March 22, 2023

Workspace Design Show goes from strength to strength this year with visitor numbers up by 76 percent

The Workspace Design Show returned to the Business Design Centre from 27- 28 February 2023, with exhibitors and visitors alike hailing it as a must-attend addition to the trade show calendar and a place where the workplace community can come together to be inspired and network. The overarching theme for this year’s show was Destination Workplace: Places Where People Want To Be, exploring how to create environments where employees have a desirable experience at their workplaces. More →

March 20, 2023

Lighting is just as important for those working from home as it is in the office

by Brendan Keely • Company news, Lighting

Working from home now constitutes a part of many office workers’ lives so the latest revision to The Society of Light and Lighting Guide now includes guidance for those creating an office in their home through the conversion of a bedroom or other room. This revision to The Society of Light and Lighting’s Lighting Guide 7: Lighting for Offices [paywall] is the most significant in a long time. Not because of the amount of information that has changed or been introduced, but because home working now constitutes a part of many office workers’ lives. Such a dramatic change for many could not have been foreseen when the previous edition of LG7 was published. More →

March 15, 2023

The UK workplace sector reacts to the Spring Budget 2023

by Jayne Smith • Environment, News, Property, Workplace

Today the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt presented his Spring Budget to the House of Commons. In it he announced what her referred to as his ‘four pillars’ of industrial and productivity strategy, namely: ‘Enterprise’, ‘Employment’, ‘Education’, and ‘Everywhere’. Perhaps the headline element of this announcement was the creation of twelve new investment zones across the UK as well as incentives for older workers to return to the country’s patchy workforce. This includes£63m for programmes to encourage retirees over 50 back to work, “returnerships” and ‘skills boot camps’. Another headline for the workplace sector was the offer of improved childcare arrangements, especially for the parents of very young children, who will see 30 hours of free childcare expanded to include one and two-year-olds. More →

March 15, 2023

“Flexible working has been introduced very inflexibly”: IN conversation with Jeremy Myerson

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, IN Magazine, Premium Content

One of the latest people to invent activity-based working is a sociologist, who combined it with the similarly familiar hub and spoke office model on her substack as a solution to the Great Office Problem and as a way of implementing flexible working. She’s not the first and is a less surprising pioneer of a decades old model than some other people who should really know better. That includes an architectural practice who came up with the idea earlier this year and whose name escapes me. More →

March 15, 2023

Build a healthy workplace culture at The Workplace Event

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Events

Workplace culture and environment play a significant role in the health and wellbeing of employees, and it has become increasingly important for businesses to build a positive and healthy work environment. This year The Workplace Event is launching a highly focused content theatre – The Knowledge Hub // Culture and Health & Wellbeing. Featuring leading experts, industry professionals, and thought leaders, it will provide a platform for the discussion of topics ranging from mental health and stress management to workplace diversity and employee engagement and more. Learn about strategies and tools that are driving positive workplace cultures and promoting employee well-being to improve organisational performance. Don’t let the opportunity to build a healthy and positive workplace culture pass you by. Register for your FREE pass to The Workplace Event today.

Image: Claremont Group

March 10, 2023

Online personal brands are the key to job success say ‘Gen Z’

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

New research claims to reveal how people who belong to ‘Generation Z’ perceive online ‘personal brands’ as a crucial tool to gain more advantage in job markets. The study, led by the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University of Greenwich, claims to demonstrate the importance of authentically building online personal branding strategies and tactics to bridge the gap between Gen Z ‘s desired and perceived images on social media when job seeking. More →

March 8, 2023

Two thirds of US landlords don’t really understand how their buildings are used

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Property

A new report from VTS claims that 62 percent of US landlords don’t have the tools they need to know how their properties are used, in spite of the ongoing pressure on them to understand the experience of occupiers and retain their business. More →

March 6, 2023

The six skills managers will need for the future of work

by Lea Kimpele • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

Conversations around how work and leadership will change in the coming years have inevitably been accelerated by the pandemic. Companies all over the world have been urged to seek new digital tools, solutions and methods for communicating, making decisions, and activating projects remotely. The companies that emerged most successfully from the Covid era were those that, despite all the uncertainty at the time, decided to adapt and view the pandemic as an opportunity for change rather than an obstacle. When it comes to the future of work, we need new guidelines for building change-ready and vulnerable leadership. More →

March 6, 2023

Less than a third of businesses know how energy efficient their office is

by Neil Franklin • Environment, Facilities management, News

A surprisingly high proportion of UK businesses are unaware of new environmental legislation concerning the energy efficiency of their buildings, or even how energy efficient they are in the first place, according to a new survey commissioned by Irwin Mitchell: Redefining the Office – A report on office occupier trends in 2023. The new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) legislation means that from 1st April 2023, property owners must not continue to let properties that have an EPC rating of F or G (unless they have an exemption) and all let properties will need to have a minimum EPC rating of E. More →

March 2, 2023

Best of NeoCon 2023 awards submissions are now open

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Events

The organisers of NeoCon have announced that the submissions portal for the 2023 edition of the Best of NeoCon competition is now open. A NeoCon tradition since 1990, the competition garners hundreds of product entries each year as exhibitors vie for one of the Best of NeoCon awards. Now in its 33rd year, the program will recognise the best new products in 56 categories spanning a range of verticals including workplace, healthcare, hospitality, and education sectors. New for 2023, entries will be considered for a Business Impact Award, in addition to honours for Gold, Silver, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Best of Competition. More →

March 1, 2023

Employers prioritising long term return on investment in recruitment

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

Following the ‘hiring frenzy’ of the pandemic, recruitment strategies are focused on total value creation by empowering their teams to learn, grow and be ready for any contingency, according to the 2023 Talent Trends Report from Randstad. The poll of over 900 C-suite and HR leaders in 18 markets focussed on their talent and career development priorities for the year ahead. Now in its 8th year, this year’s report claims that despite an uncertain economic environment, business leaders are focused on driving long-term value and business impact by increasing talent engagement, satisfaction, productivity, and retention, following the ‘hiring frenzy’ of the last two years. More →

February 22, 2023

Most US employees don’t believe remote working colleagues are really working

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Only 24 percent of people trust their remote working colleagues to get work done from home, according to a new poll from Envoy. However, the latest edition of its Return to the Workplace survey also suggests that 94 percent of workers believe their managers trust them to do their work from anywhere, home or the office. And the older the worker, the greater the confidence they have in expressing such a belief. Only 57 percent of ‘Gen Z’ feel strongly that they have their manager’s trust compared with 71 percent of ‘Millennials’ and 77 percent of ‘Boomers’. (Wot? No Gen X? – Ed) More →