April 13, 2021
After a year of lockdowns, people are burnt-out but happier
Glint’s latest insights report shows that there is a worrying increase in employees experiencing challenges with their mental health, with burnout risk trending upwards year-over-year. That spiked in late March 2020 and climbed by nearly 4 percent between August and December 2020. That’s not a big surprise, given the first challenging months of the global pandemic. Paradoxically, employees say that despite feeling burnt-out, they also feel happier at work at the end of a year of lockdown than they did at the start. Is this some sort of contradiction—or evidence of something very encouraging about the state of HR? (more…)
A year of unnecessarily binary conversation about work leads inevitably to this. A stupid question. 
It is now a truism that society expects more of business than merely maximising shareholder value. 
As the world emerges from the grip of the pandemic, the 
Many organisations make bold claims about their zero carbon ambitions. Even if they don’t, most have sustainability statements. Yet the environmental impact of office furniture and sophisticated approaches to sustainable office design seem to be way down the ‘pecking order’. During the last year, we have read considerable commentary about the office – starting with its death but moving onto predictions of the ‘new dawn’ with more versatile and healthier workspaces. 
You may have heard it said that any idea repeated often enough develops some form of legitimacy. We’ve had plenty of reason to reflect on whether this notion is true or nor over the past year, especially as all-encompassing pronouncements about the future of work have proliferated and intensified. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that around 80 percent of people 
If I were to suggest that organisations were designing their processes, policies and relationships with unkindness at the core, you would probably reject it as an illogical proposition, it just doesn’t make business sense. It goes against the grain and against the values that are plastered on the walls of so many organisations. But as counterintuitive as it may seem, in my opinion, many organisations have done just that, designed unkindness into the things they do, albeit inadvertently. But if they can do that, they can also design kindness in too. 
The UK COVID-19 vaccination 
We are scarcely nine months into the Covid-19 pandemic, after a long spring and harsh summer. Social distancing has led to remote working becoming widespread, leading to doubts regarding the office’s long-term relevance. However, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) argues in a recent 
Whether we’re always aware of it or not, body language plays a vital role in face-to-face discourse. In fact, over half of our effective communication comes via body language; that range of non-verbal cues that covers everything from facial expressions and gestures to posture and tone of voice. Meeting in person constantly draws on these signals, and we interpret them by instinct and via conscious analysis to guide the way we interact, frequently to help steer communication towards our goals. But nearly a year of lockdowns, remote working and general separation has challenged these norms, with video-based communication acting as a widespread, imperfect substitute. 
April 14, 2021
The digital world is not necessarily greener than the physical world
by Neil Franklin • Comment, Environment, Technology