July 25, 2023

Putting a new approach to office design in the frame

by Kyrylo Komarov • Comment, Workplace design

It is now a truism to suggest that the traditional ways we think about office design need to be rethought in response to the new and emerging challenges businesses now face. Most people accept this but are still trying to work out the implications for the way we design and manage the physical workplace. The office needs to tell a new story. And one way to structure this narrative this is to borrow ideas from the movie screenwriting process. More →

July 25, 2023

The office no longer provides ‘separation between life and work’, remote work survey claims

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

A new poll from IE University, the WorkAnywhere campaign and Remote claims that office workers are experiencing the highest levels of burnout and lowest levels of happiness and job satisfaction when compared to remote and hybrid workers. The team behind the survey say this indicates that the office environment isn’t the effective separator between life and work that many believe it to be. According to findings from The Global Life-Work Survey, in the past month alone, 41 percent of full-time office workers experienced signs of burnout compared to 26 percent of fully remote workers and 34 percent of hybrid workers. More →

July 21, 2023

Cost of living crisis incentivises people to work from home

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

A new report claims that rising numbers of the people in the UK are choosing to shop and work from home to make every penny count as the cost-of-living crisis continues. These insights mark the launch of the second Virgin Media O2 Business Movers Index – a quarterly barometer that combines anonymised and aggregated UK movement data from O2 Motion, with national polling findings to reveal key trends relating to the behaviour of 2,000 British businesses and 1,000 UK consumers. Together, the data paints a picture of movement patterns and the trends behind them. The second quarter of this year reveals a more cash-conscious image of Britain as more of the UK public change their behaviours to cope with a tough economic backdrop. More →

July 20, 2023

UK government plans to parachute AI experts into departments to ‘turbocharge’ productivity

by Jayne Smith • News, Property, Technology

So-called ‘digital gurus’ from the private sector will be ‘parachuted’ into government departments as part of radical plans to ‘turbocharge’ the technological skills of civil servants, Cabinet Office Minister Jeremy Quin has announced. Delivering a speech at the think tank Policy Exchange, Minister Quin set out a number of measures which he claims will drive forward the government’s plans to harness innovation and technology including AI to make Whitehall run more efficiently.

July 20, 2023

Help over-50s and other groups into self-employment to boost economy, say MPs

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

The UK Government’s Work and Pensions Committee has called for more employment support to address economic inactivity. The support for helping people into work should be widened to those not on benefits, with a new scheme developed to encourage people to set up their own businesses and move into self-employment. The Committee has also called for more focus to be given to measures to help young people, the over 50s and people with disabilities and long-term health conditions find and stay in work. More →

July 18, 2023

CIPD says HR professionals should ‘lean in’ to artificial intelligence

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology, Workplace

The swift rise of generative artificial intelligence and its potential impact in the workplace puts people professionals at the heart of understanding how this fast-evolving technology can be responsibly used, and the business impact it may have, according to the CIPD. To support this change, the trade body has launched a new guide, Preparing your Organisation for AI Use, which stresses the importance of people professionals creating clear policies on the use of easily accessible, web-based generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard. More →

July 14, 2023

To boost productivity in the UK, we need to think big and different

by Peter McAteer • Comment, Technology

The decline in UK productivity since the Great Recession of 2008/2009 has been a matter of concern for business leaders, policymakers, and economists alike. Despite hopes that the pandemic would act as a catalyst for transformation and boost productivity, recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the UK still lags behind several other G7 economies. More →

July 14, 2023

Bolder strategy needed to boost productivity and economic growth

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

The Government’s plan to transform the UK into a science and technology superpower will fail to boost living standards unless it’s linked to a broader industrial strategy aimed at raising productivity across all sectors of the economy. This is the central conclusion of a new CIPD discussion paper, An industrial strategy for the everyday economy, which says a bolder vision for economic growth, looking across all sectors and areas of the economy, is needed considering the multiple challenges facing the UK. More →

July 12, 2023

Generations in the workplace: setting the record straight

by Jo Sutherland • Comment, Workplace

If there were an algorithm to create a word cloud in response to searches for ‘What millennials want in the workplace?’, you’d expect to see Google spew out terms such as ‘flexibility’, ‘meaning’, ‘fairness’, ‘equality’, ‘inclusivity’, ‘opportunity’, ‘connections’, ‘socialising’ and ‘experience’. Do the same with ‘Gen Z’ replacing ‘millennials’ and – guess what – you’ll see the exact same word cloud, although perhaps in a different colour and order so you don’t think it’s based on the same homogeneous assumptions about younger generations. More →

July 11, 2023

Berlin ranked top smart city in Europe, report claims

by Neil Franklin • Environment, News, Technology

A new report claims that Berlin is the smartest city Europe based on its transport, energy strategies and a number of other factors. The Smart cities market: growth, trends & market forecasts 2023-2028 report [paywall] from Juniper Research, selected the German capital ahead of London, Barcelona, Rome and Madrid. The rankings are made on an evaluation of a range of smart city features, including transport and infrastructure, energy and lighting, city management and technology, and urban connectivity. More →

July 11, 2023

Workplace generations express different demands of their jobs

by Neil Franklin • News

Even though people who belong to so-called Generation Z are often described as digital natives, it is actually ‘Baby Boomers’ who are most focussed on workplace technology, a new poll claims. The report from interior design and fit-out business Claremont claims that firms are having to work increasingly hard to address the needs and priorities of different workplace generations. It claims that Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) want better technology in the office to help them be more productive. They also want more face-to-face collaboration and team spirit more than any other generation. More →

July 5, 2023

All we are saying is give lease a chance

by Mick Jordan • Features, Furniture

By their very nature, trends come and go. What we are now seeing with sustainable, responsible product and material sourcing goes way beyond trend or fad, of course, and in recent discussions we’ve had (and we’ve had quite a few) on the subject, the question of furniture as a service or a furniture lease model has arisen on a number of occasions. So often, in fact, that we decided we should look deeper into the subject, to ascertain its pros (and cons) and to decipher whether this is merely a hypothetical – certainly at any large scale – that the industry would like to adopt or is a very real here and now. More →