February 10, 2021
Search Results for: flex
Working from home is exacerbating an ‘always on’ culture. Data from a study of UK employees, conducted by virtual team building company 
February 10, 2021
New Inverurie Community Campus features vast selection of KI seating
Opening its doors in late 2020, The Inverurie Community Campus in Aberdeenshire is a new £55m facility. One of the largest school constructions in Scotland, its 360 rooms accommodate 1,600 pupils and provides amenities such as a youth café, a community centre, and a swimming pool for students and the wider community. (more…)
February 5, 2021
Majority of the workforce will need new skill sets to do their jobs successfully
HR leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to quickly find and develop talent with the most in demand skills, yet 58 percent of the workforce needs new skill sets to get their jobs done, according to Gartner, Inc. (more…)
February 5, 2021
Microsoft unveils new employee experience and wellbeing platform
Microsoft has announced Microsoft Viva, which it claims is the first employee experience platform to bring tools for employee engagement, learning, wellbeing and knowledge discovery, directly into people’s workflow. Viva is designed to help employees ‘learn, grow and thrive’ in the new era of working life, and is designed to work alongside existing solutions such as Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams. (more…)
February 4, 2021
Working from home wellbeing outcomes vary enormously across groups
With working from home set to continue for millions of UK workers, research by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) claims that there are key health and wellbeing disparities between different groups of people who made the move to home working as a result of Covid-19. (more…)
February 3, 2021
COVID-19 is having an unequal impact on the mental health of workers
When the COVID-19 crisis hit the UK in March 2020, many commented that the virus didn’t discriminate and that its impact would be felt equally by everyone. However, as highlighted in Nuffield Health’s recent whitepaper, the mental health impact of the virus – rising from financial worries, anxiety around health and the direct impact of COVID-19 – has hit some groups harder than others. (more…)
February 2, 2021
Working from home spells trouble for the careers of younger workers
Lockdown meant that the choice to work from home was made for us. However, for many the decision to continue to do so post-lockdown will be a personal choice. The question we should all ask ourselves is, whether when we are outside of any lockdown restrictions, is working from home really a workplace revolution or simply an act of selfishness? For thousands of workers who’ve spent years of their lives commuting to offices that feel more like soul-less factories than inspiring and engaging workplaces, it’s no wonder that enforced work from home has proven popular. (more…)
January 28, 2021
Right to disconnect should be enshrined in law, says EU Parliament
The EU Parliament has announced that it would like to protect what it calls employees’ fundamental rights to disconnect from work which includes restricting the way employers might contact staff outside their contracted working hours. Although the right to disconnect is not defined by EU law, the Parliament has called upon the Commission to come up with a law allowing employees to disconnect from work during non-work hours without consequences and setting minimum standards for remote work. (more…)
January 28, 2021
City gives green light to flower power tower
A new 30-storey office tower with green walls and roof nestling next to London’s walkie talkie building has been approved by the City of London Corporation, CLC. Hong Kong-based developers Tenacity Group are behind the scheme which is the first tall building approved by CLC this year. (more…)
January 28, 2021
Homeworkers “at risk” unless employers recognise duty of care
A new generation of long-term homeworkers created by COVID-19 is at risk physically and mentally through inadequate employer support, claims research by EIZO. Employees are already feeling the negative effects of a home environment, often ill-equipped for the working day and EIZO warns there may be a rise in ‘Homeworking LOSERS’, or ‘Laptops On Sofas and Employment Rights Shelved’. (more…)
January 27, 2021
The lessons learned under the pandemic that will apply after it all ends
Recently lighting control firm Prolojik assembled an expert panel to talk about learning and working during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. The roundtable (online of course) involved participants from various fields related to the built environment including those involved in developing, designing and tech reflected on their own experiences over the last several months. While industry issues raised during the session included what productivity really means and how to measure it, what infrastructure needs to be in place to enable people to return to their place of work or education and why a joined-up approach to wellness is an indisputably necessary strand of building management. (more…)
February 5, 2021
Workplace things we have missed, and those we hope to regain
by Emma Morley • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design