About Mark Eltringham

Mark is the publisher of Workplace Insight, IN magazine, Works magazine and is the European Director of Work&Place journal. He has worked in the office design and management sector for over thirty years as a journalist, marketing professional, editor and consultant.

Posts by Mark Eltringham:

May 28, 2019

A sophisticated eye on workplace design

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Each day you can generally find somebody or other sharing their thoughts on ‘the office of the future’ or ‘the death of the office’. My view is that you should steer clear of taking most of this sort of stuff head-on, on the basis that hardcore deskheads have heard most of it before and already concluded that there are more important things to worry about in a fit-out than what a pool table and a second hand armchair tells us about workplace design.

May 28, 2019

Number of over-70s in work doubles

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

Record numbers of over-70s are choosing work over retirement, according to new analysis from Rest Less, a membership community site in the UK to offer work and volunteering opportunities specifically targeted at the over 50s. Using bespoke data provided to Rest Less by the Office for National Statistics, Rest Less’s analysis claims that the number of over-70s in full or part-time employment has been steadily rising year on year over the past 10 years, reaching a peak of 497,946 in the first quarter of this year – an increase of 286,000 or 135 per cent since 2009. Today, nearly 1 in 12 (8.1 percent) of those in their 70s are working, a significant increase from the 1 in 22 (4.5 percent) there were 10 years ago.

May 28, 2019

SMEs are driving job growth but lack skills says OECD

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been a significant driver of employment growth in recent years, mainly through the creation of new firms, including in high-growth sectors such as information and communication technologies (ICT). But the new OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook claims to highlight how most SME job creation has been in sectors with below average productivity levels, with SMEs typically paying employees around 20 percent less than large firms. While SMEs are more engaged in new organisational or marketing practices than large firms, and sometimes more innovative in developing new products and processes, many continue to struggle disproportionately with developing the skills and resources needed to navigate the increasing complexity in technologies and markets.

May 27, 2019

Wellbeing rather than growth should be focus of government policy

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

Personal wellbeing rather than economic growth should be the primary aim of government spending, according to a new report from the from the all-party parliamentary group on wellbeing economics which urges a complete change in thinking from ministers,.Gus O’Donnell, who served as cabinet secretary, said Britain could lead the world by making the issue the primary goal of government policy. More →

May 23, 2019

Wellbeing, a pile of turtles, office culture and some other stuff

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

This week is Clerkenwell Design Week amongst other things, and as part of it I chaired a discussion on Tuesday about acoustics at work in the showroom of Flokk and their effect on wellbeing. We were fortunate to have a panel that involved the likes of Nigel Oseland, Michelle Wilkie of tp bennett, Joachim Schubert of Offecct and Lee Jones of Wellworking as well as an informed audience, if for no other reason than everybody’s ability to talk about the subject as complex and multi-faceted and, to some extent, hardwired. More →

May 21, 2019

Overconfidence can be misinterpreted as competence, claims study

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

The higher a person rates their social class, the more likely they are to overestimate their talents and the more likely they are to be promoted to a level beyond their competence, a new study from researchers at Stanford and the University of Virginia claims. According to the study published by the American Psychological Association in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people who see themselves as being in a higher social class tend to have an exaggerated belief that they are more adept than their equally capable lower-class counterparts, and that overconfidence can often be misinterpreted by others as greater competence in important situations, such as job interviews.

May 21, 2019

London office building at post Brexit high

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

New office building in central London is at a three-year high, with 13.2 million square feet of space under construction, up 12 percent on the figure six months ago, according to the Deloitte Real Estate’s London Office Crane Survey. Some 55 percent of the office space under construction was already let and for larger schemes of over 100,000 square feet, more than three quarters was already committed to, Deloitte said. The survey covers seven major central London office markets – The City, West End, Docklands, King’s Cross, Midtown, Paddington, Southbank – as well as three emerging submarkets – Vauxhall-Nine Elms-Battersea, White City and Stratford. More →

May 20, 2019

Working fathers struggle to find time for parenthood

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

A study of working fathers aged 25 to 40 claims that while the vast majority are closely involved in day-to-day parenting with many sharing responsibility equally with their partner, their employers routinely fail to create a working culture that reflects their needs. According to the report, The Millennial Dad at Work, published by DaddiLife and Deloitte, fathers have to make excuses to get away from their places of work to fulfil their duties and spend time with their children and families. More →

May 17, 2019

Flexible working for parents greatest challenge for SMEs

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

Paid leave for new parents is a financial and operational challenge for 90 percent of UK SMEs, according to the findings of new research into the challenges faced by working women and their employers. The first ever Women in Business survey also claims that offering flexible working and covering the cost and resource of maternity and paternity leave is an even bigger concern for SMEs, with 96 percent of board level executives saying it’s a significant challenge for their business. More →

May 17, 2019

Workplace wellbeing improves with age

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

Older employees are likely to enjoy improved wellbeing, according to a new study from The Myers-Briggs Company. The research claims that workplace wellbeing progressively increases with age and also highlights workplace relationships as one of the most important elements of wellbeing. More →

May 16, 2019

Firms must log employee working hours, ECJ rules

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

EU member States must require employers to set up a system to measure daily working hours for each employee, according to a new ruling from the European Court of Justice. The decision came following a case brought by the Spanish trade union, Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) which initially brought an action before the Audiencia Nacional (National High Court, Spain), seeking a judgement declaring Deutsche Bank SAE to be under an obligation to set up a system for recording the time worked each day by its members of staff. The union considered that such a system would make it possible to verify compliance with the stipulated working times and the obligation, laid down in national law, to provide union representatives with information on overtime worked each month.

May 16, 2019

Working from home and the future of work. How quaint ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Technology

In 1962, a professor of communication studies called Everett Rogers came up with the principle we call diffusion of innovation. It’s a familiar enough notion, widely taught and works by plotting the adoption of new ideas and products over time as a bell curve, before categorising groups of people along its length as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. It’s a principle bound up with human capital theory and so its influence has endured for over 50 years, albeit in a form compressed by our accelerated proliferation of ideas. It may be useful, but it lacks a third dimension in the modern era. That is, a way of describing the numbers of people who are in one category but think they are in another.