Search Results for: lockdown

The hybrid workplace sagas, part two. Valhalla

The hybrid workplace sagas, part two. Valhalla

“Wow, Dougie, they’ve remodelled our office while we were away!”

“Fantastic. Did you know about it?”

“No, they said the surprise was a key part of the change programme.”

“So what’s different?” More →

Majority of employees feel optimistic about returning to the office as UK opens up

Majority of employees feel optimistic about returning to the office as UK opens up

employeesAs pubs, shops and other workplaces re-open this week, the success of the vaccine rollout has helped employees feel much more optimistic about their return to work than they were following November’s lockdown, according to Aviva’s research of more than 2,000 employed adults across the UK. More →

Majority of UK workers don’t want to go back to the office until everyone is vaccinated

Majority of UK workers don’t want to go back to the office until everyone is vaccinated

vaccinatedAs lockdown starts to lift, more people are having to think about going back to work as normal. That means commutes, offices, cafeterias, and face to face meetings. CPD Online College, surveyed over 1,000 UK employees to find out how they feel about returning to the office prior to everyone being vaccinated. More →

HR professionals expect employees to split their time between the office and home

HR professionals expect employees to split their time between the office and home

Research commissioned by CANCOM, conducted with UK HR professionals about post-COVID work habits claims that only one-in-ten organisations does not intend to run a hybrid way of working – with nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of HR professionals of the opinion that employees will divide their time between the office and home after all COVID restrictions have lifted. More →

Nearly a million workers struggling with mental wellbeing due to remote working

Nearly a million workers struggling with mental wellbeing due to remote working

mental As April is Stress Awareness Month, Instant Offices researched how the last year has affected employees mental health also what business and individual employees can do to improve and support mental wellbeing. More →

FUTURE Designs awarded the IMMUNE Building Standard

FUTURE Designs awarded the IMMUNE Building Standard

FUTURE Designs, a UK based designer and manufacturer of luminaires and lighting solutions, obtains the first IMMUNE Building Standard certification in the world for an Industrial Building, awarded by Healthy by Design Building Institute (HDBI). The factory and headquarters achieved the label ‘IMMUNE – Strong’ following the company’s successful implementation of the health and safety set of measures for its employees. More →

Mental health concerns at SMEs have surged during the pandemic

Mental health concerns at SMEs have surged during the pandemic

mental healthBreathe has released the findings from a recent survey aiming to understand business attitudes and approaches to mental health in the workplace. According to the firm, the pandemic has fuelled a health crisis which continues to impact the mental and physical wellbeing of staff in a number of ways. As a result, employers are under pressure to introduce adequate safeguarding measures, according to the report. More →

Working from home surveillance drives rise of digital presenteeism

Working from home surveillance drives rise of digital presenteeism

Lockdown has meant the majority of UK office-based employees have taken up working from home arrangements over the last year, and it seems that many employers lack trust in their employees when they can’t physically see them. Last year saw a rise in the implementation of surveillance software, to ensure that workers are acting in best corporate interests. However, this is having a negative impact on some employees – who are feeling forced to work longer hours due to a new perceived need to remain visible to their manager or team leader, revealed in a survey by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky. With remote working set to stay post-COVID, these findings indicate a worrying growing trend around broken working from home employee trust. More →

The binary choices and multiple outcomes of flexible working

The binary choices and multiple outcomes of flexible working

A year of unnecessarily binary conversation about work leads inevitably to this. A stupid question. Is Big Tech going off work from home? Betteridge’s Law takes care of that, just as it did another question from 12 months ago. Even though the article is slightly better than the headline, the insistence that the only two choices we have are home or office remains. More →

Workplace interruptions may help people feel a sense of belonging

Workplace interruptions may help people feel a sense of belonging

In those heady pre-lockdown days, the most common complaint about office life, and especially open plan office life, was the inability to get work done without distraction. Now a new paper from researchers at the University of Illinois suggests that the interruptions may have served some purpose in the way they helped people feel a sense of belonging in the workplace. More →

Government makes it easier to convert unused offices into homes

Government makes it easier to convert unused offices into homes

New rules allowing commercial premises to be converted into homes come into force as part of a package of measures the UK government claims will help to revitalise England’s high streets and town centres. It believes the new rules will help “support the creation of much-needed homes while also giving high streets a new lease of life – removing eyesores, transforming unused buildings and making the most of brownfield land.” More →

European office workers are not prepared for ‘work from anywhere’ model

European office workers are not prepared for ‘work from anywhere’ model

workersNew research by Targus claims that European office workers are to generally unprepared to adopt a new ‘work from anywhere’ model. The representative survey in France, Germany and the UK, claims people are willing to set foot in offices again but expect greater flexibility and trust to work from other locations. More →