February 1, 2024

Many people continue to put a brave face on mental health

Seven in ten employees (67 percent full time and 69 percent part time) say that they feel the need to put a brave face on things when asked about their mental health. Half (47 percent full time and 54 percent part time) report that the reason is because bigger things are going on in the world right now and they don’t wish to be a burden, whilst a quarter of full time employees (27 percent) and a third of part time employees (35 percent) don’t believe that people really want to know how they are. A quarter (26 percent full time and 27 percent part time) say they fear being judged if they open up. As a result they are feeling withdrawn, isolated and less able to socialise. (more…)

January 24, 2024

The final word on workplace wellbeing

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Wellbeing

The final word? Of course not. Nearly six years ago, we published an article that described how the quest for productivity had been supplanted almost entirely by a new emphasis on workplace wellbeing. It was the final nail in the coffin of scientific management and its central notion of the office as a factory, subject to rigid times and places of work and manufacturing’s culture of process, efficiency and productivity. The office a splice of factory and panopticon. (more…)

January 22, 2024

Third of UK adults experience a high level of stress each year

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Over a third of adults experienced high or extreme levels of pressure and stress always or often in the past year (35 percent), according to the new annual report from Mental Health UK. The report warns that the UK is at risk of becoming a ‘burnt-out nation’. Against a backdrop of rising levels of people out of work due to long-term sickness, the polling of over 2,000 UK adults by YouGov for the Mental Health UK reveals that one in five workers (20 percent) needed to take time off due to poor mental health caused by pressure or stress in the past year. (more…)

January 19, 2024

A hazy shade of Winter: Nigel Oseland sounds off on the Workplace Cocktail Hour

by Mark Eltringham • News, Podcasts, Premium Content, Wellbeing, Workplace Cocktail Hour

It’s bitterly cold outside but over a glass of hazy IPA, Nigel Oseland and Mark Eltringham warm to a conversation about fish guts, the sounds that make us cringe, what comfort means to different people and what it would really take to get them to spend more time in the office. And it’s not free fruit, corporate sanctioned togetherness or quirky office features. Nigel also explains why firms might be getting it wrong when it comes to managing which people use which spaces in agile environments. We also discuss how people overestimate their own productivity and underestimate that of their colleagues and what that means for the way we organise. (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

The average day off includes about two and a half hours of work

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

A recent study by Forbes Advisor claims that a quarter (25 percent) of UK employees will work between three and four hours on days when they are officially “off the clock”. The survey found that the average Brit will spend up to two-and-a-half hours working while technically having a day off on holiday or leave. (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 12, 2024

The wonder of you. Monica Parker on joy, serendipity, toxic work cultures and awe

by Mark Eltringham • News, Podcasts, Premium Content, Wellbeing, Workplace Cocktail Hour, Workplace design

Monica Parker joins Mark Eltringham to share an Old Fashioned while discussing how to find wonder in the everyday, the limits of workplace design, our renewed obsession with productivity, how to achieve flow states in a world of distractions and what it means to be truly happy. There’s not much workplace news around right now as people are still finding their feet after Christmas, so we also explore some lessons we might take from the Post Office scandal about how organisations go wrong and the role of human nature in creating toxic cultures. (more…)

January 9, 2024

Gossiping at work really is bad for your career

by Jayne Smith • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Gossiping at work can have serious negative impacts on your career, according to new research by Durham University Business School and NEOMA Business School. Not only are gossipers frowned upon by other work colleagues, they also become socially excluded in the company, and can experience negative career-related impacts as a consequence of their storytelling. (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 2, 2024

We are not blank slates and we don’t adapt to change in predictable ways

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Wellbeing

An idea that has never really gone away, but which seems to be enjoying a new lease of life is the tabula rasa. The conception of people as a blank slate is something that has crept back into mainstream political and social thought for a variety of reasons. Arguably, it is also behind many of the most misleading notions about work and workplace design, perhaps most importantly that a change to some single element or characteristic of a working environment will lead to a specific outcome in the behaviour of people. (more…)

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…)