From open workspaces to closed offices and everything in between, there are dozens of office designs in vogue in today’s workspaces. But as companies explore new workplace strategies as they weigh up how best to bring employees back to the office after Covid-19, many are exploring reconfiguring their workspaces to meet changing employee demands.

As businesses adjust to a post-lockdown world, many are contending with what the implications of continuing remote policies will be on office occupancy rates, in addition to employee needs in the workplace. Recent surveys have shown that employees want to go back to the office for three main reasons: to collaborate with colleagues, to attend in-person meetings and to have a quiet place for individual work.

This has led to some companies taking a fresh look at hot desking, which is a popular workplace practice among co-working providers and serviced offices, for their own dedicated and private offices.

Hot desking explained

Hot desking is a workplace strategy that started in the 1990s that does away with assigned seating for employees and instead offers them the ability to choose where, and how, they work within a given office environment. There’s no ‘fixed seat’ for a person and workers are free to work at any open seat, desk, table or workstation, which offers the flexibility and autonomy to select a dedicated workspace based on the work they’re doing.

Hot desking offers companies one way to reconfigure their workspaces with a focus on collaborative spaces while offering unassigned individual workstations. Businesses can also invest in designing a variety of unique workspaces that range from private rooms to open workstations, social spaces and meeting areas. So an employee who needs a place for focused, individual work can choose to work in a private room or at a desk. Conversely, an employee who needs to collaborate with colleagues can use a meeting room or communal area.

Pros of hot desks

Hot desking enables employees to choose where and how they work across the office, granting them a level of flexibility and autonomy that doesn’t exist in traditional office settings. It prioritises employee choice whilst at the same time enables companies to make more efficient use of their space offering enough workstations to meet average demand in the office and shed excess working spaces, if the need arises.

The role of the office needs to evolve to favour teamwork over individual work, and hot desking can increase collaboration and productivity. By its very nature, hot desking forces employees to walk around the office to find a workplace, and often ensures they interact with people they might not otherwise connect with. It encourages a creative environment where people get to interact, collaborate and socialise with other teams.

Cons of hot desks

Hot desking works on a first-come, first-served basis which means if you like a particular space then you have to come early to take that seat, or else it might not be available. If improperly implemented, it can lead to employees spending too much time looking for a workspace instead of actually working. Employees could therefore be likely to face difficulties in working well with one another. If the workspaces offered aren’t well designed, lack of privacy can also then become an issue as people don’t get their personal space with lots of activity around them which causes unnecessary distractions and hampers productivity.

Security, or lack thereof, is another challenge businesses encounter with hot desking. Due to the transient design of hot desking, poor implementations can make it hard for individual employees to securely store their personal belongings. But in the age of Covid-19, security goes beyond personal belongings and private workspaces. It also extends to health. Under a hot desking model, employees can choose where they sit, and swap desks as needed. This inherently causes health-related complications and social distancing issues in the coronavirus pandemic.

Stay safe and secure

At Dams, we provide secure storage areas perfect for our hot desking and co-working environments, and it’s advisable for companies who adopt these work practises to offer similar storage areas for their employees, too. Our range of wooden and steel storage lockers cover a variety of storage solutions that cater for storing employees personal effects, clothing and possessions in all office and workplace environments. Lockers are the perfect storage solution for hot desking spaces to keep business premises not only functional but also clutter free.

With employees not having a fixed desk, this can actually lead to a cleaner, more organised, and professional-looking workspace that can help inspire productivity, focus, and engagement. Workers can finish their tasks for the day, leave the work area with their laptop and phone, collect their personal belongings from a locker and no clutter is left behind, ready for the next working day.

In addition to enhancing workplace security, lockers can also be used around pillars and posts in workplaces to help create zones in the office environment, by using the locker units as a dividing wall and a visual barrier between departments and working groups, perfect for the modern, hot desking workplace. And why not add a counter top to the standing height units for a casual standing meeting area, or even add an over-sized planter on to the top filled with greenery to complete the biophilic, natural workplace look.

Furthermore, companies adopting the hot desking model should also implement a number of health-related measures to ensure workplace safety. These include increased cleaning schedules, social distancing signage, hand sanitising stations, limited capacity in meeting rooms and place mats that indicate what workspaces are clean and available to use.

Plan for the future

The work environment is changing – both in design and purpose. Employees are re-evaluating how they would like to work – at home, in a coffee shop, in the office, hot desking, or a hybrid working model. In return, many businesses are considering what the impact will be of continued remote-work policies on office occupancy rates. More simply, as people continue to spend at least part of the week working remotely, many companies will suddenly find themselves with excess or unused office space.

Hot desking is emerging as a practical solution that provides employees with flexibility and agility in the office, and helps companies save money by making more efficient use of their office space. Like any new concept tested within a business, there are pros and cons inherent to this workplace strategy. But if it’s properly implemented, hot desking can also improve company culture by encouraging people from different teams to interact and breaking down barriers across the business.

