What it means
Neighbourhood zoning is a middle ground between fully assigned seating and fully open hot desking. Each team or group gets a designated zone (a "neighbourhood"), and employees can sit at any available desk within their zone. This keeps teams together for collaboration while still sharing desks efficiently.
The approach solves one of the biggest complaints about hot desking: arriving to find your team scattered across different floors. With neighbourhood zoning, the marketing team always sits in the same area, even if the specific desks change daily. Zones can be resized as teams grow or shrink.
Booking software supports neighbourhood zoning by letting administrators assign desk pools to specific groups. Employees only see desks in their zone by default, though overflow policies can allow cross-zone booking when a neighbourhood is full.