Hot Desks - Are They Good or Bad?
Written by Jordan Lees - Ergonomics and Workplace Health and Safety Expert.
B. Physiotherapy (Hons), B. Law, Grad Dip WHS.
B. Physiotherapy (Hons), B. Law, Grad Dip WHS.
Over the last couples of years, I have noticed that more and more offices are adopting a “hot-desking” policy. Hot-desking is where employees are not allocated a permanent desk and desks are instead allocated daily on a first-in-first-served basis, or via a booking a system.
Whilst organisations no doubt have their reasons for adopting a hot-desking policy, hot-desking raises several health and safety issues that employers should be aware of.
This article serves to highlight these issues. If you require an opinion that is specific to your workplace, please feel free to contact us here.
Who is this relevant to?
The majority of employees do not suffer from pain or injury as a result of their workstation set up. So long as these employees are properly educated as to how to set up their workstation each time they work from a different hot-desk, this article is less relevant to them (although, the section on productivity is definitely still relevant).
However, once an employee has reported pain or an injury, their situation changes dramatically, and it is these employees who hot-desking is absolutely not suitable for.
WHS Compliance issues
Under the relevant WHS legislation, an employer must do all that is “reasonably practicable” to “provide and maintain” a safe working environment for their employees.
If an employee reports pain or an injury, an ergonomic assessment is indicated for this employee. This ensures the employer meets their WHS obligations under the relevant legislation in the first instance.
During this ergonomic assessment, an ergonomic professional like myself, or another provider, would set up the employees’ workstation is the best manner possible to address the employees’ pain or injury.
If that employee is then unable to continue to work from that workstation, due to a hot-desking policy, the employer has failed to maintain a working environment that is safe and without risks to the employees’ health.
The WHS legislation is typically interpreted in the employees’ favour, unless there is a clear breach by the employee to meet their own WHS obligations towards their employer. As such, the courts are highly unlikely to consider it reasonable for an employer to expect an employee to take full responsibility for ensuring their workstation is set up correctly each day, especially after they have reported pain or an injury to the employer.
This is particularly the case when the solution is as easy as providing the employee with an ergonomic assessment and then allowing that employee to work from the same workstation each day, as that workstation has been the one assessed by an ergonomic professional.
Ergonomic issues
From my perspective as a physiotherapist and an expert in ergonomics, it is difficult to find a positive for the concept of hot-desking.
It is rare that any two employees are physically the same. Let’s take two employees, a 160cm female and a 185cm male. These two employees will need to have their respective workstations set up quite differently. Different chair heights, backrest angles, desk height, footrest or no footrest, monitor height, keyboard and mouse position, etc, etc.
Hot-desking does not allow these modifications to be made, which has the potential to create ergonomic issues for each employee.
Productivity issues
Whilst not as pertinent to my work as WHS Consultant, there are also productivity issues associated with hot-desking. Throughout my career, I have performed over 4000 ergonomic assessments. That is over 4000 individual employees, from different organisations, who I have spoken to about the problems they have with their workstation.
Over this time, I have been able to identify many patterns that employees have told me. Undoubtedly, a common theme I have observed is that hot-desking adversely affects productivity.
I believe there are four key reasons for this, as follows:
In summary
Where possible, we advise against hot-desking. If it’s absolutely necessary, a policy should be implemented which ensures employees who report pain or have an injury receive an ergonomic assessment and are then permitted to work from the same workstation.
If you require advice on this matter, or would like to book an ergonomic assessment, please contact us here.
Whilst organisations no doubt have their reasons for adopting a hot-desking policy, hot-desking raises several health and safety issues that employers should be aware of.
This article serves to highlight these issues. If you require an opinion that is specific to your workplace, please feel free to contact us here.
Who is this relevant to?
The majority of employees do not suffer from pain or injury as a result of their workstation set up. So long as these employees are properly educated as to how to set up their workstation each time they work from a different hot-desk, this article is less relevant to them (although, the section on productivity is definitely still relevant).
However, once an employee has reported pain or an injury, their situation changes dramatically, and it is these employees who hot-desking is absolutely not suitable for.
WHS Compliance issues
Under the relevant WHS legislation, an employer must do all that is “reasonably practicable” to “provide and maintain” a safe working environment for their employees.
If an employee reports pain or an injury, an ergonomic assessment is indicated for this employee. This ensures the employer meets their WHS obligations under the relevant legislation in the first instance.
During this ergonomic assessment, an ergonomic professional like myself, or another provider, would set up the employees’ workstation is the best manner possible to address the employees’ pain or injury.
If that employee is then unable to continue to work from that workstation, due to a hot-desking policy, the employer has failed to maintain a working environment that is safe and without risks to the employees’ health.
The WHS legislation is typically interpreted in the employees’ favour, unless there is a clear breach by the employee to meet their own WHS obligations towards their employer. As such, the courts are highly unlikely to consider it reasonable for an employer to expect an employee to take full responsibility for ensuring their workstation is set up correctly each day, especially after they have reported pain or an injury to the employer.
This is particularly the case when the solution is as easy as providing the employee with an ergonomic assessment and then allowing that employee to work from the same workstation each day, as that workstation has been the one assessed by an ergonomic professional.
Ergonomic issues
From my perspective as a physiotherapist and an expert in ergonomics, it is difficult to find a positive for the concept of hot-desking.
It is rare that any two employees are physically the same. Let’s take two employees, a 160cm female and a 185cm male. These two employees will need to have their respective workstations set up quite differently. Different chair heights, backrest angles, desk height, footrest or no footrest, monitor height, keyboard and mouse position, etc, etc.
Hot-desking does not allow these modifications to be made, which has the potential to create ergonomic issues for each employee.
Productivity issues
Whilst not as pertinent to my work as WHS Consultant, there are also productivity issues associated with hot-desking. Throughout my career, I have performed over 4000 ergonomic assessments. That is over 4000 individual employees, from different organisations, who I have spoken to about the problems they have with their workstation.
Over this time, I have been able to identify many patterns that employees have told me. Undoubtedly, a common theme I have observed is that hot-desking adversely affects productivity.
I believe there are four key reasons for this, as follows:
- The employee has to waste time setting up their workstation each day to suit their needs;
- Some employees then wonder throughout the day if they have set up their workstation correctly;
- If an employee does not set up their workstation correctly each day, they are likely to be less comfortable and more irritable, and may even develop pain; and
- The employee does not have a space that is exclusively theirs and therefore feels less welcome and comfortable in their working environment.
In summary
Where possible, we advise against hot-desking. If it’s absolutely necessary, a policy should be implemented which ensures employees who report pain or have an injury receive an ergonomic assessment and are then permitted to work from the same workstation.
If you require advice on this matter, or would like to book an ergonomic assessment, please contact us here.