Meetings… everyone’s favourite office pastime! Whilst meetings can sometimes get bad press; being seen as an insufficient use of time; dragging on for too long and being somewhat repetitive – these bad experiences don’t have to become habit! Many businesses struggle with inadequate internal communications and meetings can play a major role in improving this.
So here are few tips to make meetings more productive.
Purpose / agenda
Be clear upfront about the objective of the meeting and what needs to be achieved. For meetings with high attendance or that is longer than an hour, set out an agenda; it’s easier to keep the meeting on topic and on time. It also allows for people to manage their own time, they may not be needed for the entire meeting and can drop out early to focus on other work.
If you happen to have external attendees or staff from a different division,
name badges can help to keep the conversation personal and make everyone
feel included.
Do you really need an hour?
It might be the default setting on your calendar, but consider if you really need an hour to discuss the topic at hand? If you are clear on what the purpose of the meeting is, it’s often easier to keep the meeting shorter.
Here’s another tip, try starting a meeting at quarter past the hour, it’ll cut the chit chat time!
Who needs to attend?
Frustrated by people constantly checking their phones or catching up on their laptops? Chances are they don’t need to be in the meeting. Try implementing the Elon Musk meeting rule, of no more than 4 to 6 attendees unless absolutely necessary.
Would you be ok with people leaving a meeting or dropping off a call early? Better than them wasting their time and dragging the meeting mood down.
For clarity on such project meetings, consider using the RACI matrix (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) – this will further help to ascertain who needs to be in the meeting and who should maybe just be cc’d in on the minutes.
Be present
Everyone has other work to be doing as well – so engage, leave your other projects at the door and put those devices down!

“Have you heard the rumour that Janet in HR is applying for the new payroll manager role?”
“No way? She would never cope. I’m still waiting to get my holiday for next month signed off, I wouldn’t want to have to wait that long for my wages!” Laughter
“I know, and Paul in marketing reckons we are going to be getting new computers because Steve from downstairs overheard Leslie being asked to get a couple of quotes together…”
The water cooler conversations, or informal conversations, has been highlighted in the media as an example of how office workers are missing out on the human interaction that you only get in the workplace on a face-to-face level. Video calls and Zoom have been a great way to stay in touch, but tend to lead to very functional conversations, dealing with the business in hand and cutting out some of the small talk.
Not such a bad thing some might say, but there is a mental well-being issue at stake here too. Humans are not machines, we have needs outside of just being functional. We need social interaction on a personal level, but also to help our businesses to thrive. It is very difficult to ping ideas off of each other in an online brain-storming session, it lacks the creativity, the energy, the talking over each other, discussing, debating, disagreeing before arriving at the most brilliant of ideas that would never have been reached without that interaction.
However, there is an expectation now that many companies are going to adopt a new “hybrid” way of working – Greater flexibility and a balance between office time and working from home. Some will embrace this; others would prefer to just get back into the office and return to a sense of normality. Everyone is different, has different needs and feelings. So, how do you create a balance between offering lifestyle flexibility and avoiding creating divisions and exclusions? How do you stop the person that chooses to work from home more often from becoming the topic of gossip at the water cooler, or excluded from spontaneous discussions and conversations in the workplace?
The first step is for the employer to recognise the importance of the informal conversations and the benefits they bring to the business and take that into consideration when finalising the hybrid arrangements for the company. Once that is realised, a simple first step would be to have all members of the team in the office on at least one particular day. In a larger company it might not be the whole team, just specific departments on specific days.
That is when the magic can happen, bringing people together, keeping everyone informed and feeling a part of the team. Companies can take further actions to facilitate these informal discussions by encouraging people not to eat at their desks on these days and maybe even make sure that coffee machines and water coolers are not in individuals’ offices but in a shared environment that encourages movement away from their own workspace and into an area of interaction; even go so far as suggesting that time is set aside in the day to make a point of walking around, talking to fellow team members and triggering those conversations that can so often lead to some of the very best ideas.
For an employer the key is to provide opportunities for informal communications to happen naturally and not to force it with rigid structures and designated discussion times – That could potentially have the complete opposite effect. We are, after all humans, with changing moods and emotions.

Just getting started can be tough – use these tips to help launch your list-making lifestyle.

Visual cues
Adapt your organisational style to your personality type and make your system work for you.
Are you visually oriented? Or more about seeing things than reading words? Rather than trying to use someone else’s system, lean into your outlook to create more organisation in your life. So, if you’re a visual person, keep a stack of Post-it® Super Sticky Notes, 76mm x 76mm around — with no lines, they’re the perfect place to jot down drawings and doodles that keep you inspired. Since you can stick them and re-stick them however you want, you can use them to create a visual map of your thinking and change it as often as you like.

The brain dump
Get things out of your head and onto paper! Unloading your mind helps you focus on what’s important.
If your tasks are just racing around in your brain and you don’t know what to do first, try a good old-fashioned brain dump. Using a stack of Post-it® Super Sticky Notes, 76mm x 76mm, take five minutes — no more — and write down every single thing you can think of that you need to do in the next week, one on each note. Write down whatever’s cluttering up your brain, personal or professional, and get it out of your head. Once you’ve cleared things out, you can forget about what’s worrying you and get back to what’s important.

