Search Results for: Gen Z

Lockdown mental fatigue is rapidly reversed by social contact, study claims

Lockdown mental fatigue is rapidly reversed by social contact, study claims

Many of us are looking forward to a summer of relative freedom, with road-mapped milestones that will grant us more opportunities to see our friends and family. But we’ll be carrying the effects of months of isolation into those meetings, including a sense that our social skills will need dusting off, and our wits will need sharpening. The mental effects of lockdown have been profound. Social isolation has been shown to cause people’s mental health to deteriorate even if they have no history of previous psychological problems. Alongside this drop in mood, loneliness has been linked with a host of cognitive problems, including fatigue, stress and problems with concentration. More →

Workplace interruptions may help people feel a sense of belonging

Workplace interruptions may help people feel a sense of belonging

In those heady pre-lockdown days, the most common complaint about office life, and especially open plan office life, was the inability to get work done without distraction. Now a new paper from researchers at the University of Illinois suggests that the interruptions may have served some purpose in the way they helped people feel a sense of belonging in the workplace. More →

Finding a new sense of purpose in the way we all do business

Finding a new sense of purpose in the way we all do business

Mental health and purposeIt is now a truism that society expects more of business than merely maximising shareholder value. Milton Friedman’s conviction that unswerving commitment to this single goal would ensure that business and society would prosper has come to be seen as blinkered, unfit for the twenty-first century and enabling of corporate greed. Instead of shareholder value maximisation, an idea that The Economist called ‘the biggest idea in business’ in 2016, businesses are now encouraged to recognise their responsibilities to an array of ‘stakeholders’, from employees, suppliers and customers, to the planet itself and other communities (real or imagined). So, it has never been more important for businesses to do good, have a clear sense of purpose and be seen as doing so. More →

‘Healthy buildings’ enjoy a surge in demand worldwide

‘Healthy buildings’ enjoy a surge in demand worldwide

healthy buildings SiemensA new survey of many of the world’s leading real estate investors finds that 92 percent of respondents expect demand for healthy buildings to grow in the next three years. The report claims that this is a compelling signal of the direction the real estate sector is heading. This finding, among others, is captured in a report titled A New Investor Consensus: The Rising Demand for Healthy Buildings (registration) which claims to be a comprehensive health and wellness study of global real estate investment managers and stakeholders representing aggregate AUM of $5.75 trillion and portfolio investments in real estate totalling approximately US$1.03 trillion. More →

From the archive: A new approach to office design is redefining property

From the archive: A new approach to office design is redefining property 0

office design At the end of the 18th Century it was becoming apparent that overpopulation was something the human race would need to address for perhaps the first time. Advances in technology and the urbanisation that followed the Industrial Revolution had created a new set of challenges. These were most famously laid out in a 1798 book called An Essay on the Principle of Population, written by an English cleric called Thomas Malthus.

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Business leaders share lessons in resilience from the Covid crisis

Business leaders share lessons in resilience from the Covid crisis

resilienceMost businesses were ill-prepared to deal with the pandemic and muddled though the challenges stemming from it, according to new report ‘Resilience reimagined: a practical guide for organisations’, produced by Cranfield University, in partnership with the National Preparedness Commission (NPC) and Deloitte. More →

Working mothers healthcare hit hard by the pandemic

Working mothers healthcare hit hard by the pandemic

pandemicThe UK government has had to make many changes to its healthcare system in the last year to stop the spread of coronavirus, including asking people to stay home when possible, prioritising higher-risk patients and putting many routine appointments on pause throughout the pandemic. More →

Mental health transparency at the top is the key to workplace wellbeing

Mental health transparency at the top is the key to workplace wellbeing

wellbeingAs the world emerges from the grip of the pandemic, the mental health crisis continues to worsen. One thing is for certain as we look to rebuild – the business community must put the mental health of all employees as top priority.  But is there something that’s missing in the current conversation around workplace mental health and wellbeing? One thought is around leaders themselves, and that intrinsic connection to their own mental health and wellbeing. What many leaders have been carrying throughout the pandemic is exceptional, including the added weight of responsibility for the wellbeing and mental health of employees and to create mentally healthy workplaces, yet we rarely hear how leaders themselves are coping. More →

Remote working one year on: three-quarters of employees feel worse

Remote working one year on: three-quarters of employees feel worse

remote workingRemote workers are still struggling with distracting working environments, stress and an ‘always-on’ culture after a year of working from home. Egress’ Remote working: one year on report claims that three-quarters of remote workers reported feeling worse as a result of long-term working from home, with almost over one-third (39 percent) feeling more stressed. More →

FM industry favours quick wins over long-term strategic climate change planning

FM industry favours quick wins over long-term strategic climate change planning

climate changeResearch by VINCI Facilities claims that the UK facilities management sector does not possess a thorough, detailed strategic approach to combatting climate change. In the autumn of 2020 VINCI Facilities asked over 200 decision-makers how far their organisations have progressed in developing a coherent strategy for the environment. More →

Tarkett iD Inspiration, the cutting-edge modular vinyl flooring inspired by nature

Tarkett iD Inspiration, the cutting-edge modular vinyl flooring inspired by nature

Tarkett is revealing its new ultra-realistic modular vinyl collection, iD Inspiration. Reimagined for a rapidly changing world, iD Inspiration harnesses the power of nature to create feel-good interiors. Tarkett’s unique high-definition digital printing technology captures the beauty of wood and stone, revealing the most subtle details in grain, texture and colour. iD Inspiration will be available across Europe from May 2021 onwards. More →

Employees call for help to reduce cost and environmental impact of working from home

Employees call for help to reduce cost and environmental impact of working from home

environmentalNew research by environmental charity Hubbub suggests that workers want to almost double the time they work from home compared to life before COVID-19 arrived – from 35 percent to 63 percent of their working week. However, the increase in household energy use associated with working from home is a cause for concern. More →