April 8, 2021

Working from home surveillance drives rise of digital presenteeism

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Wellbeing

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 saw a rise in the implementation of surveillance software, to ensure that workers are acting in best corporate interests. However, this is having a negative impact on some employees – who are feeling forced to work longer hours due to a new perceived need to remain visible to their manager or team leader, revealed in a survey by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky. With remote working set to stay post-COVID, these findings indicate a worrying growing trend around broken working from home employee trust. (more…)

March 24, 2021

Growth in the home office furniture market expected to increase significantly in 2021

by Jayne Smith • Furniture, Home, News

The Covid-19 pandemic had a serious impact on the home office furniture market in 2020, according to a new report, by AMA Research. Despite a move to homeworking, demand for home office furniture is expected to have declined by 8 percent in 2020; however this can be contrasted with the 17 percent fall in the total office furniture market. (more…)

March 24, 2021

Tech companies sign for space at British Land’s London campuses

by Freddie Steele • Company news

British Land has leased over 30,000 sq ft of workspace at its London campuses to tech businesses Vorboss and Anaplan. Fibre provider Vorboss has chosen Broadwalk House, Broadgate for its new headquarters and will take 17,000 sq ft of plug-and-play space until 2025. They will join digital challenger bank, Monzo, who relocated its headquarters to the building in 2019. (more…)

March 23, 2021

Hybrid working must be at heart of plans for regeneration and growth, claims new report

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Property

A new report from think tank Demos and Legal & General calls on the UK Government to back policy change that supports growth of hybrid working and local offices to drive forward its plans for regeneration and economic growth. The report, Post Pandemic Places, claims that huge increases in home working, coupled with a desire for continued flexibility, could support significant increases in local spending. On the back of the findings, the report calls on the government to incentivise the establishment of more local offices and hybrid working initiatives. (more…)

March 23, 2021

Two-thirds of UK CEOs experience ‘decision paralysis’

by Jayne Smith • Business, News

A report released by Peak, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) company, claims that two-thirds (67 percent) of CEOs and other C-suite executives in the UK have experienced ‘decision paralysis’, defined as an inability to make or decide on a solution or course of action usually caused by over-analysing or overthinking a situation. (more…)

March 22, 2021

The era of work personalisation is upon us

by Gary Chandler • Comment, Workplace design

You may have heard it said that any idea repeated often enough develops some form of legitimacy. We’ve had plenty of reason to reflect on whether this notion is true or nor over the past year, especially as all-encompassing pronouncements about the future of work have proliferated and intensified. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that around 80 percent of people only read headlines. This can be a particular issue when you see a headline like The Death of the Office Desk is Upon Us above an article that suggests the death of the personal desk is upon us, when the reality is rather more about the personalisation of work. (more…)

March 18, 2021

From the archive: Escaping the gravity of the fixed times and places of work

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Technology, Wellbeing, Working culture

In November 2019, just before that thing happened, there was this… The worst workplace related news story of 2019 is also one of the most widely reported. I’m not linking to it because I don’t want to give it any credibility, but it has been discharged into the ether by Fellowes along with a ‘behavioural futurist’ called William Higham. I will say only two things about it. Firstly, we flatly refused to publish a story about the damn thing and it’s a shame that the mainstream media couldn’t spot it for the utter drivel it is. The fact that they have picked up on it says something about the way such issues are covered in the press. That’s why you’re more likely to see a stress-related story about rats driving cars on the BBC than you are something meaningful. (more…)

March 16, 2021

HR technology that doesn’t help employees may just disappear

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology, Workplace

Human resources research and advisory firm Josh Bersin Research, claims that the biggest change in the HR technology market is the spread of HR applications into areas beyond payroll and employee administration to support a broad set of work activities. Other evolutions in the HR tech market include rising corporate determination to improve overall employee experience (EX) and the growth of HR tools designed for employees, not managers. (more…)

March 15, 2021

Serfs up for the self-employed and gig economy workers (and the middle class)

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Working culture

One of the most significant consequences of the 2008 economic crash was a remarkable shift in the nature of employment. The recession led to a surge in the number of people categorised as self-employed. The numbers have been increasing ever since, albeit at a lower rate. By the end of 2019, the number of self-employed people in the UK exceeded five million people for the first time. Fifteen percent of the workforce. (more…)

March 11, 2021

Escaping the gravitational pull of workplace data

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

On the doorstep of the British Library you will find Edouardo Paolozzi’s imposing statue of Sir Isaac Newton. At first glance, this positioning seems to make perfect sense. Where better for a monument to the Enlightenment’s poster boy than raised on a plinth at the entrance to the world’s second largest library? And yet, there’s more going on here than is evident at first glance.

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March 9, 2021

The office will bounce back, but not as we remember it

by Luke Munro • Comment, Property, Workplace design

Looking back, who could possibly have predicted 2020? It’s been such a difficult pandemic year for so many individuals and companies. Yet it’s also been a transformative time, which has seen dramatic shifts in the way we work. So, with some trepidation, here’s my forecast for the near future. This year will see the office bounce back, but not as we remember it. The office of the future will have an important new role as the physical embodiment of a changing corporate culture. (more…)

March 6, 2021

Well, at least nobody is whinging about open plan offices anymore

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

Years of pathologising offices should have prepared us for the patholigisation of virtual spaces. It seems like months since anybody has come out with that tired old rant about open plan. Certain vociferous and obsessive authors on the subject have had to find some other outlet for whatever their real problem is. Still, it’s not hard right now to find similar stuff about the toxicity of virtual meetings and especially those hosted by poor old Zoom, who get the blame for everything.