November 27, 2023

If you want people to feel fulfilled at work, you’d better cough up

According to a new poll from United Culture, salary is what makes most people feel fulfilled at work. More than half of employees (55 percent) ranked it as their key consideration, ahead of ‘softer’ factors such as doing something worthwhile (41 percent), or working with people they like (39 percent). It also ranks significantly higher than opportunities that will play out over the longer term, such as having a clear sense of career progression (37 percent). More →

November 27, 2023

Appetite for hybrid working shows no sign of letting up at large firms

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

The ongoing advancements in technology have made remote collaboration more feasible and seamless than ever before. Collaboration tools have become essential in ensuring the coexistence of the digital and physical workplace, both internally with employees and externally with clients. And in 2023, companies have been posting hybrid working related roles in record numbers, according to a new report from GlobalData. More →

November 14, 2023

Republished: The brain-dead megaphone of work

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Working lives

There is nothing new about any of this. And yet it’s all new. I’ve spent months talking to people who really know their stuff about work and workplaces and underlying nearly all of those conversations is the following paradox. They know about flexible working, the under-utilisation of space, the twenty minute neighbourhood, the work ecosystem, universal basic income, the digital workspace, the office as club, all the rest of it. Heard it all before, often many times, over many years. Some of them have been living it too, and yet… More →

November 14, 2023

No one shouted stop, although we all should have seen it coming

by Chris Kane • Comment, Everything Omni, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

And No One Shouted Stop! seems to me to be an apt phrase to capture these post- pandemic times as we grapple with work and workplace dilemmas. It comes from the little-known but widely acclaimed book of the same name by John Healy. It is set over 50 years ago and it chronicles the decline of an Irish town. The book’s underlying narrative is a train crash happening in slow motion, people see it coming but nobody feels able to stop it. I sincerely hope that this will not prove to be the case for the world of commercial real estate as it grapples with hordes of tenants asking not just ‘where is my office?’ But ‘why do I need an office?’ More →

November 10, 2023

The challenge for fit-out firms is to deliver best value despite supply chain challenges

by Kevin P'ng • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

The past year has been a challenging one for London’s commercial fit-out market. Whilst industry supply and demand dynamics may have found a level of equilibrium since the pandemic, geopolitical tensions, economic disruptions, and an unstable domestic policy environment continue to have an impact. In tandem with this, the commercial fit-out market is adapting to changing needs; from accommodating hybrid working models to growing demands for sustainability and reuse, the workplaces of today are ever changing. More →

November 2, 2023

A Newtonian perspective on reason, productivity and creativity

by Mark Eltringham • Comment

On the doorstep of the British Library, you will find Edouardo Paolozzi’s imposing statue of Sir Isaac Newton. At first glance, this position seems to make perfect sense. Where better for a monument to the Enlightenment’s poster boy than raised on a plinth at the entrance to the world’s second largest library? And yet, there’s more going on here than is evident at first glance. More →

November 2, 2023

People from ‘Gen Z’ expect to change career at least three times during their working lives

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace

While 73 percent of people from ‘Gen Z’ are willing to take a pay cut to pursue more fulfilling opportunities, two thirds of them plan to quit their current job by 2025, according to a new poll. Perceptions on careers and how often employees need to reskill and alter their career route has evolved significantly for the newest generation of workers, reveals the national survey of 2,000 working adults by Resource Solutions. The results suggest Gen Zs expect to change industries at least three times throughout their working life – once more than any other generation before them. More →

October 19, 2023

Real estate tech strategies advance AI, workplace and sustainability

by Jayne Smith • AI, News, Property, Technology

Commercial real estate occupiers are willing to put their money where the tech is, according to new polling from JLL’s 2023 Global Real Estate Technology Survey. Ninety-one percent of occupier respondents are willing to pay a premium for tech-enabled space as they look to technology for strategic value and increased revenue. In fact, real estate tech budgets are set to grow faster than investments in?headcount, footprint and operating budgets, the report suggests. More →

October 16, 2023

Half of workplace grievances down to spats between colleagues

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

Feuding and conflicting colleagues account for nearly half (47 percent) of all workplace grievances, according to a new poll from employment law and HR consultancy firm, WorkNest. Nearly four in ten (38 percent) businesses believe this is down to employees becoming less tolerant, with factors such as mental health and stress (24 percent) and organisational change (24 percent) also suspected to be contributing to conflict between employees or between employees and line managers. More →

October 4, 2023

BCO Awards dominated by South East offices yet again but Glasgow office takes top spot

by Neil Franklin • News, Property, Workplace design

Barclays’ Glasgow campus (pictured) was celebrated as the Best of the Best at the British Council for Offices (BCO) National Awards last night, also taking home the prize for Corporate Workplace. Seven further winners of BCO Awards were recognised as leading examples of excellence in workplace design in the UK. There were no winners in any category in the Midlands or North of England, Northern Ireland or Wales, although two offices in Manchester and Widnes were commended and the President’s Award went to HMRC for its ongoing national estate management programme. More →

September 25, 2023

Report links economic growth with the idea of ‘good work’

by Jayne Smith • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

In advance of the main party conferences, the CIPD is calling for the next UK Government to develop a long-term workforce strategy to underpin a broader, bolder vision for economic growth. This is a central message in its new ‘Manifesto for Good Work’ which outlines the public policy changes needed to address the UK’s multiple challenges, for all the main UK political parties. These challenges include stagnating productivity, rising skills shortages and our ageing working population. More →

September 18, 2023

Smart technology needs to start with people if it wants to get smarter

by David Sharp • Features, Technology, Wellbeing

“My engineering students had come to class with technology on their minds.” So says artist and design researcher Sara Hendren, author of What a Body Can Do: How we Meet the Built World. It’s a fascinating book in which she consciously pushes back against the prevailing narrative that so-called smart technology has a fix for every problem. As a professor teaching design for disability at Olin College of Engineering, Massachusetts, Hendren draws attention to the assumptions that drive normative behaviours to define what is a ‘problem’ in the first place. More →