There are few workplace trends more likely to set hackles rising than hot-desking.
The latest brouhaha is at the Australian Tax Office. The top brass wants to trial hot-desking at two offices, the Docklands and Gosford branches.
The Australian Services Union is so vehemently opposed, it is fighting it in the Fair Work Commission.
I had a hunch this was unusual so I asked my union contacts and they agree. The unions repping public servants tend to be the staunchest opponents. A more typical response is a bit of grumbling from the workers followed by acquiescence.
Hot-desking, as I'm sure you know, is the practice of not assigning desks to staff but requiring them to find a new workspace each day.
Having done it myself for four years now, I'm quite entertained by the fuss at the Tax Office. Sure, finding a new desk every day can be a little taxing when the office is full, and there's a bit more set-up involved, but it ain't that bad.
It even has some upside. I enjoy a change of scenery and mingling with different colleagues. I like the fact that plum window seats are not permanently off limits to all but a lucky few.
Hot-desking is often accompanied by "activity-based working", where staff are issued laptops or other technology and given the flexibility to work wherever and whenever. I love the freedom to work from home or from a conference.
The worst of both worlds would be "hot-desking" that involves fixed computers on desks and a requirement to do your work at the office between set hours.
The ASU argues it's a health and safety issue if their members don't have a workstation tailored to individual needs, and they also say it's "dehumanising" not to be able to customise the desk with personal effects such as photographs.
There's now a slew of research to back up the naysayers.
Research published in academic journal Applied Economics earlier this year included a survey of 1000 Australian employees. It found as work environments become more shared, workers report increased demands and decreased supervisor support. Workplace friendships are not improved as a result.
Problems included increased distrust, distractions, uncooperative behaviour and negative relationships.
Meanwhile, a researcher from the University of Bedfordshire published a paper in the Journal of Organisational Change Management, evocatively titled "Settlers, vagrants and mutual indifference: unintended consequences of hot???desking".
The research suggests the practice of movement creates additional work and a sense of marginalisation for hot-deskers.
For me the most fascinating insight was the finding that a social structure emerges distinguishing employees who settle in one place and become quasi-owners of a desk, and others who have to move constantly. That's certainly true from my experience.
Employers love to talk about the intangible benefits of hot-desking; they say it enhances communication among colleagues. I think the opposite is probably true because it enables remote working and encourages employees in the same building to email or phone one another rather than wander over to their desk for a chat.
I've written before about how technology can create barriers between colleagues if conversations occur over email by default. Dr Fiona Kerr, a professor in neural and systems complexity at Adelaide University, says technology is designed to make us want to use it all the time, but humans are hardwired to interact face to face. She says co-workers who interact in person are better at collaboration and also more creative.
Anyway, nobody is fooled. We all know the main reason organisations introduce hot-desking is to save on real estate costs. That's not a bad thing - it beats saving on salaries.
Some research suggests that up to 40 per cent of office space is vacant at any one time. And with the cost of property, electricity and so on, it is a large expense for organisations.
Dr Donna Wheatley, the director of workplace and education strategy at WMK Architecture, says we are getting better at hot-desking.
"There have been a lot of lessons learned about better ways of doing it," she says. "There's better technology available ... and there's better understanding of spaces. We now know that quiet space is just as important as collaborative space because people need to work on own as well as together."
The second annual CBRE Asia Pacific Occupier Survey, conducted earlier this year, canvassed 400 multinational companies and found two out of three were planning to introduce shared desks in the next three years.
The poor old bureaucrats at the Tax Office might not like it, but the trend isn't going anywhere.
Caitlin Fitzsimmons is the editor of Money and a regular columnist. Find her on Facebook.
