Steal an Employee Desks: How to Seat Employees and When Desk Income Starts

Quick answer

A desk in Steal an Employee is the workstation that turns a hired employee into office income. Once a new hire is seated at a desk and their training completes, they earn cash continuously, and extra desks are bought purely to add more earning capacity.

• Every new hire gets their own desk — fill your office's seats and everybody is making money.
• Income starts when training completes, not when you grab the employee.
• More desks mean more income slots: desk costs rise as you add them, and new floors unlock more desks to buy.

How to seat a stolen employee at a desk

Roadmap

1. 1

   Steal an employee

   Grab a worker to start the hire.

   • Hold E to grab — the arrow points at the nearest worker you can grab.
2. 2

   Wait for training to complete

   Finishing training is what hires the employee and unlocks their pay.

   • Let the training timer run out; the hire confirmation arrives together with the first income figure.
3. 3

   Seat the new hire at a desk

   Turn the hire into income by placing them at an open desk.

   • Position the new employee at an open desk spot in your office, the way recorded runs place hires with lines like "let's put him here."

The exact on-screen prompt or control for the desk interaction is not confirmed — recorded gameplay shows placement only through player narration. Watch for the prompt that appears when you bring a new hire to an open desk and follow it.

When desk income starts

A seated employee does not earn until training finishes. Every hire follows the same gate: grab a worker, wait for training to complete, and the hire confirmation arrives together with the first income figure. Finishing a later training round is followed immediately by more income — "finish training and we have more income now."

The unit on the first hire's starting pay is currently inconsistent in recorded gameplay: it shows up as both $36 per minute and $36 per second. Check the exact figure and unit on your own hire confirmation in-game before planning around a starting rate.

Once hired and seated, every occupant earns continuously — one recorded run totaled its staffed desks at "60 bucks per second on everybody." Treat that as an example of stacked desk income, not a fixed rate.

Training timers grow with the quality of the hire. A late-game employee had a 7-minute training timer, which the player skipped by paying Robux.

Buying extra desks

Additional desks are bought with in-game cash, and their cost climbs as you add more — one recorded run found its next desk simply too expensive at the cash it had. Availability also scales with office expansion: after buying a new floor, the desks on it become purchasable ("Floor purchased... Now, we can get the desks."). Late in a run, players max out the office's remaining space with a couple of extra desks.

No exact desk prices appear in recorded play, so check the current cost at your office's desk purchase point before budgeting.

Employee slots and freeing a desk

Workstation capacity is expressed in employee slots. Check your remaining slots before stealing more staff — "we've got two more slots, so why not use them to the fullest?"

The documented way to reassign capacity is replacement: fire a seated employee to open their spot for a stronger hire ("You're fired." / "Somebody here is going to get fired. You. Goodbye."). Moving an employee between desks without firing them is not shown in recorded gameplay, so treat firing and replacing as the confirmed path.

Night closure: when offices stop operating

Desks are not in use around the clock. The game runs a day-night cycle, and at night offices close and everyone is sent home — "Offices are closed at night and they send everyone home." Nighttime passes quickly; the player notes "at least night time doesn't last so too long."

Whether cash flow pauses during the closure, and whether employees return to the same desks afterward, is not shown in recorded play — watch your cash total after dark rather than assuming income keeps running.

Where desk upgrades fit

Beyond plain extra desks, the office offers a desk upgrade purchase. The recorded run declined it as too expensive at that stage, so upgrade costs and any level-by-level effects are not covered by this page's desk material — this guide stays on basic desk use and seating.

One last note: Steal an Employee is an actively updated game, so seating rules, desk capacity, and income activation behavior can change — recheck them in-game after an update lands.