February 3, 2021
Be by Bisley was at the forefront of the agile working revolution when it first entered the market in 2012. Now, with nearly a decade’s worth of success behind it, Be has been rapidly reinvigorated for the post-Covid workspace’s demands, allowing distancing with creativity and design, while also considering safety with a heightened appreciation of wellbeing. More →
January 29, 2021
While workers in the UK have been working from home, if they can, for almost a year, a third say they miss commuting, claims research from recruiter Randstad UK. The HR services company asked workers, having worked remotely for almost a year due to the pandemic, how they viewed commuting and physical meetings in retrospect. More →
January 28, 2021
The EU Parliament has announced that it would like to protect what it calls employees’ fundamental rights to disconnect from work which includes restricting the way employers might contact staff outside their contracted working hours. Although the right to disconnect is not defined by EU law, the Parliament has called upon the Commission to come up with a law allowing employees to disconnect from work during non-work hours without consequences and setting minimum standards for remote work. More →
January 26, 2021
Expenses app, ExpenseOnDemand, has published new data which claims to highlight how businesses in different sectors are planning office returns in 2021. The majority of businesses across many sectors have stated offices will reopen this year at some point. More →
January 19, 2021
Improving air quality in the fight against COVID-19 could give businesses the edge over their competitors and attract more customers, according to a top UK university scientist. Writing in a new report for facilities services provider phs Group, Cambridge University Professor Paul Linden highlights the growing evidence for the airborne transmission of coronavirus and that tackling indoor air quality must be at the forefront of creating COVID-safe environments. More →
January 15, 2021
Employee engagement levels may have actually improved during the COVID-19 pandemic, claims a recent survey undertaken by intermediary Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing. More →
January 13, 2021
You may have heard that history repeats itself, but that’s not really true. It doesn’t repeat. It rhymes. And nowhere is this more true than when it comes to office design. It’s worth bearing this in mind when we consider the effects of the events of 2020. Not only the pandemic and lockdown, but also the longer term economic, social and individual consequences. The details of this may be unprecedented, as many people have suggested, but the dynamics of it are not. We have not been here before, but we’ve been somewhere very like it. More →
December 18, 2020
A review of research in organisational and workplace psychology conducted by an international team of academics claims that working from home has been more disruptive for women than men. The review paper, entitled COVID-19 and the Workplace: Implications, Issues, and Insights for Future Research and Action and originally published in American Psychologist, features urgent insight from UCL School of Management Professor, Sunny Lee into the sex- and gender-related implications of changes in work practices that have taken place over the course of 2020. More →
December 17, 2020
Avison Young, realestateworks and HLM Architects have launched a new report that assesses the impact of this year’s pandemic on workplace and corporate real estate strategies in the longer-term. Over 100 private and public sector companies were asked about their evolving approach to working culture, office design and portfolio strategies in the context of multiple forces of change, including greater resilience, the decarbonisation agenda, personalisation, remote working and the integration of the physical and virtual workspaces. More →
December 11, 2020
The World Economic Forum has launched a new report which sets out to define how organisational leaders can influence their companies and encourage the responsible use of technology and build ethical capacity. Ethics by Design” – An Organizational Approach to Responsible Use of Technology claims to integrate psychology and behavioural economics findings from interviews and surveys with international business leaders. It aims to shape decisions to prompt better and more ethical behaviours. The report promotes an approach that focuses less on individual “bad apples” and more on the “barrel”, the environments that can lead people to engage in behaviours contrary to their moral compass. The report outlines steps and makes recommendations that have proven more effective than conventional incentives such as compliance training, financial compensation or penalties. More →
December 10, 2020
From the archive. First published in October 
2015. It is perhaps the most common misconception of evolutionary theory that all animals are somehow evolving towards some end point – meaning us. This notion is perhaps best summed up when a sceptic asks: “If we have evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” The lesser of the two problems with this is its solipsistic assumption that humans are the pinnacles of life and that, if evolution were true, all species would eventually evolve into people. More →
February 1, 2021
Burnt out remote workers need more help than they are getting
by Karen Plum • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing