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Certain People on the PwC San Jose Tax Team Not Happy About This Hoteling Business

For those of you who don't know, hoteling is a fancy word for working like some kind of homeless drifter. In other words, you function unfettered by the pesky material chains of deskhood and experience the freedom of rotating workspace in neat 24 hour increments.

And PwC's San Jose office is leading the trend. Here's a friendly reminder that went out to the tax team:

Tax Team,

It's hard to believe but it has now been three years since we moved into our new space in June 2011. By and large, the experience has been a very positive one with most of you embracing the new building and working toward making the San Jose office as flexible as possible, both to meet our seating needs, and to continue to transform the way we work. These changes have brought us closer into alignment with National Tax guidance, while focusing on our San Jose specific needs. As you may know, when we moved into this building it was with the knowledge and expectation that one day we would be moving to full mobile hoteling as our headcount grew but our real estate footprint did not.

You should stop right there, guy writing this email to your team. Basically, you don't have enough space for everyone to have desks. Got it. You could have pretty much saved 500 words by leaving it at that.

As our next step towards flexibility, all of our team members below Partner will transition to mobile hoteling status on Monday, August 18. We will be one of the earliest offices to make the transition. There are several other "early adopters" and all offices will eventually be transitioned to the new model as office space is reconfigured or offices move into new buildings.

Wouldn't it be easier to look for larger offices that accommodate hiring increases? I mean, when I'm rescuing cats, I have to stop at some point until the current inventory gets adopted due to lack of space. I don't round up the current cats and say "alright, guys, as you know we're going to have to transition to hoteling, so the 50 of you will have to check out the litter box throughout the day as I just can't fit enough litter boxes in this apartment."

What this means for you:

· Beginning Monday, August 18:

  • you will not have an assigned workstation (nameplates will all be changed to "hoteling")
  • you will be able to reserve, and sit at, any unoccupied, available workstation anywhere in the office
  • you will be able to use any open collaboration or touchdown space without a reservation
  • your primary storage space will no longer be in your existing workstation or office
  • you may be assigned a lockable file drawer to store work materials as needed/requested
  • you may sit at a different workstation every time you are in the office, depending on how far in advance you make your reservations o you will be able to make reservations up to 7 business days in advance, and you can have up to 5 reservation days booked at one time
  • If you work with someone who will be transitioning, it might take a minute or two to find them starting Monday, August 18. This can easily be worked around by making use of Sametime, email and other communications tools available to you (or by simply taking a quick walk around the office). There is also a "locate" feature at the hoteling kiosk, where you can enter a person's last name and find their location for the day
  • If you are already a mobile hoteler, you will be able to see more available workstations when you use our hoteling system

Look for an announcement for our two upcoming office ‘clean up events’ on both August 8th and August 15th. If you will be in the office these dates, please plan to participate. Even if you are not going to be in the office on either August 8th or August 15th, please ensure that your current work area is cleaned (taking any personal items out of your workstation/office) and available for anyone to use by Friday, August 15th at 5:30 pm.

The best suggestion here is to get off your ass and take a walk around the office if you can't find someone. I think yelling also works.

We will send out more details in the upcoming weeks as we finalize the details on drawer space and other matters related to this transition. In the meantime, please focus on complying with our already existing clean desk policy (see below), so when the moves are made, it can be accomplished with the least disruption.

We realize that change, any change, can be uncomfortable. But as evidenced by the move into this building three years ago, this Tax practice has shown resilience and a willingness to embrace change and we hope you approach this latest announcement with the same positive attitude. Please reach out to your HR representative if you have any further questions.

You are going to want to read the FAQ. Number 16 had me dying.

 

SJ Tax Office Hoteling FAQ