October 16, 2023

Projects from Portugal, Belgium and France winners of the 2023 ULI Europe Awards for Excellence

by Freddie Steele • Architecture, Company news

Three built environment projects that have, respectively, restored an historic market building in Porto, delivered 182 individual school projects in Flanders, and created a hybrid, mixed use flagship development in Paris, have been announced as winners in the 2023 Urban Land Institute (ULI) Europe Awards for Excellence. The awards set out to recognise outstanding built environment projects in the private, public, and non-profit sectors, celebrating excellence in land use practice across the entire development process, from planning and construction to economics, management, sustainability and resiliency, community impact, and architecture and design. (more…)

October 16, 2023

London Real Estate Forum makes the right noises, but will be judged on action

by Helen Parton • Comment, Events, Property

This year’s London Real Estate Forum (LREF), held from 27-28 September at the Barbican, had a general air of optimism but tempered with the uncertainty of a general election in the next twelve months and elements of political and economic uncertainty globally. The day began with a state of the market discussion chaired by dRMM’s Sadie Morgan, with challenges facing the industry identified as the current valuation of the office market, the rate of housebuilding and the government’s lack of investment in infrastructure – the event coinciding with the furore over the cancelling of the northern part of HS2. (more…)

October 16, 2023

Humanscale launches global partnership with Kvadrat

by Freddie Steele • Company news

Humanscale the leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance ergonomic products introduces its global partnership through the offering of nine Kvadrat textiles– the renowned textile designer and manufacturer. The collaboration begins with Humanscale’s award winning Freedom family seating solutions, available now with the partnership then expanding further across Humanscale’s planet positive seating solutions, including Smart Ocean, Liberty Ocean and the Trea Chair launching in November, and further to Summa, Smart Conference and Path available early 2024. (more…)

October 13, 2023

The office needs to take on the characteristics of the city. Despina Katsikakis IN conversation

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Features, Property, Workplace design

One of the unintended consequences of the era of online meetings is a chance to gain an insight into people’s actual lives. So it is that as Despina Katsikakis and I are talking, she spots my whippet Luna wandering into shot in the background and lets out an exclamation. She too has a whippet by her feet. And as a result, this abnormal, formal situation becomes a lot more normal and relaxed. (more…)

October 10, 2023

How digital platforms are revolutionising the outplacement experience

by Freddie Steele • Company news

For the first time since the 2008/2009 financial crisis, redundancy rates have risen, and this trend looks set to continue throughout 2024. Just over 42 percent of employers (HR Director) are planning to make redundancies in a year that has already seen a string of high-profile companies announce job cuts. Businesses are reorganising, considering ideas such as outplacement, and the market landscape is changing in more ways than one. With a new wave of Gen Zs raising the bar for issues that matter to them, employers are now facing expectations that are different to that of Boomers. (more…)

October 10, 2023

Hybrid working should be supported by a licence

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

A new report from workplace consultancy Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA) suggests that organisations could introduce a licensing system to ensure employees have the conditions to deliver high performance and work safely, in a hybrid working model. This follows AWA’s most recent Hybrid Index Report, a study of nearly 120 workplaces in 22 countries, representing 155,000 employees, which found that workers are still only coming into the office an average of 1.75 days a week. (more…)

October 10, 2023

Half of workers are either bored or knackered

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Almost half of employees are either bored or exhausted and many are both, according to new research from emlyon business school and published in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour [paywall]. The study, conducted by Lotta Harju, Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at emlyon business school, investigated the prevalence and persistence of boredom and exhaustion manifest among Finnish and UK workers. Nowhere in the paper do the researchers use the term ‘knackered’. That’s down to us. (more…)

October 9, 2023

The future of work has no destination, there is only the journey

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace design

One of the truisms about depictions of the future is that they often have more to say about the world in which we live than the one to come. So, when George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four the story goes that its title was derived by inverting the numbers of the year in which it was written – 1948. Whatever the truth of this, Orwell understood it was a book as much about the world in which he lived as the one it portrayed. Our images of the future are invariably refracted through the prism of the present. This is just as true for predictions about the future of work, many of which are explored in the new issue of IN Magazine.

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October 6, 2023

Amsterdam gears up for Workspace Design Show next week

by Freddie Steele • Company news

The Workspace Design Show, an event dedicated to the future of workspaces, is taking place for the first time in less than a week from Wednesday 11 October to Thursday 12 October 2023, at the RAI Amsterdam. The event already has a successful London show. This two-day event promises to bring together industry leaders, experts, and innovators to explore the latest trends, insights, and strategies in workplace design and management. Here is a deep dive into the agenda that will be explored in detail at the conference stages next week. All of the panel discussions are free-to-attend; register here for a complimentary visitor pass. (more…)

October 5, 2023

From the archive: The way to create a successful workplace is simple, but never easy

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

This was originally published in December 2020. All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. As is now the way of these things, the famous opening words of Anna Karenina have been used to name a principle that is applied across a wide range of fields. It describes how success can only happen in one way, but failure comes in many forms. (more…)

October 5, 2023

ORGATEC reinvents itself for the new future of work

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Workplace design

ORGATEC, the leading international trade fair for the future of work will return in 2024 with a new event concept that is designed to meet the evolving requirements of the world of work and is positioned even closer to the cutting edge. With a shorter duration, a new hall layout, highlight topics and digital innovations, ORGATEC will offer exhibitors and visitors a topic-centred, event-oriented and efficient trade fair experience. (more…)

October 5, 2023

An uncertain world, but CEOs remain broadly bullish about the future

by Neil Franklin • Business, Flexible working, News, Technology

Geopolitics and broader political uncertainty are now the greatest risk to business growth, according to a survey of more than 1,300 CEOs of the world’s largest businesses. The KPMG 2023 CEO Outlook claims that geopolitics and political uncertainty have become the leading perceived risk this year for senior executives – concerns that didn’t even make the top five in the 2022 survey. (more…)