Search Results for: creativity

November 26, 2018

The meaning of life, the Black Mirror of Beijing, standing desks not a silver bullet and some other stuff

So, what is the meaning of life? According to a study by Pew, the gold standard US based researchers, it’s spending time with family and friends, reading, listening to music and going for a walk in the open air. Work comes somewhere down the list. Just one-third of the survey’s respondents mentioned their career or job as a source of meaning, and only a quarter cite finances or money. This, it turns out, is not too far off Monty Python’s conclusion in their eponymous film: Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations. That’s that sorted then.

November 26, 2018

Employee resistance in sharing ideas with teams undermines success

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The whole idea of the collaborative workplace is to foster creativity and communication, but new research suggests that sharing ideas with team members is still an uncomfortable prospect for employees. According to new research from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) many employees resist sharing new ideas with teams – even if it means failure. The researchers, Dirk Deichmann of RSM and Michael Jensen of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, examined the innovation database of a large energy company containing 2,532 ideas submitted over 12 years. They found that employees often develop innovative ideas alone. More →

November 19, 2018

Teams collaborate more effectively when they break off constant contact

by Mark Eltringham • News

Despite the understandable impulse organisations have to encourage people to be in constant communication with each other, teams often get better results when they collaborate only intermittently, according to a report How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence, written by Ethan Bernstein, the Edward W. Conard Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; Jesse Shore, assistant professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business; and David Lazer, professor at Northeastern University.

November 16, 2018

Biophilic design the key to improving mental health, productivity and stress levels

by Neil Franklin • Architecture, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

An expert panel at this week’s Welcome to the Biophilic Concrete Jungle event in London made the case for incorporating the principles of biophilic design into the workplace, including for health and wellbeing considerations, the promotion of productivity and to address workplace stress and urban disconnection from nature. HOK organised the event. Panellists included Joyce Chan, Head of Sustainability and Trina Marshall, Regional Leader of Consulting from HOK, Professor Derek Clements-Croome from Reading University, Alexander Bond from Biophilic Design and Dr Ed Suttie from BRE.

October 16, 2018

How landlords can maintain their mojo and retain tenants

by Gemma Church • Facilities management, Features, Property

Flexibility is rocking the foundations of the traditional commercial real estate world. It’s entering our workforces, our offices and the shock waves are extending to the relationship between landlord and tenant. This demand for increased flexibility from the world’s workforces is due to a convergence of social and economic factors. JLL’s Top 10 Global Corporate Real Estate (CRE) Trends report predicts the emergence of a more dynamic workforce, demand for work environments that support creativity, cross-collaboration and innovation, and an increasing focus on employee wellbeing and performance will dominate global CRE strategies throughout 2018. This has major implications for both occupiers and landlords.

October 15, 2018

Some thoughts on the addictive power of workplace design

by Agustin Chevez • Comment, Workplace design

The search for some concoction or contraption to improve our performance at work is nothing new. Lawyers, bankers and other professionals have famously used performance-enhancing drugs to gain a competitive advantage. But the design of a workspace can actually have similar effects on those who create it, consume it or pursue it. And, just like a drug, workplace design can have good and bad effects. Instead of chemicals, design manipulates space to change behaviour. An increase in the length of a lunch table, for example, can encourage people who did not know one another to interact more.

October 10, 2018

The Genesis of ideation and the places we go to have our best ideas ⁰

by Giuseppe Boscherini • Facilities management, Features, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace design

Because collaboration, creativity and innovation are increasingly perceived as key objectives and differentiators of performance, the genesis and mechanisms behind ideation and creativity are an an integral part of both business and personal development. As a consequence, there is growing interest in the way the physical attributes of work settings may influence or even trigger creative behaviour. The cliché of the shower as one of these favourite places comes to mind and yet experience does show that the idea of seeking a setting, a “zone” if you will, for a specific purpose is intuitively right. This needn’t be a retreat or cocoon, as is often assumed, but can also be a crowded, busy, noisy place, which might explain why so often the most animated work conversations move out of the office shop into the coffee shop. Equally, highlight events or special meetings tend to be held in a “venue’, often dressed for the occasion.

October 5, 2018

Learning to learn will be key skill in new world of work

by Neil Franklin • News

A joint report by the Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on AI, Big Innovation Centre, and professional services firm KPMG has been published, identifying the key skills individuals and organisations will need if they are to survive and thrive in the unfolding future. The report finds that jobs in the labour market of the future will look very different from today and the transformation is likely to be dramatic. It also calls for companies and governments to equip citizens and employees for that future, to help them learn the new skills needed to be relevant in a world of constant transformation.

October 5, 2018

Microsoft unveils new Surface devices, headphones, and software updates

by Neil Franklin • Company news, Technology

Microsoft expanded its Surface family of devices with Surface Headphones, Surface Laptop 2, Surface Studio 2 and Surface Pro 6, designed to offer more performance and productivity enabling people to achieve more. The devices seamlessly fade into the background, empowering people to work without interruptions to their creative flow, whenever and wherever inspirations strikes.

October 3, 2018

British Council for Offices announces names of best workplaces in UK

by Neil Franklin • Architecture, News, Property, Workplace design

Bloomberg’s London HQ (left) came out on top at the British Council for Offices (BCO) National Awards in the UK’s capital last night, taking home both the ‘Best of the Best’ and the ‘Corporate Workplace’ awards. The office was joined by five other award winners recognised for excellence in office space. The BCO’s respected National Awards programme sets out to recognise top quality office design and functionality, with the objective of setting the standard for excellence across the office sector in the UK. The awards dinner attracted over 1,200 players from the office sector to celebrate the best-in-class talent. Winners from the 2018 Regional Awards programme attended the event at London’s Grosvenor House, hoping to take home the National Award for their category.

October 2, 2018

How to measure the impact of biophilia on individual performance

by Julia Ayuso Sanchez • Features, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The improvement in well-being and performance in the workplace are economic and social critical factors since the loss of productivity for companies means a cost of up to US$ 550,000 million per year. Numerous studies affirm that biophilic design, defined as a response to the inherent need of human beings to be in contact with nature, in the workplace improves productivity and user well-being. As Lord Kelvin said, if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it, so the challenge that arises is how to objectify and quantify rigorously the features that improve productivity and wellbeing in spaces designed with biophilia in mind. From this, it is necessary to go a step further and objectify the design criteria serving as an operator for performance and wellbeing in design practice.

September 28, 2018

The horrors and harmonies of workplace hierarchy

by Monica Parker • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

I am a child of the seventies, and one of my favourite shows when I was just a tyke was The Jeffersons. For those not familiar with The Jeffersons, it was about a black family in New York City who had, through ambition and entrepreneurship, ‘made it to the top’. George Jefferson, the patriarch, was a bolshie character. Hijinks usually ensued. But what stuck with me about that show was the catchy theme song, Movin’ On Up. The lyrics were ‘I’m movin’ on up, to the upper east side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky… I finally got a piece of the pie.’ Growing up in suburbia, this was probably the first time that I learned the idea of a penthouse, and the notion that the higher up the building, the more important you were. It wasn’t until I was about age eight that I realised the word wasn’t ‘high-archy’, but ‘hierarchy.’