March 2, 2023

Pipeline of women managers has stalled in wake of pandemic

The leadership pipeline for women has hollowed out in the middle, according to a new study “Women in leadership: Why perception outpaces the pipeline—and what to do about it” from IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) and Chief. The study of 2,500 organisations in 12 countries and 10 industries found a small increase in the number of women at the C-suite and Board level (now 12 percent for both), and an increase to 40 percent representation of women in junior professional/specialist roles (37 percent in 2021). However, the pipeline for top leadership positions still hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels – 14 percent representation of women in senior vice president roles (18 percent in 2019) and 16 percent in vice president roles (19 percent in 2019). (more…)

February 7, 2023

Evening Standard SME XPO celebrates new, small and growing businesses

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Events

Building on the success of its launch event, the Evening Standard’s SME XPO 25-26 April 2023 at ExCeL London, once again invites founders, entrepreneurs and business leaders to attend an action-filled two-day programme and exhibition connecting the scaleup community, a vital part of the UK economy. SME XPO has established itself as the UK’s leading event dedicated entirely to ambitious SME founders and decision-makers who are looking to scaleup. The event will appeal to a wide variety of industries from micro businesses to medium and large SMEs, welcoming 4000+ owners, showcasing over 60+ speakers. (more…)

February 6, 2023

New book aims to build connections in the building briefing process

by Freddie Steele • Architecture, Company news

Mies van der Rohe once said: “An architect of ability should be able to tell a client what he wants. Most of the time a client never knows what he wants.” Not many clients will agree with these patronising words—nor, for that matter, will many architects. Yet, there is some truth in Mies’s statement in the sense that construction clients often have difficulty expressing what they want. To help solve this conundrum in a new era, Juriaan van Meel and Kjersti Bjørkeng Størdal have published their new book Construction briefing: a practical guide. (more…)

January 27, 2023

Issue 13 of IN Magazine celebrates ten years of workplace insight

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News, Premium Content, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

The new issue of In Magazine has now been published. It marks ten years of Workplace Insight with a few things we think we know about work, working culture and work places. Elsewhere in this issue: Stephanie Fitzgerald talks about the unspoken privilege of wellbeing; we consider the sprawl of the world’s megacities; Jo Knight argues that the office sector needs to really up its game on the environment; Rene Stevens makes the case for a strategic approach to learning environments; we weigh up the pros and cons of retrofit and new builds; Neil Usher sets out to develop a universally acceptable definition of hybrid working; Andy Brown on what we really need data for; why dead tech hangs around; and we do the maths on what it means when people say the office should be worth the commute it takes to get to it. (more…)

January 24, 2023

Offices valued as a place to get work done, not just connect

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

The latest Workplace Survey from the Gensler Research Institute sets out to explore how employees are spending their time as they return to the office, how offices can more successfully support them, and the strategic design interventions that will have the biggest impact on the workplace experience. As companies consider the future of their workplaces, the new data suggests that U.S. employees are looking for offices that are both highly effective and offer a desirable mix of experiences. The highest-performing workplaces are those that support all modes of work, offer a wide range of experiences, and are located in amenity-rich buildings and/or neighbourhoods. (more…)

January 20, 2023

AI presents us with a chance to rediscover what it means to be human

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology

Like a lot of people right now, I am struggling to get my head around where we are going with AI. Look around and you’ll see the breathless excitement at the sheer amazingness of it all. And examples of its limitations, how it screws up, how military grade AI can be fooled by somebody hiding in a box, and its sense of humour failure. All of this is demonstrably, paradoxically true. (more…)

January 17, 2023

A workplace for entrepreneurial mindsets to thrive should be your goal

by John Mullins • Business, Comment

These days it seems like everyone is looking to become more entrepreneurial. It’s a word that’s often used by big companies on the hunt for innovative thinkers and new ways of doing things. But sadly, the workplace doesn’t always work for those with entrepreneurial minds. It is too rigid, too hierarchical, too conventional. Entrepreneurs, by nature, are rule-breakers, always looking for new opportunities and fresh ideas that could change the world. From my research, they differ from other businesspeople in some fundamental ways – six ways, to be exact. (more…)

December 14, 2022

People want their offices to perform more like hotels

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology

Employees today want more ‘hotel-style’ amenities such as areas for socialising, state-of-the-art infrastructure, outdoor spaces, onsite cafes, air conditioning, and flexible work facilities to entice them back to offices, according to a new poll from MRI Software. The firm’s Workplace Report [registration] claims almost two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents say such hotel-style features impact their decision on whether to work for an organisation, including more than one in ten who see failure to provide the right amenities as a deal breaker. (more…)

December 14, 2022

Flokk brand Connection opens new state of the art manufacturing facility and offices in the UK

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Furniture, Works Magazine

Connection, the latest brand to join European office furniture giant Flokk group have opened a bespoke designed and built manufacturing facility, housing warehouses and offices in Mirfield, Yorkshire. Attending the opening were Lars Røiri, CEO of Flokk and René Sitter, Senior Vice President, Central Europe, as well as key stakeholders to celebrate with the Connection team. (more…)

December 14, 2022

‘Hybrid working hell’ awaits organisations that don’t address workplace culture

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

A new report – ‘Hybrid Heaven or Hell? The journey to hybrid working’ from Poly and the Worktech Academy claims that organisations should carry out an audit to evaluate aspects of of their workplace culture and establish what works and what needs to evolve for hybrid working success. The report includes research from Gallup, Gartner, and Harvard Business Review, as well as Poly’s own insights and findings. The broader research trends were also discussed and debated in a New York roundtable attended by senior workplace design and technology leaders. The report highlights that organisations have been faced with challenges of building and retaining culture which could have a lasting impact on innovation, talent retention and growth. (more…)

December 12, 2022

In person work can make the signs of burnout easier to spot

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

A new poll from Barco claims that a third of people who mostly work in the office found it easier to tell when a colleague is overworked or stressed when seeing them face to face, leaving some remote workers at risk of struggling under the radar of management teams. This comes as over a quarter of staff report experiencing burnout over chronic work-related stress that has not been managed successfully. (more…)

December 5, 2022

The failures of work give us hope for the future

by Adam Kingl • Flexible working, News

Workplace engagement is approaching an all-time low, and typical employer reaction has been characteristically resigned. Actually, that last statement was inaccurately soft. Let me rephrase: most employees either don’t care about or actually hate their jobs, and employers couldn’t care less. (more…)