A major new study of workplace experience has found that offices are failing to meet the needs of employees with disabilities and health conditions, younger workers enjoy a better experience than older colleagues, almost a quarter of workplace investments make things worse, and noise remains a persistent problem, while AI threatens to reshape how employees work and learn from one another. The findings come from Leesman’s new Big Questions report, which draws on a database of more than 1.6 million employee responses across 10,775 workplaces in 124 countries to examine whether offices are meeting the needs of the people who use them. More →

The Design Guild Mark is calling on British designers and UK-based design practices to put their best work forward. Entries for the 2027 edition are now open in three categories: Furniture, Lighting and Interior Design Elements. Established in 2008 by The Furniture Makers’ Company, this not-for-profit recognition programme raises the profile of British industrial design and celebrates excellence in the design sector. The final deadline on 29th January 2027. Entries are invited to submit their applications using the web page directly here: https://designguildmark.org.uk/ More →

Hybrid working may have changed how often people travel into the office, but businesses in Milton Keynes are becoming more intentional about what they want from face-to-face time. At Unity Place, the trend is being seen across coworking, informal workspaces, meeting rooms and event spaces, with people increasingly using in-person days for collaboration, team catch-ups, client meetings, networking and shared experiences rather than simply sitting at a desk. At x+why Unity Place (main image), there have been 868 meeting room bookings so far this year, with around 5,800 visitors year to date. The coworking provider has also seen regular repeat bookings from businesses that do not need a permanent office, but still want a flexible place to bring their teams together. More →

British business leaders are increasingly confident about the potential of artificial intelligence to transform the economy, but employees remain far more cautious about its impact on jobs and future career opportunities, according to new polling from Microsoft. A survey of 5,000 UK employees and 1,000 senior business decision-makers found that 84 percent of business leaders believe Britain can become a world-leading AI economy within the next five years, compared with just 41 percent of employees.

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The argument about flexible work is often staged as a fight over place: office or home, three days or five, freedom or control. That framing is convenient because location is visible. Trust is harder to measure. Yet the more revealing question is not where people work. It is whether an organisation has enough clarity, managerial capability and confidence in its own systems to tolerate different ways of working without falling back on visibility as a proxy for contribution. More →