March 9, 2023

Progress depends on heterodox thought and difficult questions

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Between the 9th and 13th Centuries, the world’s intellectual centre and the source of much of its progress, discovery and achievement was Baghdad. This was the Muslim Golden Age and at its core was the House of Wisdom, established by the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. At one point, this library housed the largest collection of books on Earth and drew the greatest minds in the world to share ideas, innovate and explore ancient sources of science and wisdom from Greek and Persian texts. Muslim, Jewish, Christian and atheist scholars worked together to advance human understanding until a slow decline culminated with a later Caliph declaring that its diversity of thought should bow to a literal interpretation of the Quran and Hadith. More →

March 6, 2023

The six skills managers will need for the future of work

by Lea Kimpele • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

When it comes to the future of work, we need new guidelines for building change-ready and vulnerable leadership.

Conversations around how work and leadership will change in the coming years have inevitably been accelerated by the pandemic. Companies all over the world have been urged to seek new digital tools, solutions and methods for communicating, making decisions, and activating projects remotely. The companies that emerged most successfully from the Covid era were those that, despite all the uncertainty at the time, decided to adapt and view the pandemic as an opportunity for change rather than an obstacle. When it comes to the future of work, we need new guidelines for building change-ready and vulnerable leadership. More →

March 3, 2023

Artificial intelligence could mean we all do more work, not less

by Barbara Ribeiro • Comment, Technology

There’s a common perception that artificial intelligence (AI) will help streamline our work but is that really true?

There’s a common perception that artificial intelligence will help streamline our work. There are even fears that it could wipe out the need for some jobs altogether. But in a study of science laboratories I carried out with three colleagues at the University of Manchester, the introduction of automated processes that aim to simplify work — and free people’s time — can also make that work more complex, generating new tasks that many workers might perceive as mundane. More →

March 1, 2023

The rise of the pods shows how the workplace pendulum swings

by Ben Capper • Comment, Workplace design

Workplace designers removed the walls. And the furniture industry is selling them back to us; now portable and demountable.

Long before the office died (I read its obituary in several publications) there were hotly contested debates about open plan offices. That is of course before those debates were eclipsed by more current workplace rantings (ask the editor). Skimming through the open-plan office timeline, Herman Miller launched action office, L-shaped desks with screens became shared benches, and decades later tech brands rolled out efficient open-plan workspaces around the globe, with Facebook creating the biggest open-plan office of all time with 2,800 employees. Gulp. Open plan officer workers and workplace professionals moaned about acoustics, stress, and more recently, germs in large open workspaces. More →

February 14, 2023

UK businesses are out of touch with the real sources of employee stress

by Nick Gold • Comment, Wellbeing

96 percent of firms do not believe that employee salaries are a major stress factor for staff during the cost-of-living crisis

The cost-of-living crisis is driving a wedge between employers and their staff. In a recent research report, we surveyed 500 employers to discover what they believe causes their staff the most stress. Surprisingly, an overwhelming 96 percent did not believe that employee salaries are a major stress factor for staff during the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, they felt major contributors included heavy workloads, long hours, and tight deadlines. More →

February 10, 2023

Working parents are resilient, and a resilient team is good for business

by Erin Eatough • Comment, Wellbeing

Parent Mental Health Day renewed our focus on working parents and their resilience, the ability to adapt to change, deal with stress, and foster optimism

Last week, Parent Mental Health Day renewed our focus on working parents and their resilience, the ability to adapt to change, deal with stress, and foster optimism despite difficulty. From a business perspective, resilience is the way that employees recognise and respond to challenges as opportunities to develop rather than as a threat or setback. Resilience is an important skill for us all as we manoeuvre through life’s daily trials and it is particularly important for working parents as we often juggle more responsibilities outside of the workplace. More →

February 2, 2023

Do you walk or talk people centric change for success?

by Jennifer Bryan • Comment, JB, Workplace

In previous articles, I shared that there is a McKinsey report that states that 75 percent of the organisations that were listed at the time on the S&P would no longer exist by 2025 – they would either merge, be bought out or go bankrupt. This all means that organisations have to change and adapt or die. That is now less than 2 years away, so some organisations are now gone, some are struggling and some have adapted. With that said, organisations can no longer afford to get change wrong – they have to get it right and right now. And one way of doing this is to focus on people centric change. More →

January 20, 2023

AI presents us with a chance to rediscover what it means to be human

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology

We won't beat AI by relying on formulaic thinking and ideas, so we need to rethink creativity and what it means to be human

Like a lot of people right now, I am struggling to get my head around where we are going with AI. Look around and you’ll see the breathless excitement at the sheer amazingness of it all. And examples of its limitations, how it screws up, how military grade AI can be fooled by somebody hiding in a box, and its sense of humour failure. All of this is demonstrably, paradoxically true. More →

January 17, 2023

A workplace for entrepreneurial mindsets to thrive should be your goal

by John Mullins • Business, Comment

These days it seems like everyone is looking to become more entrepreneurial. It’s a word that’s often used by big companies on the hunt for innovative thinkers and new ways of doing things. But sadly, the workplace doesn’t always work for those with entrepreneurial minds. It is too rigid, too hierarchical, too conventional. Entrepreneurs, by nature, are rule-breakers, always looking for new opportunities and fresh ideas that could change the world. From my research, they differ from other businesspeople in some fundamental ways – six ways, to be exact. More →

January 4, 2023

What IS hybrid working?

by Neil Usher • Comment, Flexible working

A man working at a laptop in a pub to illustrate the possible definition of hybrid working

In an uncharacteristically Waddellian moment*, the Word of the Year for 2022 according to The Economist was ‘hybrid work’. Yet despite its ubiquity, in the comparative calm of social channels over the holiday period lurked claims that no-one knows what hybrid working is. Even though millions of people are doing it. Given that such an assertion came as a surprise, there was only ever going to be one opening post for 2023: an attempt to explain it. More →

December 22, 2022

How businesses can support employee wellbeing over a difficult festive period

by Louise Aston • Comment, Wellbeing

When we think about the festive period, the financial pressures that Christmas brings, amid rising energy bills and not having enough to eat shouldn’t be first and foremost on our minds. With thirty million people employed by businesses in the UK, that is a huge number of employees who could benefit if employers acted now to support them and their wellbeing. This winter has been extremely challenging for many people across the UK. And for the first time since 2009, the UK is in recession. More →

December 20, 2022

Never mind the workplace predictions, here’s some bollocks

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

A painting of Janus to depict the number of workplace predictions and retrospectives at the end of the year

Time of the year for looking backwards and forwards. For workplace predictions and retrospectives. The Economist announces that the word / term of the year is hybrid work. This is interesting because, although The Economist is using it as an interchangeable term for flexible working as many do, a great deal of energy is still expounded on defining exactly what it means. We may work out when the obsession with three days in the office, two at home thing started. But for now, determining where people are at any given time doesn’t seem very flexible to me. More →