Columnists

Reinventing jobs for an automated future workplace

by • AI, Comment, Technology

Earlier this year, the European Commission announced it will invest €20 billion in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research and development by 2020 to boost the adoption of AI and robotics across multiple industries, which will have a significant impact on the way work across sectors gets done. Facing demographic deficits, Europe and Japan – and to […]

The evolution of the workplace conversation in ten graphs

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

Based on Google Trends data since 2004 and without comment.                       Main image: Herman Miller Living Office

How Thomas Jefferson came to invent the swivel chair and laptop 0

by • Comment, Furniture, Technology, Workplace design

In 1775, Thomas Jefferson was a busy man. As part of the Committee of Five men and at the tender age of 33, he had been charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence that was to be presented to Congress the following Summer. By all accounts, Jefferson was a self-contained and self-sufficient man and, like […]

Creating a productive workplace for people is all about context

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

The quest for a proper understanding of the links between the places we work, the things with which we fill them and our wellbeing and productivity has been ongoing for a very long time. It predates our current thinking on productive workplace design and the facilities management discipline as we now know it by decades […]

Don’t stand so close to me: why personal space matters in the workplace 0

by • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

As successive BCO Specification Guides and the research of organisations like CoreNet Global have proved, the spatial dynamics of offices have changed dramatically in recent years. Put simply, the modern office serves significantly more people per square foot than ever before. Originally this tightening was largely down to the growing ubiquity of flat screen and […]

Why early intervention matters for workplace mental health

by • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace

Last year alone, poor mental health was the primary cause of long-term absence for 22 percent of organisations, with employees feeling too stressed or anxious to face going in to work. This was up from 13 percent in 2016. However, 45 percent of those who take time off for mental health reasons give their employers […]

How do you make your company culture work for everyone?

by • Comment, Workplace

Company culture is the bedrock of any business. And it has been thrown into sharp focus in recent months with many high-profile scandals hitting the headlines such as the discrimination case at Uber. In light of this, many businesses are now investing in – even living and breathing – their company culture. This is of course, […]

The office will always live on because nothing propinks like propinquity

by • Comment, Property, Workplace design

Perhaps the most pervasive and enduring myth about the office is that it is somehow dying off. It’s a blast of guff originally farted out at the dawn of the technological revolution in the early 1990s, which has somehow lingered and been stinking the place out ever since. The essential premise behind the idea of […]

The global problem of overwork and the right to disconnect

by • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing

Anybody who doubts the importance of work and working culture to people’s lives should look at the resistance to President Macron’s mooted changes to labour laws. His attempts to modernise and liberalise French workplace legislation marked the first cracks in his reputation and brought millions of French workers to the streets as part of a […]

How will Crossrail impact the office landscape of London and beyond?

by • 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 […]

Is driver behind the widening parental leave gap a lack of rights in the gig economy?

by • 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, […]

How Charles Eames came to have mixed feelings for his most famous chair

by • 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, […]

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