Musical Chairs For Adults

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday August 30, 2000

Nick O'Malley

The point: Hot-desking is thriving in some areas of the workforce, while in others it's seen as the cause of much discontent.

I'm the cause of some irritation at work. I move my colleague's computer screens and alter the height of their chairs, scatter notes over their desks, rearrange their stationery and fiddle with their nick-nacks.

I am a hot-desker, though perhaps not in the strictest sense. I don't have my own desk yet and sit wherever there's a vacancy in the meantime. Real hot-deskers work for organisations that have dispensed with the notion of personal work space. Staff either work away from the office and rotate through a common office a couple of days a week, or are assigned to a desk each day when they arrive at work.

Some Australian companies claim to have slashed their rent by almost a third, simply by not providing staff with a permanent space.

The exploding call centre industry, which employs 180,000 people, is a case in point.

While this is an effective way to manage resources with a mobile, often part-time and casual workforce, it isn't always popular among workers.

The Australian Services Union (ASU) has recently raised four issues with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) on behalf of its members in the ATO's call centres.

Hot-desking is at the top of their list of grievances about stress, to which they say hot-desking contributes. In fact the ASU claims hot-desking is making its members sick.

"Staff can't set up their workplace to suit them, so you get the RSI problems. And most people who work in call centres use telephone headsets that can spread viruses. One person takes them off and another puts them on," says ASU industrial officer, Sally McManus.

The depersonalised nature of a hot-desk work environment also frustrates the ASU's members.

"They can't even have a photograph of their wife or partner on their desk," explains ASU national co-ordinator Colin Lynch.

Parts of the financial sector have whole-heartedly embraced hot-desking, too, but the fad seems to be wearing off.

Until the business consultancy Arthur Andersen moved into its new George Street offices earlier this year, even the firm's 70 Sydney-based partners shared their desks. But the partners found it difficult to concentrate on problem-solving tasks in the open plan environment. Nor could they have confidential discussions.

The new premises provide partners with offices that double as meeting rooms, but consultants still hot-desk, at a ratio of one desk between three.

Byram Johnston, managing partner at Arthur Andersen, was behind the switch to hot-desking and still believes in the practice, when employed in the appropriate departments.

"Consultants are typically out with a client, if they are in the office it means they're not out there working," he explains. Johnston says the office is viewed as an airport transit lounge by the consultants. All the technical support they need is there, but the office is set up on the premise that they won't be there long.

TIRED FAD

Dr Kenneth Preiss, a lecturer in the UTS School of Management, considers hot-desking a management fad that has had its day and suspects that rent saving is not the real motive behind the financial services industry's fondness for the hot desk.

"It's about utilisation rates," he says. If a consultant is on the road, or out with a client, his/her time is chargeable to the client, an asset. Otherwise it's a liability.

Preiss thinks that by making the office less accessible, employers encourage higher utilisation rates, but he doesn't consider it an effective management tool. "The worse thing about it is that it reduces the psychological linkage between the employer and the employee ... staff become less loyal and more transitional."

Preiss has even seen staff who are stressed by hot-desking become more aggressive towards each other.

But back in a suburban call centre, operator Kathleen Furey is unconcerned. "I'd hate it if it was a full-time job, but I'm only here as a casual," says the postgraduate student.

"They [management] started it off because they said we were talking too much.

"But now, instead of knowing the people who used to sit near us, we know everyone who works here, that's more than a hundred, and we all talk."