May 4, 2021
Swiss Post Solutions (SPS), has released new research that claims how the pandemic has impacted front of house strategies for UK businesses. Half (50 percent) of UK companies plan to introduce interactive technologies to help overcome new ‘front of house’ (FOH) challenges that have been imposed by COVID19. A further 41 percent of businesses plan to outsource FOH services altogether. (more…)
April 12, 2021
Skills have become the new currency of workforce and talent strategies, as more than half of organisations that responded to the 2021 Mercer Global Talent Trends survey are targeting upskilling and reskilling of critical talent pools to drive workforce transformation. (more…)
March 31, 2021
Most 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…)
March 26, 2021
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…)
March 23, 2021
A new report from think tank Demos and Legal & General calls on the UK Government to back policy change that supports growth of hybrid working and local offices to drive forward its plans for regeneration and economic growth. The report, Post Pandemic Places, claims that huge increases in home working, coupled with a desire for continued flexibility, could support significant increases in local spending. On the back of the findings, the report calls on the government to incentivise the establishment of more local offices and hybrid working initiatives. (more…)
March 22, 2021
With workplaces up and down the country now following new rules and regulations – and with online meetings also the order of the day – colleagues everywhere may be feeling demotivated. (more…)
March 18, 2021
In November 2019, just before that thing happened, there was this… 
The worst workplace related news story of 2019 is also one of the most widely reported. I’m not linking to it because I don’t want to give it any credibility, but it has been discharged into the ether by Fellowes along with a ‘behavioural futurist’ called William Higham. I will say only two things about it. Firstly, we flatly refused to publish a story about the damn thing and it’s a shame that the mainstream media couldn’t spot it for the utter drivel it is. The fact that they have picked up on it says something about the way such issues are covered in the press. That’s why you’re more likely to see a stress-related story about rats driving cars on the BBC than you are something meaningful. (more…)
March 9, 2021
Until recently, the nature of business was widely predictable. Tried and tested operational methods enabled businesses to forward plan confidently based on what had worked before. Even before the cataclysmic events of the global pandemic, the workplace landscape was shifting dramatically, with innovation, disruption, workforce and consumer expectations evolving at a pace. As we enter 2021, every business will need to rapidly adapt and evolve to survive and workforce agility will be a critical factor for that survival. (more…)
March 9, 2021
Looking back, who could possibly have predicted 2020? It’s been such a difficult pandemic year for so many individuals and companies. Yet it’s also been a transformative time, which has seen dramatic shifts in the way we work. So, with some trepidation, here’s my forecast for the near future. This year will see the office bounce back, but not as we remember it. The office of the future will have an important new role as the physical embodiment of a changing corporate culture. (more…)
March 9, 2021
Employees could save over £2,200 a year and ‘get back’ 98 mins a day if companies adopted a ‘Work Near Home’ model for offices in the future, claims research from workspace company, The Instant Group and site location company, Hickey. For companies that adopt this approach, they could save upwards of 23 percent by utilising a “Hub and Spoke” model that removes reliance on city centres for office locations. (more…)
March 3, 2021
Someone really should have warned HR and people leaders that we needed to strap ourselves in, right? Even then, would we have ever been completely prepared for the rollercoaster ride organisations have experienced because of the pandemic? As part of Sage’s research, ‘HR in the moment: changing perceptions and expectations in HR’, we spoke to more than 1,500 human resources leaders, c-suite executives and employees in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, to discover how the pandemic and recent events have impacted the role, expectations and views of human resources teams globally. (more…)
April 16, 2021
Hybrid working risks becoming a meaningless term
by Ben Gillam • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design