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:

Employees motivated by bad news as well as good news, research finds

Employees motivated by bad news as well as good news, research finds

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Bad news is better than no news at all when it comes to motivating staff, according to new research from academics in Warwick and Zurich.  The study found that withholding important information from staff could mean the difference between a motivated workforce and an unmotivated one – irrespective of whether it was good or bad news for workers. The study, led by Leif Brandes, of Warwick Business School, found that many managers underestimate the motivational power of bad news. In the paper The Value and Motivating Mechanism of Transparency in Organizations, published in the European Economic Review, Dr Brandes and Donja Darai, of the University of Zurich, designed a new version of the so-called ‘dictator’ game to study the effect of information sharing on motivation.

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Internships hold back social mobility and should be banned

Internships hold back social mobility and should be banned

by • News, Workplace

An overwhelming majority of the UK public support the introduction of a ban on unpaid internships lasting 4 weeks or more. New polling data released by the Social Mobility Commission, found that 72 percent of the public back a change in the law – with 42 percent ‘strongly supporting’ a ban. The survey also reveals that 80 percent of people want companies to be required to openly advertise internships and work experience opportunities, rather than organise them informally. The YouGov poll of 5,000 people has been released ahead of the second reading of Lord Holmes of Richmond’s Private Members’ Bill in the House of Lords on Friday 27 October, which proposes a ban on unpaid work experience or internships lasting more 4 weeks.

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Freelancers to make up a majority of US workforce within a decade

Freelancers to make up a majority of US workforce within a decade

by • Flexible working, News

Freelance website Upwork and the Freelancers Union have published the results of a report called Freelancing in America: 2017, which the sponsors claim is the most comprehensive measure of the US independent workforce, (but given their vested interests probably needs you to add a pinch of salt and always worth reading Trustpilot reviews). The fourth annual study estimates that 57.3 million Americans are freelancing (36 percent of the US workforce) and contribute approximately $1.4 trillion annually to the economy, an increase of almost 30 percent since last year.

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Seven workplace stories we think you should read this week (apart from ours)

Seven workplace stories we think you should read this week (apart from ours)

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

The backlash to being a thought leader

Automation and Artificial Intelligence bullshit

Science in the gig economy

The seven deadly sins of AI predictions

The flight of people back to the suburbs

The changing psychology of the workplace

The rock and roll workplace

One-fifth of UK jobs under threat from automation, but some regions more at risk than others

One-fifth of UK jobs under threat from automation, but some regions more at risk than others

by • News, Technology

Automation will affect one in five jobs across the UK, according to a new study from the thinktank Future Advocacy. According to the report, the risk of jobs being becoming automated is higher in some areas more than others and in the case of shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s west London constituency of Hayes and Harlington hits 40 percent, largely because it contains Heathrow Airport which employs a large number of people whose jobs are most at risk from automation. However, the report claims that a mere 2 percent of people surveyed were ‘very worried’ that they might be replaced by a machine, with a further 5 percent saying they were ‘fairly worried’.

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Gulf in levels of employee engagement between US and Europe

Gulf in levels of employee engagement between US and Europe

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

productivityA new report from Gallup called The State of the Global Workplace (paywall although there is an information light executive summary) claims that only one in ten European workers are engaged with their work compared to 31 percent in the US and Canada. In the UK, British workers were found to be 11 percent engaged with around a fifth (21 percent) actively disengaged. The report cites American management practices as one explanation for the apparent gulf. One of the more notable findings from the study is that just 32 percent of Latin American residents aged 23 to 65 say they are employed full time for an employer compared to 56 percent of US and Canadian residents in that age range.

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Plans announced for Digital City on Toronto waterfront

Plans announced for Digital City on Toronto waterfront

by • News

Sidewalk Labs, owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is to build a ‘digital city’ in Toronto to showcase smart city technology and a range of other cutting edge innovations and examples of best practice. The aim is to turn the Eastern waterfront area of the city into a working laboratory for a range of technologies such as fast wi-fi, millions of smart city sensors, sustainable energy and autonomous cars. The over 3 million s. ft. mixed-use development in Toronto will also be built using cutting edge innovations in construction. Google is already set to become the first major tenant in the development with an office for 300 employees of its Canadian HQ. Sidewalk Labs and the local authorities hope to turn the area into a “place for tens of thousands of people to live, work, learn and play – and to create and advance new ideas that improve city life”.

