How to make hot-desking work
The highest private terrace in Manhattan belongs to an algorithmic-trading company called Hudson River Trading. Its offices, spread across several floors near the top of Three World Trade Centre, are more theme park than workplace: a games room, gym, dining areas, stupefying views, happy hours and drawers unexpectedly stuffed full of sweets to give employees a surprise. You come away wishing you had concentrated more in maths at school.
You also come away wondering about one of the silver linings of the post-pandemic office for bosses who dislike the idea of home-working. If fewer people are coming in on any one day, at least they don’t need as much space: they can find unassigned desks and the firm can save some money. The trouble is that hot-desking flies in the face of two things, one deeply embedded in the human psyche and the other a direct consequence of the pandemic.
The first is territoriality. This is a word with negative connotations. It conjures up someone who sees information as something to be hoarded and feedback as an intrusion—the kind of person who buys a padlock for the items they store in the communal fridge. But territoriality is also natural. Just as it is hard not to bridle a little at the unsolicited observations of co-workers, so people like having a space to call their own.
2023-10-05 07:47:55
Post from www.economist.com
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