Rank: Guest 
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We have a major training programme coming up, our SMT are proposing to have three people sitting at one desk doing telephony work, the worker in the middle will deal with the keyboard and mouse and the two either side will do the talking.
I do not agree that this should be allowed, of the top of my head I feel my employer is ignoring the welfare regs, space standards and DSE regs.
Now imagine three desks in a curve and NINE people working in the space meant for three!
Your thoughts would be really appreciated on this matter
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Rank: Super forum user
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If we had plans etc then we could judge better. If it was a very big desk then yes maybe but three people on one of our ‘standard’ desks would be a no no under workplace and DSE regs
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Dragging your chair over to support a colleague is a fairly common event and shouldn't be an issue at all.
Expecting some poor individual to pay attention to people either side just seems muddied, inefficient and ill-considered.
Given that I can only listen to one person giving instruction at any one time, what purpose does this "other" trainer actually serve?
With a wee bit more thought, you could make use of the employee's headset to deliver some of the spoken instruction.
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Rank: Guest
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Thanks for your reply, it is a standard desk but a curved design there are 10 desks making a pod, 3x3 desks plus a separate desk for the manager, potentially there could be 28 people working in an area meant for 10.
This is a real possibility due to the low numbers of those able to do the work and the high number of trainees.
In my opinion its going to be a disaster
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Rank: Super forum user
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1600 x 800 mm desks are our standard desks. Since we got rid of big CRT monitors all our desks are simple straight tables. Is the suggestion that three people crowd around one desk like this one?
How long would be people be huddling like this, an hour or two a whole 8 hour day?
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Rank: Forum user
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Ref to L24 Workplace Helath Safety and Welfare Regs 10 and 11 also ACOP76 & 77
11 cu m of space per person
The total volume of the room, when empty, divided by the number of people normally working in it should be at least 11 cubic metres. In making this calculation a room or part of a room which is more than 3.0 m high should be counted as 3.0 m high. The figure of 11 cubic metres per person is a minimum and may be insufficient if, for example, much of the room is taken
up by furniture etc.
May help with your discussions
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I'm problem going to buck the trend here. You don't say whether the 2 people either side are the trainers or trainees as well. Neither do you give any indication of how long this is going to last for etc. The situation you describe is not entirely unusual. I have often grabbed a couple of people to come and sit either side of me at my desk to do some 'training' or have a discussion. I even sit in the canteen sometimes round a little square table with a laptop and 2 others to deliver an hours training, on 'normal' canteen style seats (i.e. they didn't comply with the DSE regs). If this is a short term situation for the purposes of training then I personally don't see a major issue looming and I am not entirely convinced it is all that helpful or necessary to quote the workplace regs. Are you looking at this from an operational perspective and keeping a sense of proportion, and have you made any other (positive) suggestions about how this might otherwise be accomplished?
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Rank: Super forum user
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A good reasoned reply canopener, horses for courses really. I often sat at someones desk with them to go through certain aspects of thier work when undertaking an audit often of two people who do the same work because the evidence was on the computer. It was for short periods of time and caused no problems at all.
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