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It will definitely keep people away, just not for the reasons the bean counters expected.

1. People like having their own desks.

2. With enough space to actually work on.

3. Where they can hear themselves think.

I feel like it's time to carpet-bomb management and B-schools with PeopleWare again.

A few years ago I did a 3-week internship in the consulting arm of a Big 4 accounting firm. They had hot-desking in their office -- you were supposed to book it on the day. In practice certain folk had "ins" with the space and planning staff and so certain desks were never "available".

The practical upshot was that you had to wander around the vast office for 20 minutes trying to find the desk you booked from home that morning. And meetings were a pain. "Where are you? Red battleship 27 omega-B? I'm in pink rubber ducky 14 sigma-epsilon-J".



>just not for the reasons the bean counters expected

>People like having their own desks.

The lack of assigned desks was explicitly mentioned as one of the changes designed to keep people away.


A much simpler way would be to simply close the office. Cheaper too.

Accidentally creating a poor working environment out of ignorance is one thing, but deliberately doing so borders on madness.


It does seem to be a round about way to do it, but I was just pointing out that it was intentional, not agreeing with it.




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