April 19, 2021

Pressure and weak leadership form the recipe for workplace bullying

Employees experience more bullying on days with higher work pressure and passive avoidant leadership, finds new research from BI Norwegian Business School and the University of Bergen and published in The European Management Journal. Professor Olav Kjellevold Olsen and colleagues studied how work pressure is related to daily experiences of workplace bullying related acts, as well as the relationship with transformational or laissez-faire leadership. Transformational leadership involves paying more attention to employees’ needs for achievement and providing social support. Laissez-faire leadership involves a more passive and destructive approach leaving followers on their own in situations in need of leadership. (more…)

April 16, 2021

A fifth of UK workers feel remote working has reduced recognition in the workplace

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working culture

Research from Ezra, provider of digital coaching claims that a fifth of UK workers feel they get less recognition within their career as a direct result of working remotely. It remains to be seen to what extent we will return to a full working environment, as Covid restrictions see many continue to work from home for part of, if not their whole working week. (more…)

April 14, 2021

The digital world is not necessarily greener than the physical world

by Neil Franklin • Comment, Environment, Technology

No sooner had the world learned about the existence of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) than we also learned how much of a problem they could be for the environment. An NFT is digital token in a similar way to Bitcoin, except there’s only one of each NFT. It is associated with a piece of content, guaranteed unique and so is worth whatever somebody will pay for it. In the case of a digital artist called Beeple, who had only ever previously sold a piece for $100, this was $69 million for an NFT for a digital collage of images called Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold at Christie’s in March. Bought by a collector in Singapore, this made him one of the world’s “top three most valuable living artists,” according to the auction house. (more…)

April 12, 2021

Employee experience is top priority for CIO’s but UK held back by lack of tools

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology, Working culture

Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), the company behind Elasticsearch and the Elastic Stack, have announced a new study, claiming that employee experience has become a new priority for IT leaders as they reinvent their infrastructures to support remote workforces. The Changing Role of the IT Leader was conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Elastic in February 2021, one year into the global pandemic, and published in April.
(more…)

April 12, 2021

Companies use skills as the new currency for workforce transformation

by Jayne Smith • News, Working culture

Skills have become the new currency of workforce and talent strategies, as more than half of organisations that responded to the 2021 Mercer Global Talent Trends survey are targeting upskilling and reskilling of critical talent pools to drive workforce transformation. (more…)

April 8, 2021

Working from home surveillance drives rise of digital presenteeism

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Wellbeing

Lockdown has meant the majority of UK office-based employees have taken up working from home arrangements over the last year, and it seems that many employers lack trust in their employees when they can’t physically see them. Last year saw a rise in the implementation of surveillance software, to ensure that workers are acting in best corporate interests. However, this is having a negative impact on some employees – who are feeling forced to work longer hours due to a new perceived need to remain visible to their manager or team leader, revealed in a survey by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky. With remote working set to stay post-COVID, these findings indicate a worrying growing trend around broken working from home employee trust. (more…)

April 1, 2021

Finding a new sense of purpose in the way we all do business

by David Lineen • Comment, Environment, Property, Wellbeing

It is now a truism that society expects more of business than merely maximising shareholder value. Milton Friedman’s conviction that unswerving commitment to this single goal would ensure that business and society would prosper has come to be seen as blinkered, unfit for the twenty-first century and enabling of corporate greed. Instead of shareholder value maximisation, an idea that The Economist called ‘the biggest idea in business’ in 2016, businesses are now encouraged to recognise their responsibilities to an array of ‘stakeholders’, from employees, suppliers and customers, to the planet itself and other communities (real or imagined). So, it has never been more important for businesses to do good, have a clear sense of purpose and be seen as doing so. (more…)

April 1, 2021

‘Healthy buildings’ enjoy a surge in demand worldwide

by Neil Franklin • Environment, News, Property, Wellbeing

A new survey of many of the world’s leading real estate investors finds that 92 percent of respondents expect demand for healthy buildings to grow in the next three years. The report claims that this is a compelling signal of the direction the real estate sector is heading. This finding, among others, is captured in a report titled A New Investor Consensus: The Rising Demand for Healthy Buildings (registration) which claims to be a comprehensive health and wellness study of global real estate investment managers and stakeholders representing aggregate AUM of $5.75 trillion and portfolio investments in real estate totalling approximately US$1.03 trillion. (more…)

March 31, 2021

Industry comes together to collaborate on Whole Life Carbon Roadmap project

by Jayne Smith • Business, Environment, News

The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has announced four new task groups and a Steering Group which will support the development of the Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap for the Built Environment. (more…)

March 26, 2021

Remote working one year on: three-quarters of employees feel worse

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Remote workers are still struggling with distracting working environments, stress and an ‘always-on’ culture after a year of working from home. Egress’ Remote working: one year on report claims that three-quarters of remote workers reported feeling worse as a result of long-term working from home, with almost over one-third (39 percent) feeling more stressed. (more…)

March 26, 2021

FM industry favours quick wins over long-term strategic climate change planning

by Jayne Smith • Environment, News

Research by VINCI Facilities claims that the UK facilities management sector does not possess a thorough, detailed strategic approach to combatting climate change. In the autumn of 2020 VINCI Facilities asked over 200 decision-makers how far their organisations have progressed in developing a coherent strategy for the environment. (more…)

March 26, 2021

Tarkett iD Inspiration, the cutting-edge modular vinyl flooring inspired by nature

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Workplace design

Tarkett is revealing its new ultra-realistic modular vinyl collection, iD Inspiration. Reimagined for a rapidly changing world, iD Inspiration harnesses the power of nature to create feel-good interiors. Tarkett’s unique high-definition digital printing technology captures the beauty of wood and stone, revealing the most subtle details in grain, texture and colour. iD Inspiration will be available across Europe from May 2021 onwards. (more…)