Search Results for: commuting

Striking the balance between the office and remote work

Striking the balance between the office and remote work

remote workOnce upon a time the concept of ‘remote working’ beyond outsourced contractors was almost unheard of. Employers viewed remote work as an opportunity for workers to be less productive, out of contact and generally more inefficient. As an employer myself, I would have agreed with these misconceptions early on in my career. However, after many years of hiring staff that either work part- or even full-time remotely, I can confidently say the myths are unfounded; even I am now more prone to remote working. More →

Flexible working in the age of longevity

Flexible working in the age of longevity

Global life expectancy is growing at its fastest rate since the 1960s. Today, a 20-year-old has a 50 per cent chance of living to 100. Even if you are 60, you have an evens chance of reaching 90. A long life can be a gift, but of course it also has implications for how we live our lives and in particular how we plan to work and fund those extra years. Clearly there is a role for employers in creating work environments and flexible working cultures that recognise and maximise the potential of the 100-year life. More →

Workers want firms to do more about air quality

Workers want firms to do more about air quality

Flexible working, sharing information about local clean air routes and incentivising active travel are just some of the ideas being put to businesses today as new research suggests employers need to do more to address the issue of air quality and pollution for staff both in the workplace and on their commute. More →

The four day week problem, WeWork delays IPO, harbingers of doom and some other stuff

The four day week problem, WeWork delays IPO, harbingers of doom and some other stuff

It’s interesting to watch what happens when politicians – even more so than normal people – are faced with evidence they don’t like. And it’s especially interesting when they asked for the evidence in the first place. You can pick your own examples but it was interesting to note Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s immediate and decidedly lukewarm response to his own report into the wisdom of introducing a 4 day week, which concluded that the idea is ‘not realistic or even desirable’. More →

Helsinki tops global rankings for work-life balance

Helsinki tops global rankings for work-life balance

Work-life balanceHelsinki is the world’s best city for work-life balance according to a new study from technology business Kisi which compares data on a range of factors such as “livability”, work intensity, institutional support, equality and legislation to rank cities. Helsinki, Munich, and Oslo are the three best ranked cities while the cities deemed as having the worst work-life balance were Tokyo, Singapore, and Washington DC. Using data relating to work intensity, social wellbeing, and livability to analyse the interplay between work and life, the index claims to assess how successful residents are at achieving a healthy work-life balance in 40 cities around the world. More →

School holidays signal stress for home-workers

School holidays signal stress for home-workers

For many working parents the summer school holidays can be a cause of stress instead of a time for rest and relaxation.With children no longer occupied at school, many parents choose to work from home to juggle both work and childcare, but productivity can suffer with family, pets and noisy household appliances found to be the main distractions for home workers. The 2019 Global Workspace Survey, conducted by IWG on 2000 UK respondents, claims that interruptions from children or other family members is the number one obstacle being faced by professionals who take advantage of home working. More →

Flexible working could be the default for all jobs in UK

Flexible working could be the default for all jobs in UK

man drinking coffee while enjoying benefits of flexible workingFlexible working could become the default for all jobs in the UK, under proposed legislation being considered by the UK government. The most important consequence will be that employees will no longer be expected to use their right request flexible working for an employer to consider, as is currently the case. More →

The case for a shorter working week

The case for a shorter working week

An art depiction of four clocks illustrating a shorter working weekUK employees have the longest working week compared to other workers in the European Union. But, despite the long hours, recent studies have shown this does not make the UK a more productive nation. An analysis by the Trade Union Congress on working hours and productivity found that, while UK full-time staff worked almost two hours more than the EU average, they were not as productive as staff in Denmark who worked fewer hours in the average week. More →

Come for the rent, stay for the experience of coworking

Come for the rent, stay for the experience of coworking

A coworking space designed by AreaWhen attending last year’s CoreNet Global Summit in Boston, there was a poll of the real estate executives gathered to discuss the key trends affecting the world of commercial property. During the event we were asked about our attitudes to coworking by the event organisers and Cushman & Wakefield. What emerged was a portrait of genuine revolution in real estate thinking. The number of employees from the respondents’ organisations using coworking space had doubled in the previous two years and now stood at around 11 percent of all employees. More →

Commuters receive little help from employers to alleviate their stress

Commuters receive little help from employers to alleviate their stress

Commuters receive little help from employers to alleviate their stressOver a third of respondents (36 percent) to a new survey report they are commuting for more than 90 minutes a day; yet despite a high demand for employer provisions to help alleviate the stress of the commute such as flexible or remote working and season ticket loans, 43 percent of employees stated that these were not currently offered by their employer. The Commuter Survey from Office Space in Town also claims that among the top commuting complaints were: lengthy journeys (32 percent); overcrowding (27 percent) and delays and frequent cancellations (26.01 percent). With the survey also revealing 75 percent take the commute into account when making their employment decisions, there is a lot that employers could be doing to minimise the negative impact on employee attraction and retention.

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Working from home and the future of work. How quaint

Working from home and the future of work. How quaint 0

In 1962, a professor of communication studies called Everett Rogers came up with the principle we call diffusion of innovation. It’s a familiar enough notion, widely taught and works by plotting the adoption of new ideas and products over time as a bell curve, before categorising groups of people along its length as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. It’s a principle bound up with human capital theory and so its influence has endured for over 50 years, albeit in a form compressed by our accelerated proliferation of ideas. It may be useful, but it lacks a third dimension in the modern era. That is, a way of describing the numbers of people who are in one category but think they are in another.

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A quarter of a century ago, the newborn Internet set office design on a different path

A quarter of a century ago, the newborn Internet set office design on a different path

Vitra Ad Hoc systemBecause we are now so immersed in technology, we can sometimes forget just how young the Internet is. It was only in 1995 that the final barriers to its full commercial development were removed. In 1994, the number of people using it worldwide was estimated at around 20 million, there were under 15,000 company websites and the UK had one ‘cybercafe’. Even so, there was something in the air. A sense that everything was about to change – and change spectacularly.

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