I saw some people mention hot desking on another thread, so I thought I'd share the quite long (and possibly boring!) list I've been keeping of issues I have with hot desking.
The only logic I can see in it is that the office can be smaller and cheaper to run, because there's not enough desks for every employee to be in the office every day.
But in my opinion there are so many disadvantages to it for both autistic and allistic people.
1. There's not enough space when there's a company event held in the office.
2. It's a faff to sit at a different desk, changing the screen height and chair position every day.
3. People frequently struggle to connect to the correct mouse/keyboard.
4. It doesn't accommodate/draws attention to people who need a special chair for medical reasons.
5. Sitting next to different people encourages more chatting, which I find distracting and I'm sure this reduces general productivity.
6. Then there's the cleanliness issue (other people's germs and crumbs) to contend with when sharing a mouse and keyboard.
7. I always sit at the same desk, which occasionally draws unwanted attention to me, as others are more inclined to move around.
8. I have my screen brightness right down. If someone sits at my desk, when I'm not in, they can't see the screen without faffing around with the settings. I then have to change the settings back the following day.
9. When I have been forced to move desks, the change in scenery (light, noise etc) is very distracting.
10. The company has to pay for a desk booking software.
11. People often book more than one desk by accident.
12. You may accidentally sit in someone else favourite seat.
13. There's nowhere to keep your stationery (we do have some small lockers, but they are at ground level and you have to crouch down to access them, which isn't very accessible for some of our older employees).
14. In my sister's workplace, you can get in trouble for sitting in the same seat every day, which seems very unreasonable.
All that said, I'm very grateful to be almost exclusively office based rather than being on-site!
