July 22, 2021
UK office workers would need a £4,000 salary bump to tempt them back to the office full-time. This is according to new research released today by Locatee – a workspace occupancy and analytics provider. Commissioned by YouGov, the Locatee research explores more than 1,000 UK office workers’ attitudes towards remote and flexible working, and the effects on job satisfaction, productivity, and security. (more…)
July 19, 2021
The European Commission adopted a package of proposals to make the EU’s climate, energy, land use, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. The Commission claims that achieving these emission reductions in the next decade is crucial to Europe becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and making the European Green Deal a reality. (more…)
July 16, 2021
Heidrick and Struggles has released the results of a new global CEO study Aligning Culture with the Bottom Line: How Companies Can Accelerate Progress which found that intentionally building a company’s working culture can impact the company’s financial performance in a number of ways. The survey of 500 CEOs across nine countries examines how working culture propels organisational performance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Spain, the UK and the USA. (more…)
July 2, 2021
The new issue of IN Magazine is now available to read online. The print edition will be sent out next week. In this issue, amongst other things: Joanna Knight in conversation with Georgia Elliott-Smith on the harsh realities of workplace sustainability; Chris Kane and Eugenia Anastassiou on cutting through the workplace chatter; commentary from Guenaelle Watson, Will Easton and José Alberto Rodriguez Ruiz; Rob Harris on the new age of networks; the history and future of biophilic design; a look at the new workplace utopias; Louis Wustemann on the need to focus on people, not places; Sara Bean on the experiential workplace; Helen Parton visits the new office of Paymentsense; and much more. (more…)
June 18, 2021
Paradoxically, more in-person work environments and the concentration of jobs in cities could be a medium- to long-term impact of the pandemic’s shift to remote working, suggests Citi GPS Technology at Work: The Coming of the Post-Production Society, a report produced by Citi and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. The report cites the automation of manufacturing and clerical tasks alongside the potential for professional services jobs that can be done remotely to be done cheaper overseas as the start of a foundational shift in developed economies. The future of work in these countries, it suggests, could be based largely on innovation, exploration and creative thinking which require face-to-face interaction and geographic proximity. (more…)
June 14, 2021
A new report from the RSA and Vitality warns of the potentially serious impact on the long-term physical and mental health of employees. The authors claim that the ‘long lockdown effect’ should lead employers to see health and wellbeing as important strategic issues and place them on the company’s risk registers. With the shift to more flexible working cultures now set to continue, Healthy Hybrid, a Blueprint for Business, claims to shine a light on the health impact of successive lockdowns on homeworkers. (more…)
June 7, 2021
The so-called ‘bullshit jobs theory’ – which argues that a large and rapidly increasing number of workers are undertaking jobs that they themselves recognise as being useless and of no social value – contains several major flaws, argue researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham. Even so, writing in Work, Employment and Society, the academics applaud its proponent, American anthropologist David Graeber, who died in September 2020, for highlighting the link between a sense of purpose in one’s job and psychological wellbeing.
June 6, 2021
Occupiers and landlords of commercial property should partner on a path towards full economic reopening by taking decisive action to address commercial rent challenges, says the CBI. The CBI believes commercial property tenants should resume paying rents as normal when emergency coronavirus legislation protecting businesses from evictions and statutory demands ends on June 30, except in cases of extreme financial difficulty caused by this year’s lockdown measures. (more…)
June 3, 2021
The majority of companies believe that their purpose is not solely to make money, according to a new survey by one of Britain’s best known business associations. The Institute of Directors claims that its recent poll shows companies are re-assessing their role in society. It says the findings come at a time when corporations are facing greater pressure to recognise the impact of their decisions on the environment and the communities in which they work. (more…)
June 3, 2021
Half of workers in the UK (50 percent) say their employers have provided support for their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, while two-thirds of employees globally reported the same (65 percent). This may illustrate a growing awareness and concern from businesses about the potential psychological impact on staff, according to a new study People at Work 2021: A Global Workforce View by the ADP Research Institute. (more…)
June 1, 2021
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has released new figures suggesting that over two thirds (66 percent) of businesses surveyed now offer flexible working to employees. The data, from a survey of over 900 businesses conducted in April 2021, also shows nearly three quarters of businesses expect to have at least one employee working remotely over the coming year, with the average expectation among those firms being just over half of their employees working remotely. (more…)
July 8, 2021
Indoor air quality needs to be talked about far more than it is
by Neil Franklin • Comment, Environment, Wellbeing, Workplace design