Columnists
August 9, 2018
Is driver behind the widening parental leave gap a lack of rights in the gig economy?
by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace
The already low number of fathers claiming paternity leave has fallen for the first time in five years, to 213,500, down 3 percent from 221,000 last year an analysis by law firm EMW has revealed. To help encourage more men to take paternity leave, the Government launched the shared parental leave scheme in 2015. However, […]
July 31, 2018
How Charles Eames came to have mixed feelings for his most famous chair
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design
As any honest smartphone user would attest, the things we own sometimes end up owning us. Equally, the things we create can end up owning us. The most famous item designed by Charles Eames is a moulded plywood, leather upholstered lounge chair and matching ottoman that are timelessly iconic, have spawned thousands of rip-off versions, […]
July 31, 2018
Google should be an example to all when it come to interactive workplace design
by Alice Porter • Comment, Workplace design
Google is known to be a wonderland for tech professionals everywhere. It is a sought after and coveted workplace, which is designed to cater to the individual. Comparably has recently named Google as the “tech company with the best corporate culture”, but how does this culture work beyond the realms of the Google institute? The […]
July 23, 2018
New report on the future of work argues we are at an inflection point on the journey
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Workplace design
Whatever you make of the Brexit vote, the idea put forward by Jacob Rees-Mogg in a Channel 4 interview that it will take 50 years before we can judge its benefits is extraordinary. No doubt, people will be making those judgements in half a century, but long term predictions of this kind are invariably foolish. […]
July 17, 2018
Video: Arthur C Clarke predicts remote and flexible working in 1964
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design
Some people foresaw the virtualisation of work, flexible working and the erosion of the workplace over 50 years ago. Scientist and author Arthur C Clarke appeared on the BBC’s Horizon programme in 1964 to apply his foresight and clipped vowels to the question of what future technological advances would mean for the way we work […]
July 11, 2018
Challenging some of the most commonly held misconceptions about coworking
by John Williams • Comment, Coworking
There are a number of misconceptions that dominate much of the writing around flexible workspace, despite all the press coverage and discussion around coworking over the last two years. Yet even in this comparatively short space of time, a number of misconceptions about the market have managed to take hold. Some of them are intuitive […]
July 11, 2018
A beauty industry veteran makes the case for corporate wellness
by Leena Jain • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design
Wellness is a term that today transcends the consumer and business worlds, but it is so much more than a buzzword. Today, the wellbeing of employees is essential for organisations to flourish, so much so that the term has in many ways replaced ‘productivity’ as the way to measure the success of an organisation. Both the […]
July 6, 2018
A storm brewing around the workplace and facilities management
by Cathy Hayward • Comment, Facilities management, News, Workplace design
In Shakespeare’s plays, the sky often goes dark and a storm starts to brew as a prelude to tragedy or violence creating a sense of foreboding. And so it was at today’s BIFM AGM in the lead-up to the special resolution to change the name of the institute from the British Institute of Facilities Management […]
July 5, 2018
Why a Google office simply does not work for everybody 0
by Dr Caroline M. Burns • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design
The open plan office versus closed debate rages on, and rather than running out of steam in the face of all of the evidence and reasoned argument put forward one one side or the other by many industry thought-leaders, it seems to have nine lives. Those grand and ground-breaking new offices occupied by the world’s […]
June 28, 2018
Ten demonstrable truths about the workplace you may not know
by Kerstin Sailer • Comment, Facilities management, Features, Workplace design
The science of the workplace has gained a lot of interest over the last few years, highlighting recurring patterns of human behaviour as well as how organisational behaviour relates to office design. In theory, knowledge from this growing body of research could be used to inform design. In practice, this is rarely the case. A […]
August 9, 2018
How will Crossrail impact the office landscape of London and beyond?
by Lars Brown • Comment, Property
We are now just a few months away from the grand opening of the central section of Crossrail, the 118km long railway line spanning London and the South East which will, once completed, will deliver a direct connection between all of London’s main employment centres; linking Heathrow with Paddington, the West End, the City and […]