Are you allowed to personalise your office desk, or are you unable to do so?

In some offices, especially those who have a hot desking arrangement, desk personalisation is frowned upon. 

There is a good reason for this; the whole idea of hot desking is that anyone can use any desk, at any time. So, if a desk is personalised with pictures or other items, it’s not going to be suitable to use by everyone. 

However, could desk personalisation actually go some way to helping to reduce the workplace stress problem we’re all facing?

There’s certainly a fair argument for it. 

Let’s explore. 

What Does Desk Personalisation Actually Entail?

By ‘desk personalisation’ we’re talking about creating a space which is yours, and somewhere you feel at home during your working hours. That might mean having a family photograph on your office desk, or maybe sticky notes on your monitor. You might even have a soft toy from a child or close friend there, to help you feel calm and collected whilst you’re going about your tasks for the day. 

However, some businesses don’t like this type of office desk personalisation because it doesn’t look professional and may help to give the wrong impression to visitors. We’ve also touched upon the idea of having a hot desking situation in place, which may or may not be the case with your office. 

This varies from business to business. Some allow employees to personalise their executive desks whilst others don’t. Despite that, you can agree that going over the top with desk personalisation certainly isn't appropriate in a working situation!

How Could Personalising Your Desk Actually Help Kick Out Workplace Stress?

So how could this actually help with reducing work stress?

Personalising your desk, within reason, helps you to feel calm and collected, especially if you have a meaningful quote, photograph, or a reminder of a memory there. Looking at this when you are feeling particularly stressed out might help to calm you down, allow you to regroup and balance yourself and therefore get back to the task at hand. 

In that case, desk personalisation could actually increase productivity, as well as reduce work stress.

Employers are always trying to learn how to monitor stress levels in the workplace, but there is no hard and fast rule on how to do so. Helping to bring in different initiates to reduce stress and help employees deal with pressure more effectively is a good way forward.

So, do you think desk personalisation would help you to deal with stress in the workplace?

It’s certainly a measure which may help some people and if you think it might work for you, the best thing is to give it a try. By opting to trial several different strategies for managing stress in the workplace, you’re more able to find a way which suits you. 

We Need to Focus on Work Stress More Than Ever Before

Learning to understand the potential causes of stress in the workplace is a vital part of the puzzle, but also making a huge effort to knock down the stigma which still surrounds it. 

Many employees are scared to admit to their manager or even their colleagues that they’re feeling a little overwhelmed. Society tells us that we should just get on with it and use the stress as a motivator, but if we’ve learnt anything over the last few years, it should be that stress can be hugely dangerous for health and wellbeing. 

Mental health as a whole is a subject we’re all learning to take more notice of, and that huge umbrella also includes stress. When workplace stress becomes too much, when we’re sat at our luxury office desks wondering why we can’t cope, we start down the slippery slope towards anxiety and depression. 

That’s not a slope you want to go down, and it’s not something which should be invited into your life.

By learning to deal with stress the workplace as a priority, we can knock down the stigma, allow people to open up and talk about how they’re feeling, and then maybe we can finally learn how to deal with this problem once and for all.