March 15, 2021
Workplace anthropology will help us make sense of the now and anticipate what’s next
We are scarcely nine months into the Covid-19 pandemic, after a long spring and harsh summer. Social distancing has led to remote working becoming widespread, leading to doubts regarding the office’s long-term relevance. However, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) argues in a recent report that the office’s traditional domain will expand, with new functions including fostering collaboration, facilitating company culture, and promoting human experience. Similarly, experts increasingly characterise the workplace as a hybrid ecosystem combining virtual and physical elements with geographically-dispersed campuses. (more…)
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. 
Years of pathologising offices should have prepared us for the patholigisation of virtual spaces. It seems like months since anybody has come out with that tired old rant about open plan. Certain vociferous and obsessive 
Originally published in December 2014. Homeworking seems to have become a bit of a hot topic this year, but one sentence published on the 
Now, more than ever, both at home and at work, we need to be surrounded by people we can rely upon and trust as we ride the waves of uncertainty. Over the past year, we have learnt that priorities and targets can be shifted in the blink of an eye which has increased the importance of flexibility, support networks and relying on each other. This is just as relevant in business, including who we choose as strategic partners and how we contract with those partners. 
The UK Green Building Council (
The feelings of isolation being experienced by employees is the biggest concern IT and cybersecurity teams have around home working, say almost one third (31 percent) of respondents to the latest Twitter poll run by 
In March 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced countless employers around the globe to send their non-essential employees home. Few organisations had a contingency plan for such a scenario, meaning the overwhelming majority of employers had to rethink their operations and communication functions on the fly. 
More than half of financial institutions say they expect to have more ‘gig economy’ based employees over the next three to five years, according to PwC’s report, 
New data from real estate consultancy 
March 19, 2021
We can design kindness into working life just as easily as unkindness
by Joanna Suvarna • Comment, Wellbeing, Working culture