Search Results for: media

February 5, 2018

Developing a cultured nose for what makes workplace design great

by Steve Brewer • Comment, Workplace design

Workplace people are at risk of obsessing about productivity. The idea of what is or is not effective and even the notion of wellbeing, has almost been done to death. We overthink stuff. As Neil Usher might say, there are a few bandwagons people are leaping on a little too eagerly. So, let’s keep it simple. Yes, we need a ‘space’ to work in (or just do stuff), but mostly we need a reason for using it in the first place. One thing most people agree on – even the media and flinty-eyed consultants – is that we need a motivation, a reason to do the things asked of us and a belief or intrinsic connection to do those ‘things’ well.

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January 30, 2018

Harnessing serendipity in the workplace is about more than facilitating the unexpected

by Ilkka Kakko • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

What if your company had a great and more frequent ability to discover more valuable things than those for which it were usually looking? How would you then begin to describe your company’s overall level of awareness and sagacity? Does it make your company ’feel lucky’? Inspiring questions and understanding serendipity might give some answers to these and other questions. One of the challenges in answering them lies in the nebulous idea of serendipity in the first place. In many respects the idea of serendipity carries with it a mystical undercurrent and even researchers do not agree about a precise definition. However, serendipity is never a ’happy accident’, it’s much, much more than that. The key elements in the process of serendipity include: 1) a prepared mind 2) an unexpected event, encounter, result or contradiction 3) insight and 4) value creation. Not only is serendipity a process, but it is also a quality of mind.

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January 26, 2018

If you are flourishing under a psychopath boss, it may be because you are a psychopath too

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

It’s still perfectly possible to flourish under a psychopath boss, provided you are one too, according to new research that found the people best placed to cope with a psychopathic manager are those who are psychopaths too; largely because they are not as upset at the bad treatment. In the workplace, employees respond differently to abusive management styles, in part due to their varying levels of psychopathy, according to a new study from the University of Notre Dame. Certain types of psychopaths actually benefit and flourish under abusive bosses, according to Are ‘Bad’ Employees Happier Under Bad Bosses? Differing Effects of Abusive Supervision on Low and High Primary Psychopathy Employees. The study is published in the Journal of Business Ethics by Charlice Hurst, assistant professor of management in Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

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January 24, 2018

Majority of global business leaders believe world economy will grow this year

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Well over half (fifty seven percent) of business leaders say they believe global economic growth will improve in the next 12 months – almost twice (29 percent) the level of results from the annual survey carried out by PwC . Launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the survey found that optimism in the economy is feeding into CEOs’ confidence about their own companies’ outlook. As 42 percent of CEOs said they are “very confident” in their own organisation’s growth prospects over the next 12 months, up from 38 percent last year. Looking at the results by country though, it’s a mixed bag. In the UK, with Brexit negotiations only recently reaching a significant milestone, business leaders’ drop in short-term confidence is unsurprising (2018: 34 percent vs. 2017: 41 percent). The survey also found that CEOs are determined to find the right talent needed to reap the benefits of the digital disruption, with investments in modern working environments and the establishment of learning and development programmes to help attract and develop digital talent.

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January 22, 2018

People who work in an open plan office feel worse and are less satisfied

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The ongoing debate about the impact of open plan offices on people’s wellbeing and productivity continues to divide opinion. While there is a large amount of data from the likes of Leesman Index and workplace expert Nigel Oseland to suggest that an open plan office is the best solution when applied in the right way and right context, a new study from Karlstad University claims the opposite. The more co-workers that share of a workplace, the less satisfied employees are, and the more difficult they think it is to work collaboratively.

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January 17, 2018

One in ten people have fantasised about killing their boss

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

A new survey of 2,200 people claims that one in ten have fantasised about killing their boss at some point. Construction workers emerged as having the worst relationship with their line managers with nearly a quarter admitting to murderous thoughts (22 percent), followed closely by those working in the media industry (15 percent). The report from B2B comparison site Expert Market claims that more than half of respondents (52 percent) said that they hate their job specifically because of their boss. In fact, one in five workers said that they would actually turn down a pay rise in favour of firing their manager and it’s because people think their boss is not fit for purpose. The majority of those asked (73 percent) believe that they could do their boss’ job far better than them, particularly those in the energy and entertainment industries; 86 percent and 81 percent, respectively.

