February 28, 2022

The Workplace Event announces speaker line up

The Workplace Event has announced its comprehensive conference agenda with renowned industry speakers across three days. Keynote speakers include Geoff White, investigative journalist, author and broadcaster, and technology correspondent for Channel 4 News: Cally Beaton (pictured), comedian writer and business mentor; and Jonny Jacobs, finance director EMEA at Starbucks and Trustee of the Mental Health Foundation. Each day of the conference will take a different theme: technology, future of the workplace and wellbeing. More →

February 24, 2022

Building workplace resilience in a changing environment

by Jennifer Bryan • Business, Features, Flexible working, JB, Workplace

For decades, it has been agreed that change is a constant. So, doesn’t it stand to reason that before a change or crisis happens, an organization should have the ability and resilience to transform? In the McKinsey report, The resilience imperative: Succeeding in uncertain times, resilience is defined as, “the ability to withstand unpredictable threat or change and then to emerge stronger.” In other words, it is the ability to sustain and endure. And it applies just as much to workplace resilience as any other element of the organisation. More →

February 24, 2022

The Workplace Event launches annual Workplace Data Census

by Neil Franklin • Company news, Technology

The Workplace Event has launched a Workplace Data Census, in partnership with Accruent, designed to develop a better understanding about the access, use and value of data, and the opportunities and challenges it presents. The Workplace Event’s Workplace Data Census dives deep into the current usage and output of data. The results of the survey will map how organisations are capturing and utilising the various data opportunities in today’s workplaces and develop a robust understanding of the value placed on it by business leaders. More →

February 23, 2022

Employers offering flexible working reap recruitment and retention benefits

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Employers who have embraced flexible working policies have seen a 20 percent improvement in employee recruitment and retention compared to two years ago, according to new global research from Targus. According to the poll, seventy percent of senior business decision-makers say flexible working policies and working environments are positively impacting recruitment and a further 76 percent say it’s positively impacting employee retention. More →

February 14, 2022

New RICS framework aims to “put people at heart of commercial property”

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Property

A new framework from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has been designed to improve building use, support flexible working and put people at the heart of decision making about commercial property. RICS says the International Building Operation Standard will provide organisations an interactive easy-to-use framework, supported by an assessment tool, to measure and benchmark building performance, by collecting consistent data to satisfy the latest needs of occupiers, investors, advisors and end users. More →

February 7, 2022

Half of unemployed men aged 50+ out of work for at least a year

by Jayne Smith • Jobs, News, Workplace

There were nearly 200,000 men aged 50 and older out of work between September and November 2021 – an increase of 24 percent in two years – and 50 percent of them were unemployed for at least a year, according to new analysis from Rest Less, a digital community and advocate for older people. Rest Less analysed the latest labour market data from the Office of National Statistics to find that unemployed men aged 50+ are significantly more likely to be in long-term unemployment, defined as out of work for at least a year, than any other age group. More →

January 31, 2022

The great workplace conversation (still) needs to be held with a great deal more humility

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

“Nobody knows anything”. William Goldman’s infamous summing up of the essential unknowability of the movie business also has a less quoted second part. “Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.” It is a call for humility. That no matter how much we know about what we do and how good we are at it, we can’t always predict its outcomes. And that is clearly the case with the ongoing Great Workplace Conversation. More →

January 31, 2022

Business leaders have undue confidence in the idea of hybrid working

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology

Flexible working has overtaken salary as the top benefit to employees (59 percent), highlighting that flexibility and autonomy over the working day is now more important than financial reward for most workers. This is according to a new report from Jabra; the Jabra Hybrid Ways of Working 2021 Global Report carried out amongst 5,000 knowledge workers in five countries worldwide, including the UK. However, the report also suggests that many business leaders have a false sense of confidence in their ability to implement hybrid working.

January 26, 2022

Hybrid working is now the dominant business model for knowledge workers

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Future Forum, a consortium launched by Slack with founding partners Boston Consulting Group, MillerKnoll and MLT has released the latest findings from its Pulse study, which shows that hybrid working has become the dominant work model for knowledge workers around the world. The report claims that the percentage of people working in hybrid arrangements has increased to 58 percent (from 46 percent in May 2021), as the share of workers who say their teams work exclusively either from home or from the office has declined sharply. More →

January 21, 2022

Half of companies still not ready to meet the demand for flexible working

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Property

Companies are unprepared for the structural shift to flexible working and must do more to create responsible, personalised and experiential workplaces, a new report from JLL suggests. Intensive experimentation and piloting are needed to achieve flexible working models that will deliver a unique workplace experience for all. The JLL research claims that globally organisations are looking to continue flexibility for where and when people work with 82 percent expecting employees to work remotely into the future at least part of the time – spending on average two days every week away from the office. Yet 48 percent of organisations in Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) still have not developed a future of work programme to meet the rising demands and expectations of their staff for greater work flexibility, exceptional and sustainable workplaces and increased wellbeing. More →

January 18, 2022

Employees are ready for work in the metaverse but sceptical about ability of firms to deliver

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology

Just as businesses are starting to find their groove with hybrid working, the workplace has begun to evolve again with the emergence of the metaverse. New research from Lenovo claims that close to half of employees (44 percent) are willing to work in the metaverse and believe that it can deliver benefits like productivity to the workplace. The metaverse is primarily defined as a shared digital space with digital representations of people, places, and objects. In the future, the metaverse can be a highly immersive extension of the physical world, with its rich user interface. At the enterprise level, this opens up possibilities for businesses to create a more viable, interactive workplace. More →

January 18, 2022

How to provide a great place to work for remote workers

by Richard Guy • Company news, Flexible working

Remote working swiftly evolved from a stopgap lockdown solution into a globally successful workstyle – and it’s set to stay. According to research quoted by CityAM, “84 per cent of UK businesses plan on having a hybrid, flexible or remote workforce following the pandemic”. Some companies, like Deloitte, have placed all bets on remote in closing their offices and basing employees from home, enjoying a vast reduction in operational costs. This flexibility has offered immediate benefits for remote workers, ranging from lifestyle and financial to positive influences on wellbeing. Workers in particular social groups have experienced life-changing situations, securing work in previously inaccessible geographic locations. More →