Search Results for: future of work

March 26, 2026

Zoning Inzio’s new office with intelligent flooring choices

by Freddie Steele • Environment, News, Workplace design

When Inizio, the healthcare services provider, relocated to its 18,000 sq. ft premises in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, it needed a workspace that would reflect its growth ambitions while promoting employee wellbeing. Offering a full range of services, from strategy to medical communications, Inizio helps healthcare brands connect with customers and patients through tailored solutions. To extend that same commitment to its employees, the company has now created a workspace that not only supports its people’s working patterns but protects the planet too. (more…)

March 9, 2026

Rebuilding belonging: how offices can overcome loneliness

by Louise Ioannou • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

In the coming weeks it will be six years since the UK entered lockdown and working life changed overnight. While much has stabilised, the impact of the pandemic still shapes how people experience work, particularly when it comes to connection and belonging. Loneliness is widely recognised as a growing societal issue and government data shows that around a quarter of adults in Great Britain report feeling lonely at least some of the time, rising significantly among younger age groups. Hybrid working has not created this challenge but it has highlighted that for many people the workplace was a consistent source of social interaction. (more…)

March 9, 2026

Most people managers would prefer not to manage people

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

More than two-thirds of managers would rather not be managers at all, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by SafetyCulture. According to the poll, 69 percent of team leaders in frontline sectors across the UK and Ireland would prefer not to manage people if there was no impact to their salary or benefits. Younger generations are the least willing to be managers. Nearly three-quarters of Generation Z and Millennial managers (73 percent) say they’d rather be individual workers compared to 65 percent of people aged 50 or older. (more…)

February 23, 2026

The ROI of predictive property management with IoT sensors

by David Rowan • Company news, Facilities management, Property

It’s all well and good eulogising about the technological benefits of incorporating the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) within property management but do the numbers stack up? What is the likely return on investment (ROI) of shifting from the existing reactive model to something distinctly more proactive and predictive? A recent six-month project at a retirement complex in the Scottish Borders might just shed some light on the viability, or otherwise, of the IoT revolution that’s well underway. (more…)

February 18, 2026

Lack of innovation continues to hamper small business and startups

by Neil Franklin • Business, News

Small business innovation in the UK has fallen for the fourth consecutive year despite record levels of entrepreneurial ambition, according to the latest State of Small Business Britain report from the Enterprise Research Centre. The annual study draws together findings from a range of business surveys and shows that 36 percent of working age adults are now starting, running or planning to launch a business. This is the highest level recorded since the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor began tracking activity in 1999. Early stage entrepreneurial activity has doubled since the early 2000s and has stabilised at around 12 percent. (more…)

February 17, 2026

The squeezed middle: supporting frontline managers in 2026

by Laura Thomson-Staveley • Business, Comment

I’ve spent hundreds of hours listening to thousands of people across organisations, and I’ve discovered something troubling: everyone is waiting for someone else to give them direction. It’s an organisational standoff. Senior leadership wants proactive teams. Frontline staff are desperate for clarity. And in the squeezed middle? Nothing but limbo. If we’re looking to grow, recover or sustain our organisations, the answer lies in frontline management skills. Your manager makes the biggest impact on how you feel about work and how secure you feel about your future. If you have to work for money, and most of us do, this relationship has enormous consequences for your wellbeing. (more…)

February 10, 2026

AI adoption exposes generational divide in management, research finds

by Neil Franklin • AI, News

KEDGE Business School has published new research suggesting that artificial intelligence is already reshaping management practice, but that a strong generational divide is emerging in how leaders use the technology. The findings come from an OpinionWay survey carried out in October 2025 among managers, and point to younger leaders adopting AI at a significantly faster pace than their older counterparts. While AI tools such as ChatGPT are now widely used across the profession, the study suggests that managers under 40 are far more likely to integrate AI into day-to-day leadership decisions, while older managers remain more cautious and selective. (more…)

January 29, 2026

AI isn’t turning robots into humans, it’s turning humans into robots.

by Stephanie Fitzgerald • AI, Comment, Wellbeing

In all the conversations, debates and shouting matches about AI that continue to dominate the internet, there is much talk about the insidious danger of anthropomorphising AI. There is something chilling about the deliberate stumbles, inflections and hesitations that are put into AI communications, to try and convince people that they are talking to a sentient being. Explanations of AI deliberately use language such as ‘the model understands’ to make us believe that AI is developing a human level of learning, as that is more appealing than saying ‘the algorithm predictions are expanding’ (and neatly glosses over the increasing error rates and hallucinations). However, in amongst all the noise, I’m paying less attention to how AI is seemingly becoming more human, and more attention to how we are using AI to become robot-like. (more…)

January 28, 2026

KI Achieves FISP (S) Certification, reinforcing its commitment to sustainable and circular practices

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Environment, Workplace design

KI has reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to sustainability by achieving the enhanced FISP (S) certification, building on over a decade of continuous accreditation under the Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme (FISP). As the only independently certified sustainability standard created specifically for the furniture sector, FISP represents the industry’s most comprehensive benchmark for environmental, social and economic best practice. KI first became FISP-certified in 2013. Its progression to the advanced FISP (S) standard in late 2025 demonstrates the company’s ambition to lead the industry toward more circular, transparent and future?ready product development. (more…)

January 28, 2026

Intentional AI adoption is a leadership challenge, not just a technology problem

by Molly Lebowitz • AI, Comment

A lot of conversations about AI jump straight to the end state. Leaders envision a future where the human workforce is focused on higher-order thinking and augmented with agentic capabilities across the enterprise, and where operational costs are much lower. While visionary thinking is not negative, we’re discovering that the transition from today’s version of the organization to a more automated state will require a massive transformation to achieve. Effective, sticky change requires active work and leadership to truly pivot processes, integrate technology, cultivate new skillsets, establish the cultural foundations, reformat the organizational structure, and ramp to new ways of working. Machines can’t steer that kind of change; humans still have to. (more…)

January 27, 2026

Surface Design Show announces details of speaker’s programme

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace design

The Surface Design Show has announced the final details of its speaker’s programme for the 2026 edition of the show. Featuring a range of topics with some of the most innovative voices in industry, the schedule includes an impressive list of industry names including Michelle Ogundehin, Katie Treggiden, Liz Bell, Tim Gledstone, Giles Miller and Justine Fox. The main stage is designed by Design Command using acoustic surfaces, soft textures and gentle light, with furniture supplied by Table Place Chairs. The design treats silence not as absence but as an active design language, exploring how materials can shape space while creating a pause for visitors to reflect and feel inspired amid the show. The programme will consist of 21 presentations from over 50 speakers spanning the full breadth of the design industry. (more…)

January 19, 2026

Surface Design Show 2026 champions the next generation of material innovators

by Neil Franklin • Environment, News, Workplace design

Surface Design Show 2026 reaffirms its commitment to nurturing emerging design talent, placing material innovation, sustainability and future-focused thinking firmly at the heart of the show. Through its ongoing partnerships with the Royal College of Art, the Green Grads initiative and for the first time the Emerging Talent category within the Surface Design Show Awards, the 2026 edition highlights a new generation of designers redefining what surface design can be. Across the exhibition, visitors will encounter projects that challenge extractive systems, transform waste streams and place human and environmental wellbeing at the centre of material design. (more…)