Hot desking

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Hot desking refers to the temporary physical occupation of a work station or surface by a particular employee. This work surface could be an actual desk or just a terminal link. In any event the concept of the hot desk is that the employer furnishes a permanent work surface which is available to any worker as and when needed. There is no personal domain pertaining to a particular worker and physical facilities are employed as and when needed. A collection of such workstations is sometimes called a mobility centre. The term hot desking is thought to be derived from the naval practice, called hot racking, where sailors on different shifts share bunks.

Hot desking is regularly used in places where not all the employees are in the office at the same time, or not in the office for very long at all, which means actual personal offices would be redundant.

In Scandinavian countries it is now common to find offices with desks and terminals which descend from the ceilings as and when needed.

With the growth of mobility services, hot desking can also include the routing of voice and other messaging services to any location where the user is able to log in to their secure corporate network. Therefore their telephone number, their email and instant messaging can be routed to their location on the network and no longer to just their physical desk.