January 17, 2022

Is your office worth the journey it takes to get to it?

by Despina Katsikakis • Comment, Flexible working, Property

A couple of years ago, in the wake of a surge in self-care start-ups and viral diet fads, Forbes declared 2019 as the year of the “wellness revolution”. Three years and a global pandemic later, the revolution appears to have swept our offices. Why? Quite simply, we have woken up to the fact that we could be productive remotely, while also realising the risks of not accommodating employee wellbeing in the office. (more…)

January 11, 2022

Great Resignation offers firms a chance to create the Great Retention

by Erin Eatough • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Working culture

The last 18 months have seen unprecedented change. Covid-19 has forced people to re-evaluate every aspect of their lives, including their career. As a result, we’ve seen a surge in workers taking charge of their careers and leaving their jobs as part of the so-called Great Resignation. Recent data from the ONS shows that there were nearly 1.2 million job vacancies in the UK this quarter, with 15 of 18 sectors reporting record numbers. (more…)

January 7, 2022

Majority of employees are rethinking their career paths

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

LumApps is releasing new workplace data claiming how employees and employers are dealing with the fallout of the Great Resignation. The survey was conducted in collaboration with CMSWire during the Fall of 2021. (more…)

December 17, 2021

One in six employees are retrained and ready for new careers

by Jayne Smith • News, Working lives

A new survey has revealed that nearly one in six (15 percent) employees working in the UK have already retrained for a new role or profession. Their current employers just don’t know it yet. (more…)

December 16, 2021

Pandemic highlights the need for smarter, more adaptable offices and cities

by Cedrik Neike • Features, Technology

The coronavirus pandemic is a new experience for every one of us. It has changed life as we know it – at work, at home and for public interactions. As some countries start to ease restrictions on public life, how can we go back to ‘normal’ while still maintaining social distancing and feeling safe? How do we manage crowded public spaces like shopping malls, cinemas and restaurants? How do we optimize safety in our offices and factories? More importantly, how do we avoid shutting down entire cities and countries when the next pandemic hits? (more…)

December 15, 2021

Company culture, linked to share price, funding success and growth

by Jayne Smith • Business, News, Working culture

A new research report from Culture Amp, claims that company workforces’ overall confidence as well as employees’ belief in their leaders are the biggest differentiators when it comes to achieving sustained stock price increases between July 2020 and June 2021. (more…)

December 7, 2021

What the 21st Century office of the future looked like in the 1960s

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Technology, Workplace design

$refraction and the office of the future$ We’re used to hearing people predict what The Office of the Future will look like. It’s been going on for a very long time now and each new generation of commentators on the subject comes up with its own forms of wishful thinking, wild generalisations, distorted conclusions and failures to account for the inherent unknowability of future disruptive technology. The best way of reminding ourselves of these pitfalls is not to look forward, but back. Only then can we see how an image can be refracted and make allowances. (more…)

December 3, 2021

Menopause may amount to a disability under law in some cases

by Kathryn Clapp • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

World Menopause Day is held each year on 18 October and its purpose is “to raise awareness of the menopause and the support options available for improving health and wellbeing” according to the International Menopause Society. This autumn, we have seen this awareness translated into a practical response by the UK Government. (more…)

December 1, 2021

There are thirty-eight ways to win an argument, but this ain’t one

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working

There are 38 ways to win an argument. That is according to the 19th Century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who laid them out in an essay called The Art of Being Right. We’ve probably added a few more since it was published in 1896, but whatever we’ve come up with since probably works on the same basis. Despite the essay’s title, the stratagems are not actually about being right at all, but about winning an argument. (more…)

November 30, 2021

Pandemic-driven shifts have made the workforce smaller, younger and more female

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

The pandemic has not led to mass unemployment as many feared, but has instead driven wider shifts that have increased employment among younger women, but pushed many men and older workers out of the labour market altogether, according to new research. (more…)

November 29, 2021

Kingsley Napley’s new office supplied by Rainbow

by Freddie Steele • Company news

International law firm, Kingsley Napley, have recently moved to Twenty Bonhill Street, London. The new space has been designed with an ‘activity-based’ flexible working model in mind. This entailed creating a range of spaces which suit the various tasks that are necessary in a modern law firm. (more…)

November 25, 2021

Work becoming more secure but more action needed to enforce employment rights

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

A new report ‘Has work become less secure?’ from the CIPD claims that, overall, employment in the UK has actually become more secure on most measures over the last decade – despite the impact of the pandemic. Compared with 2010, there are proportionally fewer people today working variable hours, working part-time involuntarily, or wanting to work more hours. (more…)