What is hot desking

Hot desking is a workplace model in which employees do not have a permanently assigned desk. Instead, they use whichever shared desk suits them on the days they come in, either by booking it in advance or by taking a free one on arrival. It is most common in hybrid offices, where attendance varies from day to day and a desk for every employee would leave much of the floor empty.

The three terms are often used interchangeably, but they describe different arrangements. With assigned seating, each person has their own desk whether or not they are in. With hot desking, desks are shared and used day by day, typically by people who work at that office regularly. Hoteling is a reservation-first variant aimed at people who visit an office occasionally, such as staff from other sites, who book a workspace well ahead of arrival. Many offices mix all three: a few fixed desks, a hot desking floor, and a small pool reserved for visitors or particular teams.

In a managed hot desking setup, employees open a floor map or desk list, pick an available desk for the day, and book it. When they arrive they confirm the booking, often by scanning a QR code on the desk. If they do not confirm within a set time, the booking is released so someone else can use the desk. At the end of the booking the desk returns to the shared pool.

Unmanaged hot desking skips booking and confirmation: people take whatever is free. That works for small teams with spare space, but breaks down once popular days fill up.

• Introducing hot desking purely to cut space, without rules people can see and rely on.
• Allowing bookings with no confirmation, so forgotten reservations block real demand.
• Letting people hold several desks, or the same desk every day, until hot desking quietly becomes assigned seating.
• Splitting teams across the floor so that coming in no longer means sitting together.
• Measuring bookings instead of actual use, which hides empty desks behind full booking lists.

Teams that run hot desking well write the rules down before launch: how far ahead people can book, how long a booking can last, how check-in works, and what happens to unconfirmed desks. They keep space for teams that need to sit together, and they look at real usage rather than booking volume when deciding whether they have too many desks or too few.

DeskHybrid is built for shared desks. Employees book from an interactive floor map, and each person can hold one active booking per day, which stops quiet desk hoarding. If two people try to book the same desk at the same moment, the double booking is prevented at the database level and the second person is asked to choose another desk.

Admins can reserve desks for specific teams to create neighborhoods within an otherwise open floor, and can keep fixed desks for people who need them. When desk recommendations are switched on, suggested desks are highlighted on the booking floor plan with a legend, drawing on where teammates and frequent colleagues are sitting. Check-in by QR scan, with automatic release of unconfirmed bookings, keeps the map honest, and occupancy figures count only active desks. Employees can book and check in from the web app or the mobile apps. Available on Web, Android, and iOS.

If you want the operational model behind this term, see `/hot-desking-software`.

Moving a team to hot desking is mostly a change-management exercise.

Start with demand, not desks. Look at which days people actually come in. If Tuesday and Wednesday are full and Friday is empty, the policy questions are about peak days, not average occupancy.

Publish the rules in one place: the booking horizon, the maximum booking length, how check-in works, and what happens to unconfirmed desks. Short, specific rules are easier to follow than long principles.

Keep teams together. Reserve a cluster of desks for teams that collaborate daily, and leave the rest of the floor open. Desk suggestions based on teammates' bookings help people find each other without fixed zones for everyone.

Pilot on one floor before expanding, and fix what the pilot reveals, such as unreadable codes or a release delay that is too tight.

• https://officedeskapp.com/pillars/desk-booking-software-guide
• https://officedeskapp.com/pillars/hybrid-workplace-operating-system

Hot desking rules drift if nobody owns them. Name one owner in workplace operations who can change booking settings, and agree with HR how changes are announced.

Review usage monthly for the first quarter, then quarterly. Watch for signs that hot desking is turning back into assigned seating, such as the same people on the same desks every day, and for peak days where demand regularly exceeds active desks. Adjust one rule at a time and record why, so the next review can see whether it helped.