March 30, 2020

New task force to reduce health burden of COVID-19

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has announced that it is setting up a task force to reduce the enormous health burden from COVID-19 and other respiratory infections. Its goal is to define the critical role buildings, organisations and communities play in prevention and preparedness, resilience and recovery. The task force’s work will take a broad approach, considering both new and recurring infectious agents that can affect large populations. (more…)

March 27, 2020

Third of workforce expect role to vanish within three years

by Jayne Smith • News, Working lives

A new study by Mercer claims the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent uncertainty are accelerating changes in the way organisations around the world are working and will continue to work into the future. Particularly in challenging times, employers are focusing on their workforce, specifically fostering healthy lifestyles, supporting financial wellness and providing skills and training as careers change due to AI and technology developments. (more…)

March 26, 2020

Now is a great time to talk about staff absence in the NHS

by Ian Caminsky • Comment, Wellbeing

The NHS lost nearly ten days per employee to absence last year, the highest level recorded in the last five years. Data is crucial to the decision-making and success of every business, and yet many NHS Executives will be unaware of this statistic. (more…)

March 25, 2020

Loneliness has always been a workplace issue

by Nigel Oseland • Comment, Wellbeing, Working lives, Workplace design

Loneliness is increasingly recognised as a serious issue in modern society. In the UK, the Office of National Statistics reported that 5 percent of adults feel lonely ‘often’ or ‘always’, with further 16 percent of adults reporting feeling lonely ‘sometimes’, equivalent to approximately 9 million adults suffering from loneliness to some degree. (more…)

March 25, 2020

Fall in employment and property values is inevitable

by Neil Franklin • News

It is already inevitable that the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will include a “big hit to commercial property values” and a rise in unemployment in the UK, according to reports from researchers Capital Economics (paywall). The economic research consultancy has downgraded its forecasts for the UK economy and, as a result, is projecting a near 10 percent decline in property values and a rapid but short-lived increase in unemployment. (more…)

March 24, 2020

A shift in the workplace axis might be a welcome outcome of this crisis

by Luke Munro • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

I am not a philosopher. I sell home and workplace furniture. But I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how radically different things will be – both in how we work and how we live – once we get through this dreadful period of our lives. We have the opportunity to embrace a whole new way of working which recognises and gets the best out of all parts of our community. (more…)

March 24, 2020

Commercial tenants will be protected from eviction if they cannot pay rent

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

Commercial tenants who cannot pay their rent because of coronavirus will be protected from eviction, the government has announced. Many landlords and tenants are already having conversations and reaching voluntary arrangements about rental payments due shortly but the Government says that it recognises businesses struggling with their cashflow due to coronavirus remain worried about eviction. (more…)

March 18, 2020

The UK`s tech sector continues to thrive

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Britain’s digital sector is growing at six times the pace of the country’s other industries, according to new research from Tech Nation. According to the annual study, technology businesses contributed around £149 billion to the UK economy in 2018, nearly 8 percent of GDP. Since 2017 staff numbers at digital companies have risen by 40 percent to 2.9 million, nearly tenth of the total UK workforce. (more…)

March 17, 2020

Pandemic highlights precarious reality of workplace legislation

by Tony Wilson • Comment, Legal news

Less than a week on from the Budget, and already the government’s emergency measures to respond to covid-19 feel like they belong to another crisis. While attention this weekend has rightly focused on how our health services and older people can be supported, we also need urgently to revisit the impact on the workplace and especially how we’ll support the many millions of workers who will find themselves off work – sick or in self-isolation – over the coming months. (more…)

March 16, 2020

Workplace transformation decisions shifting from HR to senior management

by Jayne Smith • News, Working culture

Infosys Knowledge Institute (IKI), the thought leadership and research arm of Infosys, have published a global research report titled, ‘Drive Change from Within.’ The research claims that CEOs are now prioritising on driving a workplace transformation roadmap and contributing to its development in the organisation. (more…)

March 13, 2020

How to flourish in the workplace – Derek Clements-Croome in conversation

by Mark Eltringham • Podcasts, Premium Content, Wellbeing, Wellbeing Matters

In the third in our series of wellbeing podcasts published in partnership with Wellworking, I am in conversation with Derek Clements-Croome, one of the world’s leading experts on wellbeing and sustainability in the workplace. We look at the increasingly powerful links between personal wellbeing and green sustainable building design and consider some of the most important yet last talked about wellbeing and productivity issues such as temperature and air quality. (more…)

March 13, 2020

The UK is not well enough prepared for working from home

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Figures released today suggest that the UK is one of the least prepared countries to introduce a mass home-working strategy. Leesman has surveyed more than 700,000 employees worldwide. Of the 139,778 UK workers in its index, 55 percent have little or no experience working from home, compared with 52 percent of respondents globally. (more…)