Is something bothering you? Jot it down!
If you’ve got a nagging task that starts to take up too much headspace, get it out of there.
Occasionally, a small task that isn’t very important can be disproportionately distracting. Whether it’s something you’ve been putting off or something you’re not sure how to accomplish, this kind of task can easily become a huge energy suck, causing anxiety that gets in the way of productivity. When that happens, even though it might not seem like that task should be a priority, it’s time to make it one. Put it at the top of your to-do list on a Post-it® Super Sticky Note 101mm
x 153mm, and put it right in your line of sight so you can’t ignore it.

Thanks to the mindful maverick, www.3m.co.uk

It seems I am not as much of a freak as I first thought I was. Since the last edition when I confessed to being a Stationery Lover I have been contacted by a number of people who also secretly share a passion for the Rexel Easy Touch Low Force Half Strip Stapler with flat clinch technology…and all other things stationery.
It is starting to get much busier for me at work now, which is good for the company and hopefully an indication of an improving economy, but it does mean that I have less time to indulge in my passion and more often than not have to look for tenuous ways to use as much stationery as possible whilst working. My best effort was last week when I volunteered to update all the signage around the building with covid-secure messages. To be honest, I think my boss was just expecting me to quickly download a few images from the web, plonk them in Microsoft Word with a few images and then print them out – Oh how he doesn’t know me!
First off, I spent ages looking through the specialist Infection Control catalogue sent to me by our office products supplier where I selected a number of ready-to-go signs (some of them are up to a metre long – massive!) and then for the rest of the more personal signs I raided the stationery cupboard for laminating pouches – well, raid actually makes it sound like a quick in and out, I managed to spend upwards of half-an-hour digging through the piles of post-it notes, files and assorted pens, deliberately taking my time to see if there was anything else I could use at my own desk.
Once I had found enough pouches, GBC Fusion High Speed of course, I then reverted to quickly printing off some signs on the printer before preparing myself for an hour of sheer laminating delight (I kicked myself afterwards for choosing the high-speed pouches, I could easily have made the job last over two hours!). I don’t know if you have experienced the sheer delight of laminating? It is so soothing, satisfying and relaxing. Some people might choose a jacuzzi or sauna; not me, give me a pile of laminating pouches and a GBC Fusion 3000L Laminator and I am as happy as Larry.
I do sometimes wonder if there is something abnormal about my obsession for stationery. Driving home the other day I found myself trying to remember the names of all the colour ranges in the Post-it Notes Super Sticky range. Miami, Bangkok, New York and Rio De Janeiro just rolled off my tongue; Marrakesh took me a good couple of miles to recall, but I just could not remember the name of the assorted pack that contains Poppy, Neon Green and Aquawave colours (It’s the Bora Bora Collection for anyone interested).
By the end of the journey I was really quite jealous of the person who had the job of coming up with the names of the different colour collections – Where do they get New York from? I’ve no idea, but I love it! I tried to get the landlord at our local pub to include a round on Post-it Notes in the monthly quiz, but he just told me to go away and get a life! Hey, the cheek of it, him telling me to get a life? I bet he has never punched through 180 sheets of paper with a single staple.

If you’re developing a corporate wellness programme, you might be focusing heavily on exercise and diet to improve office productivity. But have you ever thought about the office air quality? Research from Harvard and Syracuse Universities shows that the air circulating in most workspaces may actually be hindering worker performance.
The Average Office vs. The Office with Cleaner Air
In this study, workers conducted their regular office duties in a typical office building workspace. The same workers on other days repeated their daily tasks but in a workspace with improved ventilation and a reduction of indoor pollutants.
Results showed that employees in the clean air environment performed 61% better on cognitive tasks than in the standard office conditions. Further, by doubling the ventilation in the clean air office, cognitive performance increased by more than 100%.
Clean Air Initiatives That Help Employees Be at Their Best
Take these three steps to improve your indoor air quality in any commercial location. The best equipment, some careful observation, and a disciplined inspection routine will improve the air wherever you work.
Implement an Air Treatment System in Your Workspace
Adding an air purifier not only continuously cleans the air, but also shows employees you have their wellness in mind. To ensure you have the best air cleaning system, look for an air purifier that meets hospital-grade filtration. The best commercial air purifiers include:
• A True HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter that captures 99.97% of airborne contaminants including viruses and allergens
• Activated carbon filter that reduces odours and VOCs (Volatile organic compounds)
• Automated features that adjust to changing indoor pollutant levels for optimized clean air efficiency
Focus on ventilation
• Maintain ventilation systems through scheduled cleanings
• Check for damage in HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems where VOC’s and other airborne pollutants may be recirculating into workspaces
• Check the entire HVAC system for mould and test the air for CO2 emissions
Stop Air Pollutants at the Source
• Check for common sources of indoor air pollution including paint fumes in newly painted offices or mould and mildew in carpeted areas
• Ensure chemical and other maintenance supply storage is not impacting indoor air
• Evaluate traffic areas that may introduce auto fumes from parking areas into workspaces
With these simple steps, you can boost the well-being and performance of employees, reduce absenteeism, and add a new benefit to your wellness program that is clearly refreshing.