Benefits of using mobile-friendly hot desking apps

So you’ve considered the pros and cons of hot desking and decided it’s the right fit for your organization. The next step is choosing the desk booking software that best serves your needs and the needs of your employees. There’s a lot to factor into your decision to ensure your new software works with your existing office culture rather than against it. As such, one non-negotiable is that the software you select is mobile-friendly. Software that is limited to a desktop experience will interfere with the effectiveness of your hot desking strategy, as it will limit how employees can interact with the hot desking app. Facility managers eager to deploy a smooth and seamless adoption of any new desk booking policy need to consider the innate benefits of mobile-friendly technology.

Access anywhere, anytime

Whether the majority of your employees work remotely or in-house, mobile-friendly software provides the flexibility to book a work space wherever they are, whenever they want. Imagine an employee decides to head into the office one morning, and needs to organize a space for six people. A mobile-friendly hot desking app will allow them to search for and book a space during their commute, while desktop-only software would force them to wait until they get into the office, by which time the space they wanted may already be taken. Mobile-friendly apps can therefore allow for a stress-free interaction with your hot desking strategy by providing flexibility without strings attached.

Since more and more people use their mobile for day-to-day activities and transactions, software that doesn’t provide mobile access could be severely limiting. In the U.S. alone, mobile usage already accounted for 63% of total web traffic in 2017, up from 57% in 2016. Since hot desking is a system that promotes on-the-go flexibility as one of its core benefits, it is inherently well-suited for mobile access and it is therefore imperative that any software you choose allows for this freedom of use.

A navigational tool

It’s one thing to book a desk in advance, and another thing to find it. Depending on the size and layout of your office, having a map in the palm of your hand could be a major time-saver. Especially for those remote employees who are coming in from out of town and are therefore unfamiliar with your office layout, a mobile-friendly app ensures they have a useful guide at their fingertips to help them find their desk without delay.

Similarly, if available desks vary greatly day-to-day, even employees who work in-house on a more regular basis may not always be familiar with the space they’ve booked. Rather than having to ask for directions every time they come in, it’s much more efficient to navigate the office using a mobile app. This will alleviate not only employee frustration from having to constantly waste time looking for their desk, but will also relieve the burden on other employees—including the FM—who may find they are continuously having to show employees around. Win win.

Possibilities for personalization

Another feature that mobile has over desktop is the opportunity for personalization. An app may have the ability to store previous desks booked, allowing it to learn the employee’s seating preferences and make recommendations about where the employee may choose to sit. By ensuring employees feel like an individual when they use hot desking software—rather than as a random employee assigned a random desk—there is a much greater chance that the strategy will be a success. Hot desking may mean that employees can no longer personalize their desks, but now, they have an app that is personalized just for them.