Skip the navigation
)

Touch Down

Borrowing a network connection is sometimes all that's necessary when itinerant workers temporarily land at the office.

By Amy Helen Johnson
March 20, 2000 12:00 PM ET

When Ernst & Young LLP consultants want to spend time in the office, they have to make reservations. With most of its workforce on the road or permanently assigned to client sites, the Cleveland-headquartered Big Five accounting and management consulting firm saves money by eliminating traditional individual offices and operating a hoteling infrastructure.
A way to share office space among employees who are usually out of the office, hoteling involves building generic offices that anyone can use on request. A reservation system assigns space to employees, and networking software gives them access to corporate resources. The concept may also be used at companies with project-oriented cultures, where workers form temporary teams for days or months to tackle particular jobs.
Hoteling enjoyed a flavor-of-the-month celebrity in 1996 and 1997, with whole companies unscrewing nameplates from doors and switching to temporary landing slots. But large-scale hoteling proved unwieldy and unwanted, and most of the experimenters reverted to the typical permanently assigned office or cubicle. "I don't think hoteling has worked that well, by and large," says Kazim Isfahani, an analyst at Giga Information Group Inc. in Norwalk, Conn. "I haven't seen that many shining examples of it."
Hoteling isn't something that FFE Transportation Services Inc. in Dallas needs, says Allen Woody, MIS systems manager. The trucking business really requires more centralized operations -- and employees, he says.
"There are a lot of companies which can benefit from (hoteling). Unfortunately, I don't think we're one of them. . . . We have sort of a bull-pen environment, where you might have eight or 10 dispatchers working together, and they need to be able to communicate very quickly with one another, like over a 3-foot wall."
What hoteling experiments proved, however, is that the concept has traction for certain corporate cultures and types of employees. Small-scale hoteling, where an office supports a few work spaces, is fairly common.
General Dynamics Corp.'s Electronic Systems Division in Colorado Springs maintains a few cubicles for visitors in a work area that supports 80 employees, says Frank Loccisano, deputy product support manager for collaborative products and technologies.
The company will expand its hoteling efforts, in part, because of the number of telecommuting employees. "The whole point behind this is to cut costs or to limit the overhead as much as possible," Loccisano says.
Hotel Check-In
One reason the wholesale hoteling initiatives failed is that in most organizations, the majority of the workers stay at the office. A Computerworld survey conducted last month of 87 readers who practice hoteling

What is Tech Briefcase?
TechBriefcase is a new, free service where IT Professionals can Search, Store and Share IT white papers and content like this. Learn more
Bookmark content
Speed up your research efforts with content across the web.
Search and Store
Find the white papers you need. Create folders for any topic.
View Anywhere
Open your briefcase on your iPhone, tablet or desktop. Share with colleagues.
Don't have an account yet?
Additional Resources
Security KnowledgeVault
WHITE PAPER
Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All
WHITE PAPER
New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

White Papers
Practice Management: Double Billing Rate and Improve Patient Services
Would you like to double your billing rate and achieve faster payment for services?

Download this customer success story to see how One Health...
Mission Critical Data Explosion and Customer Case Study
Would you like to double your tier 1 storage capacity while simultaneously reducing your storage footprint?

Download this customer success story to see how...
Protecting Against Database Attacks and Insider Threats: Top 5 Scenarios
Read this new eBook to learn the top five scenarios and essential best practices for preventing database attacks and insider threats.
Database Activity Monitoring Is Evolving
Read the analyst report and learn how you can leverage the core capabilities of a DAP solution for better database security.
Establishing a Strategy for Database Security is No Longer Optional
The options for securing increasingly valuable databases are very broad and deep, and can be confusing. This research provides an overview of three...
Webcasts
Live Webcast
Data Privacy and Protection in Production Environments: New Research from Ponemon Institute
Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 1:00 PM EDT / 10:00 AM PDT

In a recent study conducted by Ponemon Institute, fifty-five percent of respondents...
Live Webcast
A Geek's Guide to Presenting to Business People
Live Webcast: Wednesday, June 20th at 1:00 PM EDT

Join this live webinar with Paul Glen, author of Leading Geeks, to learn how to...
Live Webcast
Today's NAS: A Solution Beyond Old Limits
Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 2:00 PM EDT

Traditional NAS systems don't scale beyond fixed limits. Proliferation of NAS systems leads to management...
Distributed Database Security with Real-time Monitoring
View this demo and learn how IBM InfoSphere Guardium database activity monitoring can help protect your sensitive data in distributed DBMS environments with...
InfoSphere Warehouse Packs Demo
These flash modules make warehousing more tangible and relevant to business users through detailed explanations of the InfoSphere Warehouse Packs.
Delivery Management -- Extending Lifecycle Management
Date: Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 1:00 PM EDT

Siloed organizations continue doing the wrong things and doing things wrong, leading to increased costs,...
Leverage automation today to reduce IT complexity
Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2012, 2:00 PM EDT

Whether your B2B complexity is caused by multiple technologies due to M&A, business or application specific...
Redefine Expectations in the Data Center
Need to do more with less? Watch this video to learn how HP ProLiant Gen8 servers can help your business deploy servers three...
Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter
  1. View all newsletters | Privacy Policy
IT Jobs