August 12, 2020
There was a time we used to talk with dismay about the Japanese phenomenon of intense social distancing known as hikikomori. We would consider with horror the isolation, lack of engagement with society, poor mental health and loneliness of the people who had almost completely withdrawn to their rooms. Those poor bastards locked up in enclosed spaces linked to the outside world only by screens. (more…)
August 12, 2020
I have observed with some disbelief the numerous articles that have heralded the “death of the office” and other click-bait driven headlines. It makes for a fun read but fails to really understand exactly what the office is for and how the modern workspace is actually used. The best way to take a view of this is to understand why we will be desperate to return to the office and why organisations should be doing everything they can to ensure it does. (more…)
August 4, 2020
People are productive at home and want to retain flexible working after lockdown, but struggle with sub-optimal working environments and a lack of interaction with colleagues. That is the main finding from a survey by property technology company, Equiem. The firm has published the results of its most comprehensive global office occupier survey to date, providing landlords and tenants alike with valuable insights into occupier sentiment amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (more…)
July 30, 2020
New research from the University of Kent and the University of Birmingham suggests that the recent surge in the number of people working from home during the COVID-19 lockdown has presented significant challenges for those who are parents, particularly mothers. Despite this, the shift has also changed the way that many people intend to work in the future. (more…)
July 29, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic changed numerous aspects of how we live and work and led to a massive remote work experiment. A JLL survey of more than 3,000 employees working in multi-national companies across the globe claims that 71 percent of people have worked from home during the pandemic, and that 58 percent missed the office and 44 percent missed human interaction and socialising with colleagues. The largest cohort who missed the office was the under 35s, or millennials, with 65 percent citing poor home-office environments and missing support from their managers.
July 27, 2020
Created by the well-known London design studio PearsonLloyd, and a pre-launch winner of the “Red Dot Design Award: best of Best” and the “iF Gold Awaard 2020”: Bene has launched a revolutionary office concept in the form of a completely new design line – PORTS. The world is changing and we are changing with it. Stability, flexibility and agility are the key success factors for dynamic organisations. PORTS embodies this new reality in interior design and furnishings, creating multifunctional spaces that allow for many different styles of working and that are flexibly adaptable. PORTS is both a design line and an office concept, bringing people, ideas and functions together – to lead together. (more…)
July 24, 2020
The IRYS pod, a unique modular concept, remains at the forefront of innovation and design since its launch in 2016. As we face new challenges in the workplace, IRYS has been reconfigured to incorporate the latest generation of UV-C lighting to ensure the space is rigorously sanitised between meetings to maintain the highest levels of hygiene, crucially preventing the spread of viruses. (more…)
July 22, 2020
Anxiety in employees has rocketed over the last year, according to a new report from Inpulse. The research, which includes the views of over 3,000 UK employees, claims that anxiety is the most dominant negative emotion at work and has risen 240 percent over the same period as last year – up from 5 percent to 17 percent. Stress is another high negative emotion for employees, at 11 percent, while Isolation rates stands at 7 percent. (more…)
July 7, 2020
London has once again been declared the smartest city in the world, according to the seventh edition of the IESE Cities in Motion Index 2020. New York takes the second spot, followed by Paris. The top 10 list is rounded out by Tokyo, Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam, Singapore and Hong Kong. (more…)
July 2, 2020
Everything has taken a hit in 2020. Nothing has gone unscathed or unchanged – and the same goes for leadership. From boardrooms to living rooms, meeting rooms to spare rooms, leadership has moved away from face-to-face interactions to digital communications. Meanwhile, forward-thinking initiatives, spurred on by continuing diversity imbalances and widening gender pay gaps, have been put on hold. Following government guidance, only half of businesses published their 2018-19 gender pay gap report – which could reportedly push gender equality back a whole generation. We are risking losing sight of what’s important to us – and unless we’re intentional about how we make systemic, much-needed organisational changes, they’re not going to happen if we only focus on more ‘critical’ things, or keeping the lights on. (more…)
July 1, 2020
Flexible working arrangements are those which ‘allow employees to vary the amount, timing or location of their work’ and may include part-time working, mobile/home working, compressed hours or job-sharing – among others. Before the lockdown, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD), more than half of all employees in the UK used at least one form of flexible working, while a study by Gallup in the US suggests as many as 43 percent of employees already worked flexibly. The practice has been found to have positive effects on job satisfaction, employee commitment, reducing work-family conflict – and for many is now an essential component of modern working life. (more…)
August 18, 2020
The challenge for the office is to stay relevant
by Ben Capper • Comment, Workplace design