If you utilize open office space, hot desking and have collaborative spaces that are not meeting rooms, it is definitely wise to look into digital assistance to coordinate these areas. The risk of having trouble finding available desks increases the more areas and desks are free for the taking. You need a system, and we believe a digital solution that encompasses meeting rooms as well as desks can benefit many middle to larger organisations.
Desk booking is relatively new. Open offices have been a trend for a long time, but the technology and practices when it comes to this has just recently caught up. Many companies are already using room booking managers, but desk booking is not as common yet. Luckily, it is easy to get both of these time-saving features in the same solution.
There are two types of desk booking. Either you support the practice of booking a desk for the day, making it similar to ordinary hot desking where you benefit from being early on the scene. Or, you could allow for a larger time frame where you book desks days in advance, this is known as “desk hoteling” because it resembles how you plan a stay at a hotel.
The actual solution can work differently, there is no set standard practice as of yet. You could for example implement maps and visually find your desk. Useful for a large office complex with many rooms and floors. It all really depends on your individual office setup and current needs.
No matter where the trend goes in the future, the notion of a more open office and collaborative spaces is sure to stick around for a while. The reasons are real estate prices and new tech enabling. But also a preference in workers where working from home is seen as comfortable and even more productive.
The open, free-seated office trend is already implemented to a huge degree, so the next logical step is to synchronize your desk and spaces just like you do meeting rooms. The risk is obviously that workers spend uncesseracy time trying to find available desks that they could spend on working.
Quite simply, desk booking is when you digitally reserve desks, areas and locations that are shared with others, like in shared offices or offices using hot desking where workers move around the office freely instead of having an assigned space. The idea is that instead of rushing to the hot desking office to grab a spot, you can book your desk in advance. Similarly to room booking you can see which desks are taken and can book it on the spot using a laptop or your phone.
