August 31, 2022

People reconsider working from home in response to rising energy costs

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Around two thirds of people who can work from home say their employers aren’t planning to provide financial support related to energy costs and almost a quarter of under 35s currently working from home say they would consider coming into the office more due to rising energy prices. These are the key findings of a YouGov poll from Emburse. A sample of 1,015 British employees were asked a range of questions covering hybrid working patterns and employer financial support in light of the cost of living crisis and increasing utility bills. More →

August 31, 2022

Growing number of people regret career moves, claims Gartner research

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

Nearly 60 percent of candidates who recently made career moves report that they would still make the same choice, according to a poll from Gartner. The survey of more than 1,800 candidates conducted in June 2022 claims that candidates who reported they would repeat an offer decision reached a peak of 83 percent in 2021, after increasing steadily in 2019 (60 percent) and 2020 (70 percent), before decreasing dramatically this year. The same survey suggests that nearly half of surveyed candidates say they are still open to other offers, while 28 percent say if they had to make the decision again, they would stay at their previous employer. More →

August 31, 2022

Central London office market take-up returns to pre-Covid levels

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

The Central London Office leasing market has seen occupiers expanding their footprint at record levels, according to the research from real estate advisor, CBRE. Following what CBRE claims was an unprecedented downturn in activity as a result of the pandemic, Central London office take-up reached 12.7m sq ft for the 12-months to the end of Q2 2022, an increase of 153 percent when compared to the same period last year and 5 percent above the ten-year average. More →

August 25, 2022

Company culture improved thanks to pandemic, think half of workers. Half don’t.

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

A new survey from Qualtrics claims that workers have mixed views on the impact of the pandemic on company culture. Half of European employees felt the pandemic had a positive impact on company culture – according to employees in France (50 percent), Germany (48 percent) and the UK (62 percent). Those who experienced positive changes to company culture in the last two years, cited this as being a result of an increase in open and honest communication from the business and feeling heard by the organisation. In fact, over half of workers across all markets say receiving increased communication from the company has been important (FR: 55 percent, DE: 56 percent, UK: 59 percent). More →

August 23, 2022

A safe and healthy working environment is now a human right

by Malcolm Staves • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A landmark decision was made recently in the long history of efforts to protect people from injury and illness at work. At a hybrid conference held by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, for those attending in person, delegates voted in favour of a resolution to make the principle of a safe and healthy work environment a human right. That’s correct; we managed to reach the third decade of the 21st century without a safe workplace being a fundamental right of us all. More →

August 16, 2022

Two thirds of businesses set to increase borderless working over next 12 months

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

A new poll from Perkbox suggests that a growing number of businesses are going to look to borderless working to resolve hiring challenges. According to the survey, almost two-thirds of businesses (62 percent) plan to increase the number of remote staff they hire outside of their main country of operations over the next 12 months. This drive is fuelled by technological advances over the past two years facilitating greater hybrid and remote working. There are a range of motivations, but the survey of 500 UK business leaders identified the top three as building a more diverse workforce to access a wider talent pool (35 percent), encouraging innovation (32 percent), and building a global workforce (29 percent) to service a wider customer base. More →

August 16, 2022

Employees at large firms only in office for 1.5 days a week on average

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

A global study of nearly 80 offices in 13 countries with nearly 80,000 employees has revealed a seismic shift in working pattens, with people now coming into the office an average of just 1.4 days a week, versus nearly four days a week before the Covid-19 pandemic. The Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA) Hybrid Working Index study [registration], conducted during June and July this year, found that on an average day two thirds of desks are unused and just over a quarter of people are coming into the offices, with the attendance figure dropping to just 12 percent on Fridays. More →

August 10, 2022

Exploring the best current thinking about work and the workplace

by Mark Eltringham • IN Magazine, News, Premium Content

Issue 12 of IN Magazine is in production, but in the meantime Issue 11 explores the best and latest thinking from the world of work. In this issue: we talk to Joanna Frank about active design; visit the offices of Drees and Sommer in Stuttgart; consider the role of routines in creativity; argue that we need to understand the past before we can shape the future; discover Iceland’s new Science City; hear about the changing nature of workplace experiences; and much more. Includes our latest supplement, exploring the role of internal comms in hybrid work cultures, published in association with Magenta. Print copies will be mailed out in the next few days. More →

August 1, 2022

Podcast: the weak arguments in favour of offices and the problem with the future of work

by Neil Franklin • Features, Flexible working, Podcasts, Property, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Mark Eltringham the publisher of Workplace Insight and IN Magazine recently joined Caleb Parker, the founder of Bold, on his Work Bold podcast for an unscripted chat on: the future of work and how it may shape the future of commercial real estate; the reasons why anybody might ever want to go back to an office to work; the problem with weak arguments both for and against offices; and the importance of culture and flexibility rather than fixed times and places of work in determining people’s day to day experiences of work. The prompt for this conversation was the occasional discussion on social media over the past couple of years and a recent article exploring the value of weak ties. More →

July 21, 2022

Digital presenteeism now a pervasive cultural pressure

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Damaging habits from the office have been imported into remote work, with a pervasive culture of digital presenteeism taking hold, according to a new report Killing Time at Work from Qatalog and GitLab Inc. The research also claims to reveal a new phenomenon which the authors have dubbed ‘async privilege’, with C-suite execs taking advantage of new freedoms to work on their own schedule, but not providing those same opportunities to junior members of staff. More →

July 20, 2022

Four day week seen as unrealistic for millions of people

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Interest in the four day work week is rising yet millions of UK workers are set to miss out, according to research from ClickUp. It found that certain careers are more likely to miss out on the idea of working a day less each week for no reduction in pay, as other employment sectors may go ahead. Businesses must take action to close these gaps to create equity for workers in the UK, the report argues. More →

July 18, 2022

The future of work is asynchronous

by Adam Dover • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

In our pre-, post-, and mid-pandemic worlds, the corporate workspace landscape underwent – and continues to undergo – a great many adaptations. It is changing out of necessity so firms can survive in a new present and future of work. The way we work had never evolved as much as it has in the past 2 years. It was dominated by strict schedules, physical meetings and on-site technology only. As time passed and technology evolved, the 9-to-5 in-office schedule remained, and teleworking, despite being possible, was extremely rare.