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Calls for commercial property sector to have a greater focus on customer experience

Calls for commercial property sector to have a greater focus on customer experience

by • News, Property, Workplace design

The UK commercial property industry is undergoing a fundamental shift towards a more customer centric approach, with an increasingly greater emphasis being placed on delivering outstanding customer service to occupiers. This is the key finding of a new report from The British Council for Offices (BCO) entitled ‘Office Service Standards and Customer Experience: a best practice guide’. While for those who hold a very traditional landlord occupier relationship this change in thinking, attitude and operation may feel revolutionary, the report argues we are already seeing the industry evolve across the board. It claims that this is accelerated by new ‘property sector disruptors’, who are driving a shift in the relationship between property owners and corporate occupiers. To ensure they are keeping pace with their changing requirements and aspirations, property owners and managers are increasingly realising the need to invest in building strong relationships with their occupiers

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Harnessing artificial intelligence could release up to £630bn for the UK economy, new government report claims

Harnessing artificial intelligence could release up to £630bn for the UK economy, new government report claims

by • News, Technology

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to add £630 billion to the UK economy by 2035, according to an independent review commissioned by the government as part of its Industrial Strategy. The review, Growing the Artificial Intelligence Industry in the UK, led by Jerome Pesenti, chief executive of BenevolentTech and Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, says AI is expected to make “great improvements” for the public, including more personalised services, better healthcare and more efficient use of resources. Robots could be used to perform a raft of benign and “dangerous” jobs  including smarter scheduling of medical operations and hiring on-demand self-driving cars. The report makes 18 key recommendations for developing AI in the UK and was led by Professor Dame Wendy Hall, a professor of computer science at the University of Southampton.

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Majority of workers are sleep deprived and stressed, negatively impacting their performance and wellbeing

Majority of workers are sleep deprived and stressed, negatively impacting their performance and wellbeing

by • News, Wellbeing

Over three quarters (77 percent) of British workers admit that having a bad night’s sleep negatively impacts their working day, with 27 percent claiming that they feel exhausted on a daily basis, according to a new study from jobsite CV Library. The study explored the attitudes of 1,300 workers around the topic of sleep and the workplace and was conducted with input from Neuroscientist Professor Jim Horne. The research claims that three quarters of Brits (74.5 percent) cite workplace stress as a key cause of their disrupted rest, with a further 92.5 percent admitting that a stress-related disrupted sleep negatively affects their emotions. What’s more, while the majority of workers (58.9 percent) would like to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, only 26.1 percent currently achieve this, with most people (56.8 percent) actually receiving 5-7 hours. The research claims that sleep deprivation is most likely to affect an employee’s ability to stay focused (72.7 percent) as well as their ability to deal with challenging situations (46.5 percent) and make important decisions (34.2 percent).
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Unequal access and usage could hold back potential of global digital economy

Unequal access and usage could hold back potential of global digital economy

by • News, Technology

Digital technologies continue to make impressive advances. Internet infrastructure is improving and the usage of digital tools is growing. The social impacts of digital innovation have also become more pronounced in diverse fields. However, progress is uneven across countries, businesses, and within societies. Broadening access to digital opportunities and helping those lagging behind to catch up would increase the benefits of the digital transformation and help ensure they are widely shared across economies and people, according to a new OECD report. The OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2017 says government policy has not kept pace with the digital innovation and transformation of economies and societies led by big technology firms. It calls on countries need to step up their efforts, invest more in education and skills and encourage greater use of advanced technologies like big data analysis and cloud computing, in particular by small businesses, to make the digital shift more productive and inclusive.

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Government sets out its vision for a low carbon UK

Government sets out its vision for a low carbon UK

by • Environment, Facilities management, News

A strategy setting out how the UK plans to lead the world in cutting carbon emissions to combat climate change while driving economic growth, has been published by the Government. The Clean Growth Strategy: Leading the way to a low carbon future builds on the UK’s progress to date. Carbon emissions in the UK have fallen and national income risen faster than any other nation in the G7 since 1990, according to the report, with emissions down by 42 percent while the economy has grown by 67 percent.

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