April 21, 2023

Hybrid working is the new normal and is here to stay, report claimzzzz

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

Mace has published a new report into workplace trends which claims that hybrid working with a collaborative central space is (brace yourselves) the new normal for a preferred post-pandemic working style. The Mace Operate Workplace Survey looked at the enduring role of a central office for businesses and considered what an office space needs to offer in an era of hybrid working. The majority of respondents (87 percent) said that interaction with people and workplace culture are the main benefits of going to the office with employees and employers seeing eye-to-eye on the need for collaboration for motivation, resilience and effective hybrid working. More →

April 10, 2023

The allure of workplace bullshit

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Although the legend of Faust is one of the Germanic world’s foundational narratives, its archetypes and themes were already established by the time Goethe codified them in his 1808 play. They have since become universal. The idea that somebody would sell their soul to the Devil to gain something or rid themselves of unhappiness is as resonant now as it was in Renaissance Europe. It has inspired books films and artists to such an extent that its derivatives now have their own Wikipedia page.

March 27, 2023

The five ages of the office and the man who shaped the way we talk about them

by Rob Harris • Features, Flexible working, Workplace design

The office has passed through five ages. The ‘coffee houses’ of the 17th century, yielded to the ‘clerical factories’ of the 19th as machines revolutionised work. After the Second World War, the ‘corporate offices’ of global corporations and William Whyte’s Organization Man dominated the scene. Following the launch of IBM’s PC in the early-1980s, we saw the rise of ‘digital offices’ in the 1990s, complete with internet, email and social media. And for the past few years we have been moving inexorably towards the latest age: ‘network offices’. Each age was shorter than its predecessor: both the digital and network ages began less than a career span ago. More →

March 24, 2023

New guide to office fit-out and refurbishment launched by trade body

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Workplace design

Trade association FIS has launched a revised Client Guide to Office Fit-Out and Refurbishment with the aim of promoting best practice in the fit-out process and to take account of new working practices post-pandemic, the Building Safety Act and advances in sustainability. First published in 2017, this updated guide is aimed at clients, contractors and architects involved in fit-out projects in a changing world. It is available for free download. More →

March 21, 2023

Robots will improve your wellbeing – as long as they look cute

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Wellbeing

Robots can be useful as mental wellbeing coaches in the workplace – but perception of their effectiveness depends in large part on what the robot looks like. That is according to researchers from the University of Cambridge who conducted a study of a tech consultancy firm using two robot wellbeing coaches. In the study, 26 employees participated in weekly robot-led wellbeing sessions for four weeks. Although the robots had identical voices, facial expressions, and scripts for the sessions, the physical appearance of the robot affected how participants interacted with it. More →

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 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 →

February 20, 2023

Unlocking the digital frontier: hiring the next generation of tech talent

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Workplace

Any business that is looking to grow its consumer base or expand into new markets is likely to be relying on digital technology to a greater extent than ever before both in their operations and management. This also means that the world of employment, both for workers and enterprises, is necessarily evolving too. An inevitable consequence of this evolution has been that those for whom technology has been an essential part of their life and education — so-called digital natives — are in growing demand. More →

January 13, 2023

How the 21st Century office was born in post war Europe

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Workplace design

There was a curious addition to a 2016 report on the Top 10 Technologies Driving the Digital Workplace from tech researchers Gartner. It wasn’t a technology at all but rather a slightly obscure office design concept that originated in Hamburg in the late 1950s, but which tells us a lot about how we work in the 21st Century office, according to Gartner. Its history lies with the German consulting firm Quickborner. Led by the brothers Eberhard and Wolfgang Schnelle, the firm applied the egalitarian principles of the post war world and rejection of the scientific management theories that had created the familiar factory-like rows of desks that had come to dominate open plan offices to create something more in tune with the new age.

January 10, 2023

People prefer flexible to hybrid working according to new poll

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News

A new poll from MHR claims that people appear to prefer flexible to hybrid working. It suggests that a greater proportion of employees would prefer to work in the office with flexible hours (51 percent) than work from home with structured hours (41 percent). The survey [registration] of over 1,200 full time office workers across the UK and Ireland set out to find how their experience working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic compared to their usual work practices. More →

December 14, 2022

People want their offices to perform more like hotels

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology

Employees today want more ‘hotel-style’ amenities such as areas for socialising, state-of-the-art infrastructure, outdoor spaces, onsite cafes, air conditioning, and flexible work facilities to entice them back to offices, according to a new poll from MRI Software. The firm’s Workplace Report [registration] claims almost two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents say such hotel-style features impact their decision on whether to work for an organisation, including more than one in ten who see failure to provide the right amenities as a deal breaker. More →

December 12, 2022

In person work can make the signs of burnout easier to spot

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

A new poll from Barco claims that a third of people who mostly work in the office found it easier to tell when a colleague is overworked or stressed when seeing them face to face, leaving some remote workers at risk of struggling under the radar of management teams. This comes as over a quarter of staff report experiencing burnout over chronic work-related stress that has not been managed successfully. More →