Amazon’s announcement that it is requiring all staff to come back into the office five days a week has not only re-ignited the 'end of hybrid working' storylines (not going to happen), but it also shines a spotlight on an area that is critical to today’s working environment conversation, hot desking.

Hot desking is where staff are not assigned a specific desk in their office, and where typically an Organisation will provide less desks than the number of staff that use the building on the basis that it is rare for that building to be at full capacity at any given time.

Over a decade ago we sat on the sidelines as a global financial services provider whose ergonomics programme we ran, moved its London office to hot desking. We weren’t involved in this project, but were concerned that while much attention had been focussed on the desking and seating selection, little time seemed to have been spent on explaining the project to the key people, the actual people working in the building.

Unsurprisingly, the result was long queues, earlier and earlier in the morning, outside their building, as disgruntled staff anxiously waited to see if they could get “their” desk that day.

Recent research from Leesman highlighted that not having your own designated desk has some of the highest correlation with low workplace satisfaction. Hot desking is not proving popular amongst office workers, many of whom are being told at the same time to reduce the perceived benefits of homeworking to move back into this environment.

There are many good reasons for a hot desking programme, particularly around building occupancy rates, changing work styles and the creativity increases associated with being around different people some of the time. But what we have learned from many successful hot desking programmes in the resulting ten years is four main things.

Lee Jones, Future Workplace specialist and Workplace Wellbeing lead, understands this better than most, having implemented several successful hot desking programmes over the last few years.

“No hot desking programme should leave the planning board without four key elements baked into the process to ensure success. Analyse your data, engage and consult with the people that will be impacted by the hot desking programme, select the correct furniture for the programme, which isn’t just the seating and desking, and spend time before, during and after installation explaining the new working environment to colleagues.

At a recent installation of several thousand sit-stand desks, new ergonomic seating and breakout and meeting furniture that we completed, the client has attributed the high levels of staff satisfaction six months on not only to the design and the quality of the furniture selected, but also to the over 20 subsequent visits we have made to give seminars to staff. Of course we have explained how to use the furniture to staff, but also how to select where they can work not just daily but also in different styles throughout the day.”

Increasingly, those that have got used to the quiet of working from home over the last few years need that element of acoustic and physical privacy designed into their office space. We hear from office workers a sense that if you can focus on the work, not the work environment, you are going to be more productive and happier. That is what Wellworking has been able to help our clients achieve in this regard.

Hot desking, just like hybrid working, is here to stay. Whether your staff are, depends on how you deliver those programmes.