In early 2017 we moved from an industrial unit in Letchworth to a converted barn in the countryside. We had a new brand, a new office and decided to try out a new way of working: hot-desking.

Hot-desking is where no one has a personal desk, we can sit in a different place every day. Each desk is fully equipped with everything we need and each day we choose a desk (or roll a dice!) and plug in our keyboard, mouse and SSD. We keep these and other personal belongings in the wine crates that one of our clients kindly gifted to us. Don't they remind you a bit of the trays you used to have in primary school?

We gave hot-desking a two month trial and then came together for a retrospective to get feedback from the whole team on what went well and what could be improved. The feedback overall was very positive, for us the only real downside is the extra minute it takes to set up and put away your belongings each day.

So why do we love it so much?

1. Variety

Each day we can sit next to different people. This means we get to chat to the whole team equally instead of just the people we always sit next to. This is great not only from a social point of view but also for knowledge sharing. Everyone at earthware has different skills and there's a lot we can teach each other. We can also easily move into project teams when we want to collaborate.

There is also variety in our working environment. One day we may want to be surrounded by people, with a view over the fields and another day we might prefer to be in a quiet secluded corner. With hot-desking we can choose a different area of the office each day to suit our different working styles.

2. Clean and tidy

Admittedly, our old office was not the tidyest. Over the years we were all guilty of letting our desks pile up with unnecessary files and rubbish. Now our desks are tidy, easy to clean and completely clear at the end of each day.

3. Less wasted space

There is rarely a time where everyone office based is actually working in the office at the same time. If everyone had their own desk then this would lead to a lot of wasted space. With hot-desking we can have a bigger team without needing a bigger office.

There is also plenty of space for visitors. We love having visitors and every now and then clients or friends come and work from our office. Hot-desking makes this really easy, they can plug in their laptop to any desk and work wherever they want. We even have a crate dedicated to visitors where we keep everything they might need.

Hot-desking has improved the way we work in our office and we would definitely recommend giving it a try.