Search Results for: Gen Z

March 17, 2019

Time to unlearn the time management system you learned at school

Picture a workplace where everyone follows rigorous to-do lists. Employees are told what to do, how long to spend on it, and in what order to tackle their projects. Then, picture a workplace where there are no to-do lists, no project deadlines, and no estimations of how long projects will take. Employees tackle work in the order they choose, when they feel like doing it. Which workplace do you think will be more successful?

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March 15, 2019

When exactly did busyness become a sign of status?

by Francesca Langton Kendall • Comment, Wellbeing

When exactly did “busyness” become a status? At work, in our personal lives and online, the competition to “live our best lives” and “hustle harder” is being taken to the extreme. Neuroscientists refer to busyness as a state of “cognitive overload.” This state can hinder our productivity, as well as our abilities to think clearly, plan and control our emotions. In the early 1990s, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by 2028, living conditions would improve so much that the working day would shrink to three or four hours. However, it is now 2019 and we are busier than ever.

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March 15, 2019

Tower in Norway confirmed as tallest timber building in world

by Neil Franklin • Architecture, Environment, News

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has verified the status of Mjøstårnet, a mixed-use building in Brumunddal, Norway as the World’s tallest timber building. At 85.4 meters, it is also the third-tallest building in Norway and the country’s tallest with mixed functions. This news coincides with the amendment of the CTBUH Height Criteria – the official guidelines upon which tall buildings are measured – to include timber as a recognised structural material. The update was prompted by the recent uptick of tall timber buildings currently under construction or in planning around the world, and the interest of involved stakeholders and the general public in defining what truly constitutes a “timber” structural system.

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March 14, 2019

The negative entropy of workplace design and management

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace design

Immediately after the Workplace Trends Summit in London last October, Ian Ellison of 3edges and I retired to a side room to record an interview for a podcast over a glass of red wine. The main objective was to try to piece together a coherent summary of what we’d seen that day. Ian assures me the podcast (his are invariably excellent) will appear very soon, but I thought it would be worth exploring a theory I formed and rambled on about in our conversation ahead of the next Summit set to take place next week.

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March 14, 2019

Neither bosses nor staff feel confident about future UK business environment

by Sara Bean • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

Two new reports published this week, show a lack of confidence amongst employers and employees within the UK business environment. The latest data in Gartner’s Global Talent Monitor report shows employee confidence in near-term business conditions and long-term economic prospects reaching an index score of 55.6 for the last quarter of 2018, a decline of 7.5 percent from an index score of 60.09 in 3Q18. These results follow a worldwide trend that has seen global business confidence sink to its lowest point since the fourth quarter of 2017. Meanwhile a survey of business leaders in the UK by management consultancy Lane4 found that bosses do not feel prepared to lead through future challenges like artificial intelligence and political volatility. (more…)

March 13, 2019

We need to change the terms of the open plan office debate

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, News, Workplace design

New workplace data from the Gensler Research Institute claims to challenge the current narrative surrounding the open plan office ‘debate’ and uncovers the right way to invest in work-focused amenities, including coworking, that result in higher employee engagement, business performance and profit. The 2019 Gensler US Workplace Survey includes the input from more than 6,000 US office workers across a variety of industries and demographics to provide new insight into not only what makes an effective workplace, but the investments companies can make to improve employees’ workplace experience and performance. Reports for the UK, Germany, Latin America and Asia are also available here.

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March 13, 2019

Companies that adopt agile working enjoy improved financial performance, claims report

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Companies that embrace agile working and and a generally more flexible and responsive way of working enjoy a financial and operational competitive advantage over their rivals, according to new research from PA Consulting. Two thirds of the respondents said that their business model is at risk of fundamentally becoming outdated, with agile considered a key method for transitioning to a future-proof strategy. While agile is typically regarded by many as a method geared at streamlining operations, PA Consulting’s research suggests the approach could take things a step further. The consultancy conducted an international study among 500 executives of large companies across a range of sectors, asking them how they view agile working and what they see as the key factors for successful adoption. (more…)

March 12, 2019

Workers are pessimistic about employment prospects in post Brexit era

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

A new report from Personal Group claims that British workers increasingly concerned with Brexit’s potential impact on their employment. The data suggests that with just one month to go, more than a third (34.25 percent) of UK residents believe that Brexit would affect their current employment in a negative way, an increase of nearly 4 percent (+3.82 percent) when compared to survey results from 2018. Only a negligible 3 percent of respondents think that Brexit will positively affect their current employment.

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March 12, 2019

UK jobs boom set to end as finance and business sectors lose confidence

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Workplace

The boom in the UK jobs market is coming to an end just as the Brexit countdown reaches its final stages. According to the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey, the national Outlook for the second quarter of 2019 has fallen to +4 percent, on a par with the weakest levels of confidence seen in recent years. More worryingly, the negative Outlook in the Business and Financial services sector – which employs nearly a fifth of all UK workers – suggests jobs are set to be lost in Britain’s most important sector. The report found that the Finance and Business Services sector has fallen five points to -1 percent, only the second time in the last decade it has been in negative territory.

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March 12, 2019

Insight promotion: creating a frictionless (not flawed) workplace experience

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Insight promotion, Workplace design

To mark the launch of Workplace House, a multi-brand co-creation space in the heart of Clerkenwell, a consortium of participating brands hosted an event to explore the factors that contribute towards a good (and not so good) workplace experience.

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March 11, 2019

Riffing on the issue of workplace design and creativity ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Workplace design

We are often told that one of the main objectives of workplace design these days is to help people become more creative. Now, there are all sorts of complications bound up in this, not least the assumption that you can help or even will people to become more creative, especially in an environment that still wants, in some way at least, to supervise what they do and when and where they do it. A working environment designed for creativity only works in the context of a culture that facilitates it. And here’s where the problem lies. (more…)

March 11, 2019

Revisiting Maslow and the quest for self-actualisation

by Christian Jarrett • Features, Wellbeing, Workplace

Abraham Maslow was the 20th-century American psychologist best-known for explaining motivation through his hierarchy of needs, which he represented in a pyramid. At the base, our physiological needs include food, water, warmth and rest. Moving up the ladder, Maslow mentions safety, love, and self-esteem and accomplishment. But after all those have been satisfied, the motivating factor at the top of the pyramid involves striving to achieve our full potential and satisfy creative goals. As one of the founders of humanistic psychology, Maslow proposed that the path to self-transcendence and, ultimately, greater compassion for all of humanity requires the ‘self-actualisation’ at the top of his pyramid – fulfilling your true potential, and becoming your authentic self. (more…)