April 9, 2021
Lockdown mental fatigue is rapidly reversed by social contact, study claims
Many of us are looking forward to a summer of relative freedom, with road-mapped milestones that will grant us more opportunities to see our friends and family. But we’ll be carrying the effects of months of isolation into those meetings, including a sense that our social skills will need dusting off, and our wits will need sharpening. The mental effects of lockdown have been profound. Social isolation has been shown to cause people’s mental health to deteriorate even if they have no history of previous psychological problems. Alongside this drop in mood, loneliness has been linked with a host of cognitive problems, including fatigue, stress and problems with concentration. (more…)







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 
It is now a truism that society expects more of business than merely maximising shareholder value. 
New research by 
Workers across the UK could return to offices faster than anticipated, according to a new RICS survey of facilities managers. According to the poll, a growing number of respondents say that up to 80 percent of employees will head back once the pandemic is resolved. This is up from less than 60 percent expected in the same poll from the previous quarter ending November 2020. As evidence suggests the UK vaccination programme is taking hold across the country, results to the 
Remote workers are still struggling with distracting working environments, stress and an ‘always-on’ culture after a year of working from home. Egress’ 
Remote work, rapidly accelerated by the pandemic, is now essential to business success and worker productivity. However, as parts of the world open up and hybrid work becomes a reality, research claims that companies must invest in establishing flexible work policies and programs, and address a sizeable disconnect in trust between decision makers and employees, according to a Forrester study commissioned by 


More than six in ten UK managers have experienced burnout at work because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a fifth considering quitting their job as a result, according to new research from 
Corporate wellbeing could add £61bn to the English economy by 2025 through added productivity, if UK companies can create new wellbeing strategies and improve underperforming ones, according to a new study by 
The 

April 7, 2021
The binary choices and multiple outcomes of flexible working
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working