From the archive: The way to create a successful workplace is simple, but never easy

From the archive: The way to create a successful workplace is simple, but never easy

by • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

This was originally published in December 2020. All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. As is now the way of these things, the famous opening words of Anna Karenina have been used to name a principle that is applied across a wide range of fields. It describes how success can only happen in one way, but failure comes in many forms. (more…)

Is the Flexible Working Bill a game changer or paper tiger?

Is the Flexible Working Bill a game changer or paper tiger?

by • Comment, Flexible working

The need for more flexible working arrangements has been heard and employees are getting what they want – right? As LinkedIn data has shown, demand for work flexible working is high. And it outpaces the current availability of remote work offers. In the UK alone, listings for remote jobs have increased by 277 percent. Job postings for hybrid or remote positions received an increase in applications (189 percent) over in-office roles. People want to work remotely for various reasons. So they can live in their chosen home rather than in a tiny flat in London without sacrificing their career. So they can care for family – children, parents, grandparents. The demand for flexible work is driven by a desire for balance. The need has been clearly voiced – and the workforce is hungry for new modes of work. Looking at this background – the cheerful response to the passing of the bill is understandable. (more…)

Is there ever a genuinely good or bad time for change?

Is there ever a genuinely good or bad time for change?

by • Business, Comment, JB

There are two questions that seem to plague quite a lot of people:  is there a good or bad time for change and is there a good or bad change?There are two questions, regarding change, that seem to plague quite a lot of people:  “is there a good or bad time for change and is there a good or bad change?” Now it may seem the answers would be quite straight forward, but probably as no surprise the actual answer is “it all depends”. That is because change is about people and we all know there is no formula for people, so it is impossible to give a formulaic, straight forward answer. (more…)

Breaking eggs and a two thousand year quest to make the most of each day

Breaking eggs and a two thousand year quest to make the most of each day

by • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

make the most of each dayThe fracturing of time and place underlies every one of the great workplace issues of our time. Everything that springs from this – the where, when, how, what and why of work – is defined by the shattering of any fixed idea we may once have had of a time and a place to work. Because the challenge to these traditional ideas is now so inextricably linked in our minds with new technology, we might often  forget that people have been asking questions about how we can get the most out of each day for thousands of years. Tempus fugit after all, and as a consequence we’ve always known that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. (more…)

Working from home won’t last forever… will it?

Working from home won’t last forever… will it?

by • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

The so-called return to office and pushback on  working from home seems to be the must-talk topic on workplace strategy right nowHave we all gone a little OTT on RTO? The so-called return to office and pushback on  working from home seems to be the must-talk topic on workplace strategy right now; a heated debate ignited by Zoom’s recent call to reduce remote working days for its employees.  Many have been surprised at how polarising this decision has become. Who would have thought that a global business asking employees to work from the office two days a week could cause such controversy? Even if that business does specialise in video calls for remote work? (more…)

From ego to eco – a universal approach to workplace transformation

From ego to eco – a universal approach to workplace transformation

by • Comment, Environment, Everything Omni

Going from ‘ego to eco’ extends beyond the narrow confines of the workplace and our personal and professional lives, additionally it is not just confined to ecology and the environmentYou might quite rightly be thinking about the relevance of such a ‘hippy, dippy’ soundbite on the hard-hitting world of work and the workplace, especially in this climate of uncertainty with a myriad of challenges facing business, the workforce and commercial real estate globally. I first heard the phrase ‘going from ego to eco’ at a series of presentations cum incubator events EverythingOmni ran with participants of all ages/backgrounds/career levels representing 18 countries on the Uncertainty of Work.

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Advancing accessibility and reaping the rewards of disability inclusion

Advancing accessibility and reaping the rewards of disability inclusion

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

two people talking to illustrate the growing number of disabled people in self-employment disability inclusionIn business, companies have a responsibility to balance profit-driven strategies with wider social commitments. As well as being the right thing to do, a focus on the latter can invariably drive economic value. Companies that prioritise diversity, for instance, earn 2.5 times higher cash flow, while inclusive teams are 35 percent more productive. As a result, diversity in the workforce is now widely accepted to be both a moral necessity and a commercial opportunity, with more and more corporates incorporating DE&I policies into their operational frameworks. Despite this progress, the disability community is still largely excluded from these discussions around inclusion.  (more…)

The challenge for office acoustics is to make people feel at home

The challenge for office acoustics is to make people feel at home

by • Comment, Workplace design

The need for quiet work remains wherever we work, and so our approach to office acoustics should shift in particular waysA number of apparent truisms about work and workplaces entered mainstream consciousness in the wake of the pandemic, and the shift to more flexible and hybrid working cultures. One of them is that people are better off carrying out focussed, quiet work at home, and creative and collaborative work in the office. And that this might suggest our approach to office acoustics would shift in particular ways. (more…)

What the office of the future will really look like is the office of today

What the office of the future will really look like is the office of today

by • Comment, Workplace design

If you set aside the Jetson-y outside views, the office of the future is very like the office of the presentIt’s a banality to point out that futurism is nowism plus either a robot butler or blasted landscape. So, I was taken with a press release we had last week from Studio Alliance which shows an AI’s depiction of the office of the future at various points over the next quarter of a century. What is most striking to me, if you set aside the Jetson-y outside views, is how much like the office of the present each is. (more…)

Rummaging through the workplace memory hole

Rummaging through the workplace memory hole

by • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

I recently whiled away an idle hour checking which of the more deranged pronouncements from the period of peak workplace hysteria in late 2020 have been memory holed…talking of Orwell, I recently whiled away an idle hour checking which of the more deranged pronouncements from the period of peak workplace hysteria in late 2020 have been memory holed. There was some weird, wild stuff, often coupled with a feverish response to anybody urging caution. At one point somebody (I know who but won’t say) suggested I should be banned from LinkedIn for pushing back on the idea that any firm that didn’t go fully remote would be out of business within five years. (more…)

How many fingers am I holding up?

How many fingers am I holding up?

by • Comment

Quoting George Orwell is the kind of thing that people who haven’t read Orwell do. The term Orwellian is used by people who have not only not read him, but have latched on to some laundered idea of the themes of his work. They are not only misrepresenting him, but misrepresenting a misrepresentation. If it were true that the dead could spin in their graves, Orwell would solve the world’s energy crisis. He could power the Northern Hemisphere by reacting to the liberties taken with Nineteen Eighty-Four alone. Anyway. I have read him so you and he will have to forgive me for what I’m about to say. (more…)

Digital nomads are starting to price out local communities around the world

Digital nomads are starting to price out local communities around the world

by • Cities, Comment, Flexible working

Remote working: how a surge in digital nomads is pricing out local communities around the world. For eight years I have studied digital nomadism, the millennial trend for working remotely from anywhere around the world. I am often asked if digital nomads are driving gentrification. Before COVID upended the way we work, I would usually tell journalists that the numbers were too small for a definitive answer. Most digital nomads were travelling and working illegally on tourist visas. It was a niche phenomenon. Three years into the pandemic, however, I am no longer sure. (more…)

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