August 12, 2020

The death of the office? Wait a minute

by John Williams • Comment, Property, Workplace design

I have observed with some disbelief the numerous articles that have heralded the “death of the office” and other click-bait driven headlines. It makes for a fun read but fails to really understand exactly what the office is for and how the modern workspace is actually used. The best way to take a view of this is to understand why we will be desperate to return to the office and why organisations should be doing everything they can to ensure it does. More →

August 11, 2020

Rich, female and over- 45? It`s much more likely you thrived during lockdown

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

The characteristics that meant you were most likely to thrive during the Covid-19 lockdown have been identified in new research by emlyon business school. The researchers, from emlyon business school’s Lifestyle Research Center, have studied people’s lifestyle, circumstances, and behaviour during the Covid-19 lockdown period, to examine how it has impacted their mental and physical wellbeing. The data comes from a survey of over 1000 respondents, split evenly across France and the UK, gathered near the end of the lockdown period in May. More →

August 11, 2020

UK businesses lead the way on lockdown wellbeing

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Business leaders around the world have focused on protecting their employees in their immediate COVID-19 response, with UK CEOs leading the pack on mental wellbeing support. Some 93 percent of UK CEOs (92 percent globally) prioritised protecting employee health and safety over everything else. However, UK CEOs were found to have been significantly more focused on their employees’ mental wellbeing than their global counterparts, with 90 percent providing wellbeing support and initiatives, compared with 61 percent of CEOs globally. More →

August 10, 2020

Central London office leases fall by over half in second quarter of 2020

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

According to research from DeVono Cresa, the second quarter of 2020 saw 1.2 million sq. ft of office space leased across central London – a drop of 57 percent on the previous quarter. With the market feeling the full effects of the COVID-19 lockdown, demand, availability and rents in central London all trended as predicted, but with the pace somewhat subdued. Q1 2009, at the time of the Global Financial Crisis (921,000 sq. ft leased), remains the lowest quarter of take-up. More →

August 7, 2020

Wrong approach to leadership makes a fifth of CEOs a bad fit for their firm

by Neil Franklin • Business, News

Nearly a fifth (17 percent) of CEOs are largely unsuited to the companies they lead, according to new research from academics at Imperial College Business School, Harvard Business School, Columbia University and the London School of Economics. The paper, CEO Behavior and Firm Performance, is based on an analysis of the leadership behaviour of 1,100 CEOs based on their daily schedules. More →

August 6, 2020

Managing occupancy will be essential in the new era of work

by Rodrigue Zbinden • Company news, Technology

As COVID-19 infection rates reach lower levels and businesses open their doors once more, HR and facilities teams across many industries and sectors are preparing for a physical return to the workplace. With a duty to ensure the health, safety and general wellbeing of staff and visitors, there are many factors to consider, such as how to promote safe social distancing and increased cleaning regimes, while still focussing on business productivity. The roles of HR and FM will be critical in setting safe protocols if further self-isolation and lockdown measures are to be avoided. More →

August 4, 2020

Boardroom heroes needed to transform working cultures

by Alex Fleming • Comment, Flexible working

Even as the UK starts to open back up following the COVID-19 enforced lockdown, there are still many unanswered questions about how almost every aspect of our lives will be impacted. What is certain though, is that we will continue to see a paradigm shift take place across all areas of the workplace. Employers must ensure they have the right measures and policies in place to deal with the transformations that have taken place across the UK’s labour market throughout the lockdown period. This is crucial, as only those who have a strong workplace culture will succeed in the post-pandemic world. More →

August 3, 2020

Firms not doing enough to support flexible working

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

A new study from academics at the University of Kent and the University of Birmingham claims that organisations still have work to do when it comes to understanding people’s experiences of flexible working. The report titled ‘Working from home during the COVID-19 lockdown: Changing preferences and the future of work’ was undertaken by researchers at the Work Autonomy, Flexibility and Work-Life Balance Project (Kent), and the Equal Parenting Project (Birmingham). More →

July 31, 2020

Return to work offers us a unique opportunity to change everything

by Simone Fenton-Jarvis • Comment, Facilities management

The way we worked before covid was fundamentally broken; our wellbeing, our climate and our business efficiency. The genie is out of the bottle; going back just simply isn’t an option. When considering the return to work, there are organisations making knee-jerk decisions trying to avoid a complex minefield of potential missteps which could impact the safety of their employees and health of their business. Simply creating a ‘covid secure’ workplace right now would be a great opportunity lost in cementing real change and transformation into the world of work; for our wellbeing and our planet. More →

July 30, 2020

The golden age of procrastination and the tyranny of time keeping ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Features, Wellbeing, Workplace

Many of us start each day with a long to-do list, a new set of goals and a commitment not to repeat the same mistakes we have in the past. It’s likely that we will have promised ourselves to stop putting things off. On our hit list of the foibles we most want to dispose of, procrastination will be somewhere near the top. The problem is that because procrastination is linked to psychological factors such as an innate preference to do something we deem pleasurable to something we don’t, modern life encourages us to do it. More →

July 30, 2020

Working from home parents have struggled during lockdown

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

New research from the University of Kent and the University of Birmingham suggests that the recent surge in the number of people working from home during the COVID-19 lockdown has presented significant challenges for those who are parents, particularly mothers. Despite this, the shift has also changed the way that many people intend to work in the future. More →

July 29, 2020

Remote work and office life go hand in hand in a flexible future

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Property

The COVID-19 pandemic changed numerous aspects of how we live and work and led to a massive remote work experiment. A JLL survey of more than 3,000 employees working in multi-national companies across the globe claims that 71 percent of people have worked from home during the pandemic, and that 58 percent missed the office and 44 percent missed human interaction and socialising with colleagues. The largest cohort who missed the office was the under 35s, or millennials, with 65 percent citing poor home-office environments and missing support from their managers.