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…)

December 18, 2023

A bit of alien thinking on coffee and some other BS

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Features, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

I’ve sometimes highlighted how our perceptions of the workplace are subject to an apex fallacy. The daily consumption of narratives about campuses, tech palaces and ‘cool’ design can obscure the fact that most people don’t experience this stuff in their daily lives. They work in adequate or possibly nice offices. Some in shabby offices or horrible offices. Many travel into work at the same time each day and sit with roughly the same people and do roughly the same things. They may work from home more frequently now, but they have a routine there too. Most will work in a mundane or nice home that mirrors the mundane office that awaits at the other end of the commute. (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…)

December 6, 2023

Work notifications make it harder for people to spend time with friends and family

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Wellbeing

Out of hours work notifications on devices are having a significant impact on people’s work-life boundaries, according to a new report from Ring Central. According to the poll, work notifications are on the rise with 31 percent stating that notifications outside of work have increased in the past year. As a result, employees are also feeling the pressure to respond to work notifications immediately (14 percent) or within 1 hour (33 percent). The survey also suggests that notifications cause the same amount of anxiety for Brits as spiders (54 percent) and almost as much as going to the dentist (59 percent). (more…)