February 12, 2021

Mental health related workplace absenteeism costs soared to £14bn in 2020

by Jayne Smith • Business, News, Wellbeing

The impact of the nation’s deteriorating mental health from Covid-19 lockdowns and other restrictions cost UK businesses £14bn last year, according to a study by Westfield Health. The cost of absenteeism from work due to mental health reasons increased last year by £1.3bn from 2019’s totals as work from home, travel restrictions, furlough and pay cuts changed the workplace for millions of people across the UK. More →

February 11, 2021

The future workplace will only thrive with social and customer experience at its heart

by Sonia Brown • Comment, Workplace design

One important concept the pandemic has taught us is that irrespective of where we work and whatever form the future workplace takes, our brand must remain strong. With much of our workforce now working from home, how do we bridge the gap between corporate and home life? As head offices re-form into social hangout hubs, and dining tables become makeshift desks, one message is loud and clear – connection with and delight in a brand is everything. From our internal talent and culture, and supply partnerships, to external customer persona, we must strengthen our culture both inside and out. More →

February 5, 2021

Workplace things we have missed, and those we hope to regain

by Emma Morley • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Let’s be honest, work life pre 2020 had its flaws, whilst the longing for variety of scenery, change of pace and even a train journey (somewhere…ANYWHERE) would be welcomed by many of us right now, many of us had become a bit ‘hamster wheel’ in our approach. Commuting was stressful, expensive and time hungry; our natural and individual rhythms squeezed into a set 9-5 schedule and workplace design had become a bit ‘quantity over quality’ – desks have been reducing in size year upon year in order that capacity could be increased. We had reached a point at which everything was ripe for change but there was largely a resistance to both flexible working requests and embracing much of the technological advancements that were already at our fingertips. More →

January 26, 2021

Creating great workplace cultures

by Toby Benzecry • Features, Technology, Workplace design

Workplace design is – or should be – inextricably linked to both an organisation’s identity and its culture. The issue of workplace culture, and why it might succeed or fail, has become a matter of a great deal of study as the basis for work has moved on from the scientific management theories of the early to mid-20th Century. This aped the hierarchies, structures and forms of factories. It once prevailed but even now its vestiges remain, often in spite of the decades of research and a changing world of work that show us better ways of getting things done. More →

January 20, 2021

Work-life balance is the key to workplace happiness

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Working lives

Research by Ezra, digital coaching provider, claims that work-life balance is the driving factor behind happiness in the UK workplace. The survey claims that a notable 78 percent of those in employment are happy in their current job. More →

January 19, 2021

A workplace divided: Employees split over COVID-19 vaccine

by Jayne Smith • Business, News, Wellbeing

Perceptyx, the employee survey and people analytics platform, has released new data focused on the role of the COVID vaccine in return to work scenarios. As the world nears 10 months of quarantine and other restrictions, organisations grapple with deciding if and when it will be safe for employees to return to the workplace. As vaccines are rolled out, organisations must tread a fine line with employees as there is a significant divide in perceptions around the vaccine. More →

December 18, 2020

The shape of things to come for the world and the workplace

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Originally published in March, right at the start of all this. Makes me wonder how far we’ve come in nine months. In Dorian Lynskey’s The Ministry of Truth, a “biography” of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the author describes how Orwell’s book was the end point of an obsession with utopian (and ultimately dystopian) fiction that characterised the first half of the Twentieth Century, and reflected the competing political, social and economic ideologies of the era. More →

December 17, 2020

Organisations weigh up options to make workplace fit for the future

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

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 16, 2020

Trust is hard to find in the workplace, report suggests

by Jayne Smith • News, Working culture

As the world prepares to close the book on the unprecedented events of 2020 and looks ahead to 2021 with renewed hope and optimism, global research from The Workforce Institute at UKG explores the importance of elevating trust to a foundational imperative to create high-performing workplace cultures that better serve customers and their communities. More →

December 12, 2020

Listening in on an enormous conversation about the workplace

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace design

One of the best tricks Clive James ever pulled was finding acceptance as a public intellectual in the UK. It’s not easy in a country in which it is possible to be too clever by half or even too clever for your own good. Stephen Fry continues to pull it off as does Mary Beard, but it’s a hell of a thing to achieve. In the UK it seems to rely on straddling at least two worlds. More →

December 10, 2020

Office taxonomy and an increasingly diverse workplace ecosystem

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Workplace design

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 →

December 2, 2020

Cornerstone Innovation Lab unites data scientists across the company to advance AI in the workplace

by Freddie Steele • Company news

Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSOD), has announced the formation of the Cornerstone Innovation Lab for AI, a new centre of excellence within the company composed of data scientists and machine learning experts who specialise in innovating practical and ethical ways to apply AI technology to the workplace. More →