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January 16, 2018

Businesses lost an estimated £20.2 bn from data breaches last year

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Hackers stole or compromised an estimated £20.2bn worth of records from businesses in 2017, new research claims. After news that Uber failed to disclose a massive hack in 2016, VPN (Virtual Private Network) comparison site BestVPN.com analysed more than 200 data breaches dating back to 2004, looking at the number of records compromised, the industries most likely to be affected and the value of those breaches. Late last year Equifax became the victim of one of the most high profile hacks in history, with 143m records stolen, equating to an estimated £15bn worth of data lost*. While there have previously been attacks where more records were compromised, such as Yahoo’s 1bn back in December 2016, the Equifax breach was notable because the data stolen included social Security numbers and personal identification. IBM revealed in its Cost of a Data Breach Study 2017 that the average cost of a stolen record was £104.25, or £2.7m per hack.

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January 15, 2018

Is there a link between creativity and depression?

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

The link between creativity and depression or other mood disorders is something of a cliché, but one explored in a new meta-analysis published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. The study from Christa L Taylor set out to discover whether there was any truth to the twin ideas of the tortured genius and of misery as an inspiration for creativity. Based on 36 studies into the relationship between mood disorders and creative thinking involving very high numbers of people, the report concludes that there are often strong correlations but that causation is somewhat harder to pin down. The diagnosis of mental disorders and the incidence of creativity is also complicated by the fact that researchers may often be unable to distinguish between the two.

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January 12, 2018

Pointless meetings can result in disengagement and reduced productivity

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Three in 10 business professionals think most of their meetings are pointless and nearly half (48 percent) of UK business people admit to having dozed off in a meeting claims global research by Barco ClickShare. The study revealed the true extent of our shared dislike for business meetings, which many respondents believe are poorly run at best or, at worst, completely pointless. Nearly a third of respondents globally said they found less than half of their meetings to be useful, while 30 percent also said they had dozed off in a meeting before. The UK, in fact, led the way in the asleep-in-meeting stakes, with nearly half (48 percent) of all UK respondents saying they’d fallen asleep in meetings. Checking emails and social media during meetings was also extremely common and another indication of disengagement and distraction. Over 70 percent of people said they regularly checked emails during meetings, while 37 percent access social media.

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January 10, 2018

Firms suffer an average of 633 cyber attacks each day

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

UK businesses were subjected to an average of 231,028 internet-borne cyber attacks each during 2017 according to a report from Internet services provider Beaming. On average, each UK firm with an internet connection experienced 633 attempts a day to breach their corporate firewalls last year, with more than two-thirds (70 per cent) of attacks targeting connected devices such as building control systems and networked security cameras. The volume of cyber attacks increased by 24 per cent in the final quarter of the year, with companies – on average – experiencing 68,212 attacks each between October and December. This extra activity at the end of 2017 ensured the number of cyber attacks last year on UK organisations surpassed 2016 levels, when Beaming recorded 228,659 attacks per business.

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January 9, 2018

The year we discover the elemental workplace

by Neil Usher • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

We love a survey. Not a week passes without another startling revelation of the poor condition of our workplace, the fragile state of our engagement, or the dearth of meaning at the heart of our daily pursuits. The data (and I use the term lightly) tells us we want to be productive, if only we could be productive. Our intent and motivation is never in question. We have become masters of realising and articulating that we have a problem, and so we ask ourselves over and over just to make absolutely sure. We bang the table, we sound enlightened when we declare “something must be done!” Unless, of course, you work in one of the 10 Coolest Workplaces in the World in which case you are okay and do not need to worry. Unless you worry that yours is not as cool as the others in the list, envy is a terrible thing. We are drowning in hastily-gathered, invariably sponsored survey data, yet suffer a poverty of solutions.

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January 9, 2018

SMEs employers’ recruitment strategies have altered as a result of Brexit

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Half of SMEs (50 percent) questioned in a new survey have changed the way that they recruit their staff as a result of Brexit. The Albion Growth Report 2017 of more than 1,000 SMEs suggests that for businesses which have changed their strategy as a result of Brexit, 15 percent have decreased recruitment resources, 10 percent have begun recruiting in different ways and 9 percent have made redundancies. A difficulty in finding skilled staff is one of the biggest barriers to growth, behind broader political uncertainty and cash flow, which the research claims could lead to a potential war for talent which is likely to become more intense in the post-Brexit environment. By contrast, SMEs view difficulty in finding unskilled staff as the least significant barrier to growth. The report finds that nearly two thirds (65 percent) of SMEs believe their business lacks expertise. More than a quarter (26 percent) of businesses lack marketing talent, followed by business planning (19 percent), IT (17 percent), and software developers and technology specialists (17 percent). Despite critical skills deficits, only a third of SMEs (33 percent) are currently hiring new employees.