June 28, 2024
Search Results for: recession
After soon-to-be 25 years of serving as Chief Executive for the British Council for Offices, Richard Kauntze will be stepping down in summer 2025. His successor will be appointed by the 
June 4, 2024
London office market sees sharp decline in leasing activity
The London office leasing market kicked off 2024 with a significant downturn, according to a new report from Devono. After a strong end to 2023, leasing activity plummeted by 45 percent in the first quarter, with only 2.3 million sq ft of space leased. This falls short of the 5-year average for Q1 and marks the lowest total since late 2022. The report attributes the decline to a combination of economic factors, including a recent recession and rising inflation. Businesses are cautious about committing to new office space in this uncertain climate. (more…)
March 17, 2024
Employees increasingly want to work for firms with a clear sense of purpose
In the face of climate change, social justice movements, and recession, employees are seeking alternative commitments from employers. A new poll from Sparta Global claims that for job seekers in 2024, a company’s contributions to environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, and community well-being are of growing importance. (more…)
January 22, 2024
Regional divides, falling incomes, booming jobs markets; and lower productivity. The current state of the UK
No part of the UK has escaped the impact of the flatlining of the UK economy since 2010, according to new analysis published by the Centre for Cities in its Cities Outlook 2024 report. At the national level, people have been left with £10,200 less to spend or save on average since 2010 than if the economy had grown at pre-2010 trends. The report also suggests that a marked rise in employment has happened in parallel with overall falling productivity. (more…)
November 29, 2023
Creating the epicentre: unlocking the untold benefits of next-generation office spaces
Many associate the notion of futuristic office spaces, filled with equipment like sleep pods and beer taps, with companies that have a young workforce or challenger brand identity. The association is often linked to tech giants like Google, which created quite a stir when it originally revealed its indoor slides. Whilst the inclusion of playground furniture in the office is not right for every business, the assumption that unconventional workspaces should be limited to unconventional companies simply isn’t true. (more…)
October 9, 2023
SMEs turn to AI and acquisitions to navigate an uncertain future
More than half of all business leaders (55 percent) believe that the overall economic conditions in the UK and Ireland have worsened compared to a year ago. Yet, 58 percent of SMEs anticipate an increase in their firm’s sales revenues over the next 12 months; while nearly half (47 percent) expect profitability to improve within a year and 47 percent of SMEs are confident that their firm’s total number of employees will grow in the next 12 months. Business leaders are planning to invest more in AI and acquisitions to help them navigate an uncertain future. (more…)
October 5, 2023
An uncertain world, but CEOs remain broadly bullish about the future
Geopolitics and broader political uncertainty are now the greatest risk to business growth, according to a survey of more than 1,300 CEOs of the world’s largest businesses. The KPMG 2023 CEO Outlook claims that geopolitics and political uncertainty have become the leading perceived risk this year for senior executives – concerns that didn’t even make the top five in the 2022 survey. (more…)
July 14, 2023
To boost productivity in the UK, we need to think big and different
The decline in UK productivity since the Great Recession of 2008/2009 has been a matter of concern for business leaders, policymakers, and economists alike. Despite hopes that the pandemic would act as a catalyst for transformation and boost productivity, recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the UK still lags behind several other G7 economies. (more…)
July 12, 2023
Generations in the workplace: setting the record straight
If there were an algorithm to create a word cloud in response to searches for ‘What millennials want in the workplace?’, you’d expect to see Google spew out terms such as ‘flexibility’, ‘meaning’, ‘fairness’, ‘equality’, ‘inclusivity’, ‘opportunity’, ‘connections’, ‘socialising’ and ‘experience’. Do the same with ‘Gen Z’ replacing ‘millennials’ and – guess what – you’ll see the exact same word cloud, although perhaps in a different colour and order so you don’t think it’s based on the same homogeneous assumptions about younger generations. (more…)
June 16, 2023
Whinging Poms? Why the UK workforce is one of the unhappiest in Europe
Nearly all UK workers (90 percent) are not enthused by their work and workplace, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023 Report. The UK workforce rate of engagement at work (10 percent) remains one of the lowest in Europe, ranking near the bottom among peer countries (33 out of 38) with countries like the US reporting triple the number of engaged employees (31 percent). The poor state of disengaged workforces is not unique to the UK, with just 13 percent of employees across Europe feeling engaged at work, and the lowest rates of engagement reported in France (7 percent) and Italy (5 percent). (more…)
May 10, 2023
Majority of employees see themselves as cogs in corporate machinery
A significant majority (85 percent) of employees feel like they are just a cog in the machinery of their organisation and 43 percent have no idea how their performance contributes to business success, according to a new survey of employee experience and expectations. According to the new study [registration] from Oracle, HR leaders are struggling to keep up with changing employee expectations and this can have dire consequences for businesses. The survey of 1,000 employees and HR leaders across the United Kingdom (UK) found that despite current economic uncertainty, worker expectations are higher than ever, and HR leaders need help to get the employee experience right or risk losing profits and market share. (more…)
March 7, 2024
There never was a new normal
by Nick Gold • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing