January 22, 2024

London’s office market is reshaping the city and the way people experience the workplace

London’s office market continues to adapt to evolving workforce demands. The normalisation of hybrid and flexible working since the pandemic remains the biggest cultural shift that the office sector has witnessed in decades. In addition to the rise in demand for quality-as-a-must in 2023, collaboration, culture, and connectivity will lead the charge for office space trends in the year ahead. (more…)

January 18, 2024

Workplace piffle, humane design and throwing away the blank slate

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The piece I wrote on workplace bullshit came in for quite a bit of attention when it was published and also meant I was pointed to this excellent article on how to spot it when you see it. Lots is said about the skills we’ll need to cope with the challenges of the current Century, but this is perhaps one of the most important. Especially trying to spot it in ourselves. Paradoxically, but understandably, we already seem reasonably able to spot it in our politicians and other people we don’t quite trust. (more…)

January 16, 2024

Technology is stealing your time in ways you may not realise

by Ruth Ogden, Joanna Witowska and Vanda Cernohorská • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. Smart phones provide a palm-size window to the world, enabling us to do almost anything at the touch of a button. Smart homes look after themselves, and virtual meetings mean that for many, time spent commuting is a thing of the past. So we should have more free time. Time which is now spent sleeping, relaxing or simply doing nothing – right? (more…)

January 8, 2024

Time to put down the devices if you really want things to look up

by Anoushka Pacquette • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

In 2022, data from Statisica revealed UK users spent an average of 4.25 hours per day using their mobile devices. A different Statistica survey found that 31 percent of UK social media users aged between 16 and 24 years reported spending between 1-2 hours per day using TikTok, while 25 percent reported spending between 3-4 hours per day on the social video app. (more…)

January 3, 2024

One wish for 2024. A more sophisticated approach to the workplace and hybrid working

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

We know, and have for a long time, that the workplace is in a state of near constant flux. The meteor strike of lockdown was an accelerant, not a deviation. It also laid bare -yet again – the faulty assumption that there is some sort of general evolution towards an idealised version of the office or conversely the universal adoption of remote or hybrid working, whatever it is. That is why we see so many people routinely willing to suspend their critical facilities to make extravagant and even absurd predictions about the office of the future or even the death of the office.

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December 31, 2023

Stanley Green, protein wisdom and the perils of sitting down ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Each day for 25 years, between 1968 and 1993, a man called Stanley Green would rise early, enjoy a spartan breakfast of porridge and an egg, pack up a lunch of apples and vegetables, strap them along with a placard and some pamphlets to a bike and cycle the 12 miles to Oxford Street from his home in Northolt. There he would share his ideas for improving the physical and psychological wellbeing of the country, based primarily on the idea that the consumption of too much protein led to the moral turpitude he had first encountered in the Navy during the War and which had then infected the whole country. (more…)

December 19, 2023

Flexible working is delivering the gift of seasonal productivity

by Frank Weishaupt • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

Employees have made it clear that they are keen for flexible working arrangements to stay. In fact, according to the Owl Labs 2023 State of Hybrid Work report, 40 percent of employees would decline a job if they were required to be in the office five days a week. With the festive season in full swing, employees will look to utilise the benefits of flexible working as they return home to their families. (more…)

December 19, 2023

How employers should navigate the ICO’s guidance on monitoring workers

by Anthony Woolich and Michelle Chance • Comment, Technology

As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, so does the prevalence of firms monitoring workers and the sophistication of the tools available to employers to monitor their staff’s activities. Hand in hand with the increasing prevalence of workplace monitoring tools are concerns that their excessive use may infringe workers’ data protection and privacy rights. Employers must take heed of recent ICO guidance to ensure they do not fall foul of the law in pursuit of the hoped for benefits of workplace monitoring, such as boosting productivity and profit. (more…)

December 16, 2023

Hybrid working: the importance of having the right strategy

by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Flexible working

Hybrid working changes everything it seems. To make it work successfully we need changes in the way people need to be managed, trained and inducted. It changes the needs for communication and social connectivity, goal setting and connection to vision. It requires greater clarity on what is acceptable and what isn’t. Employees must take on new grown-up obligations and organisations are required to ‘trust’ and employees to be ‘trustworthy’. (more…)

December 8, 2023

Inclusive office design is essential if we want offices to be worth the commute

by Guzman de Yarza Blache • Comment, Workplace design

Corporate culture has fundamentally changed since the pandemic and with it, so has the way employees interact with the office. This has put leaders under pressure to create experiences for employees that complement, and in some ways even compete with, the comforts of home. Organisations now understand the immense potential for sustainable, inclusive office design, and people-centric real estate strategies to drive positive change and fuel growth. (more…)

December 8, 2023

Ten years of Insight and a few things I think I know (one of our most read pieces this year)

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

This website started in late 2012 as a way for me to explore both a new media format and a new way of thinking about work and workplaces. I’d already been active in various roles in the workplace, design and facilities sector for twenty odd years, but needed a new challenge. And this was it. I was going for a ride with an idea to see where it went. (more…)

December 7, 2023

What ever happened to The Great Resignation?

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Wellbeing

You may recall that a couple of years ago, The Great Resignation was one of a handful of things with which certain people had become obsessed. Over a period of about six months at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022, we were told repeatedly that huge numbers of people were about to quit their jobs to move to something better, pursue their dream of self-employment or whatever. But, the proportion of people saying this was more or less the same as it had always been. Ask people at the end of any year about their plans for the next twelve months, and around 30-40 percent of them will tell you they want a new job or to pursue an old dream. (more…)