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The office has always been a meeting place. But the advent of telework has profoundly transformed the role of the workplace as a space for socialization, as evidenced by “desk bombing”. This formula refers to the anxiety that affects some employees who are too used to emails and other collaborative communication tools.
Coffee breaks, untimely discussions… The office is the place of all distractions. If the employees have long (more or less well) accommodated this situation, some have become more intransigent. They take a very dim view of their colleagues interrupting them in their work to talk about work or anything else. This phenomenon has a name: “desk bombing”.
A bad return to the office
This English expression comes from the combination of “office” (“desk” in English) and “bombardement” (“bombing”). It refers to this annoyance that wins employees over the idea of interacting “in real life”. with their colleagues, and not through remote communication tools. Some experience it as a real intrusion into their personal space, while others see it as an attention disruptor.”One of my pet peeves is ‘desk-bombing’“, explained David Clare, managing director of a communication agency, to Business Insider. “The days I was able to telecommute have been so productive, and I think the lack of desk-bombing has a lot to do with it.“.
The appearance of the term “desk bombing” is correlated with the explosion of telework and new ways of organizing work. Four-day weeks, flexible hours, full remote (100% telecommuting)… The time has come for ultra-flexibility in companies. Employees aspire to more freedom to build their professional life according to their own values and impulses. Result: many of them experience the return to the office painfully and struggle to reintegrate a social environment from which they have, for a time, withdrawn.
Trading doesn’t mean “desk bomber”
The cult of productivity also plays a role in the emergence of “desk bombing”. Many employees believe that they are more effective when their work is not disturbed by the thousand and one factors of distraction inherent in office life. They turn to a host of tools to interact with their colleagues without affecting their state of concentration. We thus create a Google Drive to work on the latest “prez” (to understand “presentation” in office jargon), we launch a Meet on Zoom to think about several “propales” (“proposals”) and we harmonize our use time with the rest of the team with Doodle. And that’s without counting on Slack, the Holy Grail for communicating in business without having to leave your workstation, and therefore to “desk bomb” your colleagues.
But then, is this the end of face-to-face conversations in the open space? It seems unlikely. The media hype surrounding “desk bombing” speaks volumes about the importance of social interactions in the office. They are not only an integral part of business life: they contribute to the well-being of employees. An employee who communicates daily with 10 colleagues by email is as likely to suffer from isolation as one who communicates with fewer than three people, according to the Paris Workplace Barometer 2019 SFL-Ifop. However, moderation is essential to avoid transforming “face-to-face interaction” into “desk bombing”. The same survey reveals that employees who communicate with more than 20 colleagues per day more often have difficulty concentrating and say they are more stressed. As we understand them…