September 6, 2021
Uncertainty remains, but many people looking forward to meeting colleagues again
As businesses in the UK prepare to open their office doors en masse in the first week of September, new research reveals that office workers have got that back-to-school excitement and are feeling largely positive about the transition. Recruitment firm Michael Page questioned over 2,000 UK office workers on their attitudes to returning to the office and found that after eighteen months at home, around half claim to be ‘excited’ or ‘happy’ to spend more time in the office with their colleagues. Reminiscent of the first day back at school, almost three in ten (28 percent) said that they had picked out their outfit and packed their bag ahead of their first day back in the office. (more…)
CEOs of the world’s largest businesses are increasingly optimistic about the outlook for their own business, according to the latest 
How has COVID-19 affected your office management practices? And what adaptations are you expecting to keep, as other parts of the building experience go back to normal? One area of adaptation that is prime to be kept long-term is greater effort spent monitoring property health and wellness metrics. While occupancy and cleaning frequency are both important to keep track of, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is also critical for landlords to keep an eye on. 
With a large number of firms now prepared to embrace a ‘hybrid working’ model, business leaders remain uncertain about how this may play out in practice according to a new report from Entrust called 
A new study, commissioned by 
We’ve all learnt a great deal about working from home over the past eighteen months. We’ve seen how for some, it can be incredibly beneficial to employees, enabling them to better balance their work and personal lives and can also benefit the company, enabling business as usual during the Covid-19 pandemic, even improving efficiency. It’s also prompted some important conversations about mental health that simply hadn’t been had, normalising the challenges that we all face, especially during lockdowns. 
In its latest whitepaper, 
A new survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit backs up the most commonly cited form of ‘hybrid working’ by claiming that business executives on average think work should be split 70 percent / 30 percent between the office and home respectively. In 
The long-term impact of COVID-19 on the economy (and the gig economy) will not be clear for some time. But in the UK, the easing of pandemic related restrictions has coincided with significant labour shortages and the driving up of wages. 
A new 
August 27, 2021
I’m a Luddite. You should be one too
by Jathan Sadowski • Comment, Technology