Columnists
January 31, 2022
From the archive: How organic design can reflect the way people move around a building
by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Workplace design
The story goes that, after Rem Koolhaas had been appointed to design the McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2003, the legendary architect noticed how students had created their own pathways between the buildings on the site. The site of the new building included a field on which their footprints […]
January 25, 2022
Hybrid working? Let’s put on a show
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working
I’m currently rereading Art Kleiner’s masterful book The Age of Heretics which describes the history of ground-breaking thought in management in the 20th Century and the lessons we forget. It remains a relevant book for the new era of ‘hybrid working’ because the book draws a distinction between two fundamental schools of thought in management […]
January 17, 2022
Is your office worth the journey it takes to get to it?
by Despina Katsikakis • Comment, Flexible working, Property
A couple of years ago, in the wake of a surge in self-care start-ups and viral diet fads, Forbes declared 2019 as the year of the “wellness revolution”. Three years and a global pandemic later, the revolution appears to have swept our offices. Why? Quite simply, we have woken up to the fact that we […]
January 12, 2022
Are we witnessing the demise of the knowledge worker?
by Anthony Brown • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace
While the debate about working from home versus working in the office continues, should the real conversation focus on the implications for a typical knowledge worker? ‘Knowledge work’ is a term that dates back over sixty years. It’s said to be first coined by Peter Drucker in his 1958 book The Landmarks of Tomorrow. The […]
January 11, 2022
Great Resignation offers firms a chance to create the Great Retention
by Erin Eatough • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Working culture
The last 18 months have seen unprecedented change. Covid-19 has forced people to re-evaluate every aspect of their lives, including their career. As a result, we’ve seen a surge in workers taking charge of their careers and leaving their jobs as part of the so-called Great Resignation. Recent data from the ONS shows that there […]
January 7, 2022
The way we talk about hybrid working can reflect a failure of imagination
by Paul Jervis-Heath • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design
The events of the last 18 months have given us a once in a generation opportunity to reinvent work. Our generation can create a discontinuity between the assumptions of the past and the opportunities of the future. To capitalise on these opportunities though we have to dispense with the assumptions we hold about work and […]
January 5, 2022
‘Great Resignation’ offers a one off opportunity to rethink our relationship with work
by Pip White • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing
After nearly two turbulent years, which for many knowledge workers have been dominated by a ground-hog day like existence, people are looking for change. This is only natural as workers around the world are re-evaluating their priorities, reigniting their passions, or simply looking for something new. This has led to a mini-exodus from businesses, which […]
January 4, 2022
Hybrid working will demand leaders develop new communication skills
by David Mills • Comment, Flexible working
Keeping on top of communication barriers in the business world can feel like an endless game of Whac-A-Mole, especially now in the new era of hybrid working. The usual culprits are well-known by now: patchy WiFi connections, crashing computer programmes, cloud syncing issues, important emails sneaking into spam folders – the list goes on. All […]
December 14, 2021
Drawing on internal skills can help firms cope with Great Resignation
by Mike Baker • Comment, Workplace
The UK’s workforce is undergoing rapid transformation as employees’ expectations and motivations radically change. The impact of Brexit, COVID-19 and long periods of furlough have created a tidal wave of resignations across every industry. Workers are re-thinking career paths, work conditions and long-term goals after a turbulent 18 months; with one study finding that 38 percent of people are looking to change roles in the new year.
December 7, 2021
What the 21st Century office of the future looked like in the 1960s
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Technology, Workplace design
We’re used to hearing people predict what The Office of the Future will look like. It’s been going on for a very long time now and each new generation of commentators on the subject comes up with its own forms of wishful thinking, wild generalisations, distorted conclusions and failures to account for the inherent unknowability […]
January 31, 2022
The great workplace conversation (still) needs to be held with a great deal more humility
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design
“Nobody knows anything”. William Goldman’s infamous summing up of the essential unknowability of the movie business also has a less quoted second part. “Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.” It is […]