May 31, 2024
Make my day, punk. With Will Easton
Will Easton joins me for a chat over a drink on the Workplace Cocktail Hour podcast. We discuss many things including: the scope of facilities and workplace management and why it offers so many career opportunities for people; punk approaches to work; what presence means and why it can be found in mosh pits as well as when touching grass; the emerging role of UX in designing offices; and why you should take the claims of iconic office designs with a pinch of salt. We even come up with an edgy but surprising playlist in the course of the conversation, which you can find below. (more…)
April 17, 2024
All change. Jennifer Bryan on the Workplace Cocktail Hour
Change management consultant and author Jennifer Bryan invites Mark Eltringham to share a Cosmopolitan and discuss how firms can better help people to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Along the way they talk about the futility of trying to work out how much time everybody should spend in an office, how an American came to use words like brilliant and Zed so effortlessly, the need for crises to get things moving some times, and what happens next. (more…)
March 12, 2024
No more zero sum games … the Workplace Cocktail Hour with Joe Croft
For the second week running, the football talk takes place off mike. Joe Croft shares a coffee and a chat with Mark Eltringham. Instead of the mixed fortunes of Middlesbrough and Stoke City, they talk about everything to do with sustainability in office fitout and construction. They discuss the limit of accreditations and standards, the need to get beyond box ticking and greenwash and what best practice really looks like. They also discuss what might happen when our favoured recycled materials become scarce, and also how resource hungry the online and digital world is. (more…)
March 1, 2024
The only way is ethics … the Workplace Cocktail Hour with David Sharp
David Sharp joins Mark Eltringham on the Workplace Cocktail Hour to share a bourbon, discuss a wide range of issues – and avoid one that won’t help either of them. They discuss the ethics of artificial intelligence, why we need more friction in our lives (and less seamlessness), the philosophy of work, how to deal with social media, the importance of making your own life more difficult on purpose, and the pleasures of finding out you are wrong about something.
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February 19, 2024
Going with the flow … with Domino Risch
Domino Risch uses her new found freedom to discuss the limitations of relying on a single place to get work done. Sharing a hot drink separated by numerous time zones, she chats with Mark Eltringham about what firms get wrong about hybrid and in-office work, the best places to have ideas and how hard the modern world makes it to achieve flow states. They discuss the potential of anthropology to change the way we work. And what the current news about Deutsche Bank’s insistence people come into the office on Mondays and Fridays tells us about the avoidable tensions that exist in the tedious debate about remote work and so-called return to office mandates. (more…)
February 13, 2024
Raising the bar (and hell) with Antony Slumbers
Over 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…)
January 19, 2024
A hazy shade of Winter: Nigel Oseland sounds off on the Workplace Cocktail Hour
It’s bitterly cold outside but over a glass of hazy IPA, Nigel Oseland and Mark Eltringham warm to a conversation about fish guts, the sounds that make us cringe, what comfort means to different people and what it would really take to get them to spend more time in the office. And it’s not free fruit, corporate sanctioned togetherness or quirky office features. Nigel also explains why firms might be getting it wrong when it comes to managing which people use which spaces in agile environments. We also discuss how people overestimate their own productivity and underestimate that of their colleagues and what that means for the way we organise. (more…)
January 12, 2024
The wonder of you. Monica Parker on joy, serendipity, toxic work cultures and awe
Monica Parker joins Mark Eltringham to share an Old Fashioned while discussing how to find wonder in the everyday, the limits of workplace design, our renewed obsession with productivity, how to achieve flow states in a world of distractions and what it means to be truly happy. There’s not much workplace news around right now as people are still finding their feet after Christmas, so we also explore some lessons we might take from the Post Office scandal about how organisations go wrong and the role of human nature in creating toxic cultures. (more…)
December 1, 2023
Take me home, country roads. Mike Petrusky on the Workplace Cocktail Hour
Joining Mark Eltringham this week on the Workplace Cocktail Hour podcast is Mike Petrusky. He is the head of podcasts at Eptura and host of the Workplace Innovator podcast which you can find here. In an open, frank conversation we discuss how to have better conversations about the workplace (and everything else), solidarity with our fellow humans, the death of Shane McGowan, mental illness and what firms can and can’t do about it, what we do and don’t know and the need for humility in the way we share our opinions. (more…)
November 17, 2023
The Workplace Cocktail Hour with Jo Sutherland and Esme Banks-Marr
Mark Eltringham is joined for a glass of red wine (or two) by Esme Banks-Marr of BVN architects and Jo Sutherland of Magenta. They discuss the joys of shared space, when people should tell AI to FO, the limits of workplace design, how to create a great culture wherever people work and much more. (more…)
November 7, 2023
The Workplace Cocktail Hour. Chris Moriarty on AI, toxic workplaces and more
In the first of a new series of news-based podcasts, I catch up with Chris Moriarty, the co-founder of Audiem and much besides. Over a glass of gin and tonic, we discuss the AI Safety Summit and the proclamations of imminent doom that came before and after it. We also talk about the covid inquiry and the toxic workplace culture it exposed as an intriguing subplot. (more…)
