Search Results for: technology

Cities worldwide are grappling with the delicate balance between nighttime charm and sustainability

Cities worldwide are grappling with the delicate balance between nighttime charm and sustainability

by • Cities, Environment, Features, Lighting

Cities worldwide, from London to Sydney, are grappling with the delicate balance between nighttime charm and prioritising sustainability. As well as the delights of daytime, cities around the world have long been defined by how their iconic landmarks come to life at night. Think of London’s illuminated riverside or Amsterdam’s canals lit up after dark. These vistas almost come to be synonymous with these places’ very identities. Aston Woodward, co-founder of asset management firm Oxygen also brings one of Australia’s best-known destinations into the mix. “Well-lit buildings at night in any city are attractive. Sydney is a good example and at night is dramatic. Many tourists as well as residents sit and admire a variety of size and colour and interactions generated from the buildings’ lighting.” More →

New occupational health taskforce will ‘tackle in-work sickness and drive down inactivity’

New occupational health taskforce will ‘tackle in-work sickness and drive down inactivity’

by • News, Wellbeing

New Occupational Health Taskforce to tackle in-work sickness and drive down inactivityBusinesses will be urged to tackle in-work sickness and stop people falling out the workforce, following the appointment of Dame Carol Black as the Government’s new Occupational Health Tsar. According to the Department for Work and Pensions, she will lead a new Taskforce to improve employer awareness of the benefits of Occupational Health in the workplace. More →

State-of-the-art European weather centre headquarters in Reading given go-ahead

State-of-the-art European weather centre headquarters in Reading given go-ahead

by • Company news, Property

The UK Government has been granted planning permission to develop a new cutting-edge headquarters for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) at the University of Reading. Construction of ECMWF’s modern, accessible, and highly sustainable headquarters is scheduled to start towards the end of this year and completion is expected in Autumn 2026, after Wokingham Borough Council approved the development at its February 2024 Planning Committee. More →

Raising the bar (and hell) with Antony Slumbers

Raising the bar (and hell) with Antony Slumbers

by • News, Podcasts, Premium Content, Workplace Cocktail Hour

Over a well-earned G&T, Antony Slumbers and Mark Eltringham discuss what makes work great and how we escape the binary loop of headlinesOver a well-earned but unseasonable G&T, Antony Slumbers and Mark Eltringham discuss what makes work and workplaces great, and why bosses aren’t doing all they can to make them so. They also riff on the origins and wisdom of determining how much time people should spend in an office and how we escape the interminable binary loop of headlines about whether the home or the office is a better place to work. Antony talks about the role of AI in the future of work and property and what people should focus on in their changing lives. More →

Status seeking drives non-executive directors to outstay effectiveness

Status seeking drives non-executive directors to outstay effectiveness

by • Business, News

Long-serving non-executive directors (NEDs) who can’t wean themselves off the social status attached to belonging to the corporate board are failing shareholdersLong-serving non-executive directors (NEDs) who can’t wean themselves off the social status attached to belonging to the corporate board are failing shareholders and damaging the companies they are meant to serve, new research from the University of Bath and Queensland University of Technology suggests. Board members who exceed their tenure are putting the identity and self-worth they gain from being a director ahead of their duty to shareholders, compromising board renewal and its financial and strategic performance. More →

Workspace Design Show reveals a raft of thought-provoking features for 2024

Workspace Design Show reveals a raft of thought-provoking features for 2024

by • Company news, Events, Workplace design

This year's edition of the Workspace Design Show (27-28 February 2024, Business Design Centre, London) will once again present an impressive array of featuresThis year’s edition of the Workspace Design Show (27-28 February 2024, Business Design Centre, London) will once again present an impressive array of features, ranging from an immersive forest stage to an interactive lighting installation, which bring together some of the industry’s leading designers, architects and built environment partners. We’ve been given an exclusive early look at what we can expect to see at this year’s design extravaganza.   More →

Most firms don’t have AI guidance in place for internal comms

Most firms don’t have AI guidance in place for internal comms

by • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

Over two-thirds (71 percent) of organisations do not provide guidance on when, where or how to use AI for internal communicationsOver two-thirds (71 percent) of organisations do not provide guidance on when, where or how to use AI for internal communications, according to Gallagher’s 2023/24 State of the Sector report [registration]. Furthermore, the study, which drew insights from more than 2,300 communication and HR leaders across 56 countries, claims that 1 in 10 communicators (13 percent) were unsure if their organisation was using AI. More →

Whenever I hear the future of work, I reach for my pistol

Whenever I hear the future of work, I reach for my pistol

by • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

the future of workFor years it has been evident that there is no ‘future of work’. There is only a journey with no destination and no single way of not getting to it. That hasn’t stopped people talking about it all endlessly. And each time they have, I’ve reached for my pistol. More →

Cautious welcome for government’s disability plan which aims to make UK ‘most accessible nation’

Cautious welcome for government’s disability plan which aims to make UK ‘most accessible nation’

by • News, Wellbeing

he UK government has announced details of its new Disability Action Plan which includes 32 steps it claims will make the UK the most accessible place in the world for disabled people to 'live, work and thriveThe UK government has announced details of its new Disability Action Plan which includes 32 steps it claims will make the UK the most accessible place in the world for disabled people to ‘live, work and thrive’. The publication of the Disability Action Plan is part of the government’s stated intention to improve the lives of millions of disabled people. This has included seeing 1.3 million more disabled people in work now than in 2017, which the government claims is delivering a commitment five years early. More →

Hefty fine for Amazon has implications for employee surveillance policy

Hefty fine for Amazon has implications for employee surveillance policy

by • News, Technology, Workplace

Recent advancements in employee surveillance technology and the rise in remote working have led to employers now having both the ability and the excuse to look over employees’ shouldersThe French data protection watchdog CNIL has fined Amazon France Logistique €32m, equivalent to 3 percent of the entity’s annual turnover, approaching the maximum permitted level of 4 percent. Describing Amazon’s employee surveillance as “excessive”, the regulator also cited instances where the monitoring of staff was found to be outright illegal, by breaching the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). More →

The Kafka trap of return to office arguments

The Kafka trap of return to office arguments

by • Comment, Flexible working

This month I witnessed somebody misapplying the work of Kafka in an attempt to make a middlebrow point about the so-called return to officeRecently, I bemoaned how Orwell is often invoked in support of an argument by people who haven’t read him. They are usually drawing on some laundered misperception of his work, and especially Nineteen Eighty-Four. Well, just a few days ago, I witnessed somebody misapplying the work of Kafka in a similar attempt to make a middlebrow point about the so-called return to office. More →

Life at the coalface: How the agile workplace first appeared in the mid 20th Century

Life at the coalface: How the agile workplace first appeared in the mid 20th Century

by • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

agile working began in the coal fields of NottinghamshireThe idea of diffusion of innovation has become so embedded in our culture, and most recently so associated with the adoption of new technology, that we might assume it happens in predictable ways. The steps between innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards seem intuitive and certain even when their peaks might be unsure. And yet history teaches us that sometimes new ideas can take years or even decades to take hold, even when they are potentially world-changing and relevant for the era in which they were formulated. More →

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