual team members to reserve their desks on an as-needed basis creates opportunities for them to connect with colleagues they might not otherwise encounter. This often leads to more innovative solutions and stronger working relationships.

With hot desking, employees who come to work get to:

• Collaborate with a greater number of their team members on a given project
• Expose themselves to a more diverse spectrum of opinions and experiences
• Vet and validate ideas more thoroughly through peer-to-peer feedback
• Easily change their working location in the office to keep things fresh and prevent monotony

Additionally, hybrid workplaces that use hot desking can often downsize or repurpose a portion of their physical office space. Permanently assigning desks to hybrid team members means they spend a significant amount of time sitting empty when those employees work remote—but hot desking means you only need as many desks as your average number of team members working on-site at a given time.

Learn More: How to Make Corporate Real Estate Decisions for a Hybrid Workforce: Best Practices & More

Key Technologies to Integrate for Successful Hot Desking

There are several different technology solutions you should implement if you want to maximize the benefits of hot desking:

• • User-friendly booking systems are the backbone of any successful hot desking strategy. These systems allow employees to reserve desks in advance or find available workstations in real-time, ensuring a smooth and efficient transition between remote and in-office work.

• Remote monitoring and analytics can provide valuable information on which desks are being used and how often. This data helps you continue to refine and optimize your space to make sure you have the right number of desks available as the organization and its needs evolve.

• Video conferencing systems can support seamless collaboration between on-site employees and remote team members. This kind of technology isn’t just for meeting rooms; it can also be extremely useful for individual workstations and huddle spaces!

Successful Hot Desking with YMCA

At ET Group, we’ve worked with several organizations to successfully implement hot desking in their hybrid work environments. Our recent work with YMCA is an excellent example.

YMCA aimed to better support their hybrid workforce by implementing a more efficient system for managing desk bookings. With employees alternating between working remotely and in-office, the organization required a solution that would allow staff to reserve desks easily and flexibly.

To meet these needs, an advanced hot desking system was integrated into their existing AV stack. This system enabled employees to book desks on-demand, ensuring that workspace allocation could be dynamically managed.

Additionally, three mobile video conferencing carts were introduced to support hybrid collaboration, allowing the YMCA team to maintain high levels of connectivity between on-site and remote staff. This approach provided a scalable and adaptable solution, ensuring the YMCA team could efficiently manage their workspace and collaborate effectively across locations.

The Future of Hot Desking in Hybrid Offices

As more organizations embrace hybrid work, making spaces more efficient will become a vital part of remaining competitive. Hot desking is a natural solution for keeping your workplace adaptable and collaborative without the increased overhead of maintaining a larger and more traditional office environment.

ET Group’s hybrid solutions can combine hot desking with advanced video conferencing technology to create a seamless experience for in-office and remote personnel alike. We can also support the maintenance and development of these solutions through remote monitoring and workplace analytics that give you the data you need to keep improving your workplace as your organization grows.

Book a discovery call with our team today and find out how we can help make hybrid work for you.

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