January 4, 2023

What IS hybrid working?

by Neil Usher • Comment, Flexible working

In an uncharacteristically Waddellian moment*, the Word of the Year for 2022 according to The Economist was ‘hybrid work’. Yet despite its ubiquity, in the comparative calm of social channels over the holiday period lurked claims that no-one knows what hybrid working is. Even though millions of people are doing it. Given that such an assertion came as a surprise, there was only ever going to be one opening post for 2023: an attempt to explain it. (more…)

December 22, 2022

Employee mental health will improve next year, say firms

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Nearly three quarters of UK organisations expect employee mental health to improve in 2023 as they open up about mental wellbeing according to a new poll from Koa Health. The study, conducted in partnership with 3Gem Research and Insights, claims that half of employers say they plan to talk more about mental health in company communications as teams continue to struggle with the cost-of-living crisis and its impact on mental health. A further 44 percent say they will openly and visibly practise mental wellbeing habits in the workplace. (more…)

December 21, 2022

Three year hike in the number of one-to-one and ad hoc virtual meetings

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

A new study from Vyopta claims there has been a significant increase in the number of one-to-one virtual meetings and ad hoc collaboration on digital meeting platforms over the past three years. Its paper The Evolution of Hybrid Work: A Three-Year Analysis based on data from around 48 million meetings held in 2020, 2021, and 2022 measured engagement trends over time and studied how the workforce is adapting to remote-first and hybrid collaboration. (more…)

December 20, 2022

Never mind the workplace predictions, here’s some bollocks

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

Time of the year for looking backwards and forwards. For workplace predictions and retrospectives. The Economist announces that the word / term of the year is hybrid work. This is interesting because, although The Economist is using it as an interchangeable term for flexible working as many do, a great deal of energy is still expounded on defining exactly what it means. We may work out when the obsession with three days in the office, two at home thing started. But for now, determining where people are at any given time doesn’t seem very flexible to me. (more…)

December 14, 2022

People want their offices to perform more like hotels

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology

Employees today want more ‘hotel-style’ amenities such as areas for socialising, state-of-the-art infrastructure, outdoor spaces, onsite cafes, air conditioning, and flexible work facilities to entice them back to offices, according to a new poll from MRI Software. The firm’s Workplace Report [registration] claims almost two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents say such hotel-style features impact their decision on whether to work for an organisation, including more than one in ten who see failure to provide the right amenities as a deal breaker. (more…)

December 12, 2022

New study claims people who can work remotely come into the office for less than two days a week

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace design

A global study of 220 offices in 33 countries, representing nearly 250,000 employees, has revealed that hybrid working is becoming established as the norm for those who can work remotely. Those people now come into the office an average of just 1.5 days a week, versus nearly four days a week before the Covid-19 pandemic. AWA’s second Hybrid Working Index study, conducted between September and November this year, found that on average people go into the office 29 percent of the time. Among employers surveyed in both the first study, in the summer, and this one, attendance was steady at around 25 percent. (more…)

December 5, 2022

The failures of work give us hope for the future

by Adam Kingl • Flexible working, News

Workplace engagement is approaching an all-time low, and typical employer reaction has been characteristically resigned. Actually, that last statement was inaccurately soft. Let me rephrase: most employees either don’t care about or actually hate their jobs, and employers couldn’t care less. (more…)

November 30, 2022

Always connected in the age of disconnection

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Wellbeing

All of humanity’s problems,” the French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in 1654, “stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” He may have been right, but then again, sitting in a room alone isn’t necessarily a great state of permanent being either. There was a time we used to talk with dismay about the Japanese phenomenon of intense social distancing known as hikikomori. We would consider with horror the isolation, lack of engagement with society, poor mental health and loneliness of the people who had almost completely withdrawn to their rooms. Those poor bastards locked up in enclosed spaces linked to the outside world only by screens. (more…)

November 24, 2022

EU approves major funding increase for new circular economy and clean energy projects

by Jayne Smith • Environment, News

The European Commission has approved more than €380 million of funding for 168 new projects across Europe as part of its LIFE Programme for the environment and climate action. As part of the European Green Deal, it believes that the projects funded can help the EU become climate-neutral by 2050 and reach climate, energy and environmental goals. They aim to support biodiversity, nature restoration and a circular economy while contributing to the clean energy transition across the continent. (more…)

November 23, 2022

Firms should focus on people in the drive for long term growth

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new report by Economist Impact, sponsored by Kyocera Document Solutions, claims that human-centric strategies are needed for businesses to drive sustainable business growth, focusing on three pillars: productivity and infrastructure, employee engagement and culture. The Magnetic Workplace Barometer claims to gauge confidence both today and in five years’ time across what the report terms the three main pillars of productivity and infrastructure; employee engagement; and culture. The barometer scores are scaled from 1 to 7, 7 being the most confident. (more…)

November 22, 2022

HR profession should rebrand and shift its focus, claims a new report

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

The time has come to re-brand the human resources profession and shift its focus from processes to people, a new report from Sage claims. The authors claim the study emphasises the scale of the challenge facing teams, with 92 percent of executives believing the perceived value of human resources is a challenge for the profession. The poll of more than 1,000 HR and C-suite leaders working in SMBs across six of the world’s largest economies also highlights that 81 percent of human resources professionals are feeling burnt out and 62 percent are considering leaving the industry. (more…)

November 20, 2022

Is carbon counting really the answer for the office furniture industry?

by Joanna Knight • Comment, Environment, JK

There is an increasing awareness that carbon is contained within all the products we buy. As an example, a leading sports trainer manufacturer is now displaying carbon content labelling, rather like food retailers quote calories. Within the workplace sector, the environmental impact of the built environment and products such as office furniture and flooring are seemingly well known. This must include consideration regarding how refurbishments and changes to embrace new working practices are managed responsibly. (more…)