We had “hotelling” at Accenture in the early 2000’s and I hated it. It made sense their, because at any moment you could be called to an out of town assignment, but the lack of workspace consistency and the feeling of coming into the most generic workspace available was really draining).

> To be honest I think with hybrid, open offices make a lot of sense. Realistically you want to be able to hot desk because that's where the cost savings are made in a hybrid situation.

This doesn’t sound like a stable equilibrium to me; more like a transition to full remote that you do when you’re waiting for your lease to run out. Not even having your own permanent desk sounds like utter hell.

I seriously doubt anyone's going to maintain hybrid working and give everyone permanent desks in any situation, though.

You said it would make sense for 3 days in office. This seems to be a common hybrid schedule. Some companies assigned shared permanent desks to people with complementary 2 day schedules. This is better than hot desks. And it is possible both of you are right.

No, thanks. If you want happy productive desk workers, give them their own desks, their own shelves, and possibly even their own blackboards.

Even ignoring increased happiness, this enables giving employees their own tools: keyboards, chairs, monitors, workstations, tea, oscilloscopes, papers, etc.

Again we're talking about a hybrid situation here where typically the employee is likely to be working from home more than they're in the office. I think what you're suggesting makes sense for 3+ days a week in office situations though but 2 days or less and it starts to get tenuous. And for me I wouldn't want to go in any more than 2 days a week so they can keep the permanent desk imo.

I would not want to go in any days without a permanent desk.

That works only if everyone is hybrid. If some people are 80% office, they need a place for real work.