Columnists
November 20, 2022
Is carbon counting really the answer for the office furniture industry?
by Joanna Knight • Comment, Environment, JK
There is an increasing awareness that carbon is contained within all the products we buy. As an example, a leading sports trainer manufacturer is now displaying carbon content labelling, rather like food retailers quote calories. Within the workplace sector, the environmental impact of the built environment and products such as office furniture and flooring are […]
November 17, 2022
The workplace circus continues to entertain, but back in the real world…
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing
The Great Workplace Circus headlines its 322nd show of the year with everybody’s favourite distraction, Elon Musk, being driven into the ring by his own shoddily built clown car, declaring he needs everybody at Twitter to be ‘extremely hardcore’ before sacking a few people from his space programme, then setting fire to the tent himself. […]
November 10, 2022
Summing up where the office now stands in the scheme of things
November 4, 2022
The human mind and body are not really machines for living in
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace
It is ironic that while we live in a world in which we are witnessing the automation of more and more human skills and capabilities, we are often best able to understand the way people function with symbols of mechanisation. That is the underlying conceit of what turned out to be one of the animated film […]
November 3, 2022
Are digital skills the key to a happier, more productive workforce?
by Katy Liddell • Comment, Technology, Workplace
The rising cost-of-living is impacting life and work in all four corners of the UK. Research from BCC has found that businesses feel compelled to increase their own prices. With costs rising, businesses are facing growing pressures. Not least the need to attract and retain the talent they can depend on to deliver. Research has […]
November 2, 2022
Who’s driving this bus, anyway? A critical review of Leading People in Change by Jennifer Bryan
by Neil Usher • Comment, Workplace
Writing about change isn’t easy, but too many people try it. I tried it with Elemental Change (LID, 2020). Jennifer Bryan succeeded where I didn’t, and managed a short book about change. Her book Leading People in Change also succeeds where I didn’t by focussing on one aspect of change, leadership. So far so good, […]
October 24, 2022
Orgatec 2022 preview – a chance to create new friends and new memories
by Mick Jordan • Comment, Workplace design, Works Magazine
For as long as we’ve been in this industry, we’ve sat and chatted with leading lights from the London furniture market, first listening to fantastic tales and raucous anecdotes, and later telling our own recollections of Cologne. We originally wondered whether these stories were simply that – mere myths and Chinese whispers. Then, of course, […]
October 20, 2022
The rotting one hit wonders of the workplace
October 19, 2022
Remote workers can find it hard to switch off. There’s now an app for that
by Anthony Thompson • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing
The last few years have seen our approach to work change dramatically. Technology has helped to unlock whole new ways of communicating and interacting, providing the flexibility for employees to work in a way that suits them best and creating a large number of remote workers for the first time. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic […]
October 13, 2022
The success of hybrid working hinges on creating a great workplace experience
by Lee Rubin • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace
Recent statistics underline the extent to which hybrid working is now a permanent fixture of US business life. A recent report suggests that 74 percent of US companies are using or plan to implement a permanent hybrid working model, whilst 44 percent of US employees prefer a hybrid work model, compared to 51 percent of […]
November 23, 2022
The unspoken privilege of wellbeing
by Stephanie Fitzgerald • Comment, SF, Wellbeing
I sat in the main hall at a recent conference, listening to the keynote presentation. A Head of HR at a large manufacturing company described the implementation of their wellbeing strategy over the last year. So far, so important. There is no doubt that the conversation around wellbeing has been rightly amplified, as employees are […]