June 10, 2020

IWBI launches WELL health and safety rating for buildings

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has annouced the launch of the WELL Health-Safety Rating for all building and facility types, an “evidence-based, third-party verified rating focusing on operational policies, maintenance protocols and design strategies to address a post COVID-19 environment”. The new health and safety rating is one of the earliest outcomes of IWBI’s Task Force on COVID-19, a group of nearly 600 public health officials, virologists, government officials, academics, business leaders, architects, designers, building scientists and real estate professionals, which was established in late March to help guide a response to the pandemic. More →

June 10, 2020

Two thirds of UK workers feel uncomfortable returning to work, research claims

by George Eltringham • News, Working culture

With lockdown measures slowly easing in the UK, 65 percent of UK workers reveal that they would feel uncomfortable going back to the workplace right now, research claims. This is despite one in five (20 percent) expecting to be asked by their bosses to return to work in June. That’s according to new ‘Return to Work’ research from Qualtrics. More →

June 9, 2020

A thank you for the bitter knowledge offered by the lockdown

by Adam Burtt-Jones • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

With all challenges come opportunities. Covid-19 will most likely be the single largest challenge and disrupter of a generation. It has the potential to create the greatest significant shift in working behaviours and standards of the past hundred years. Workspace consultants, enlightened clients, designers, researchers and commentators have been hammering the agile / home/ remote working drum for the past twenty years or more, waiting patiently for this kind of opportunity. More →

June 9, 2020

Piecing together a new world of work after lockdown

by Grant Gibson • Features, Working culture

After months of lockdown nobody can be certain how the world will look when we eventually re-emerge from the Covid 19 crisis. Yet something seems certain – things will never be the same again. Just as the Second World War spawned the NHS, it’s clear that society is going to be re-shaped quite possibly around a bigger, more proactive government, forced to step in to help any number of industries. Unlike the banking crisis of 2008, the powers that be won’t simply be able to re-assembled the shattered economic jigsaw as it once was. More →

June 5, 2020

Latest issue of IN Magazine heralds new era for working life

by Mark Eltringham • Features, IN Magazine

The partial return to the physical world of work means that the print edition of the June 2020 issue of IN Magazine is now being mailed out. It has been available for a couple of weeks as a digital edition and it’s full of great stuff on the work topics that matter more than ever. We would say that but you can judge for yourself. More →

June 5, 2020

The seven greatest depictions of the workplace in art. Possibly.

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Workplace design

Art supposedly holds up a mirror to life. Except when it comes to our working lives, it doesn’t. Or at least it doesn’t always show a true or full reflection, both in terms of the amount of time we dedicate to work and how important it is to us. More →

June 5, 2020

Vast majority neglecting breaks when working from home

by George Eltringham • Flexible working, News

A new study claims that “microbreaks” have decreased for 95 percent of employees during home working, as lockdown sees people glued to our desks more ever before. The ‘Working from home’ study, conducted by Wildgoose, asked employees from 133 companies throughout the UK how their working day differs at home compared to in the office, whether they wanted to continue working from home after lockdown has finished, and how companies could improve home working practices. More →

June 5, 2020

Brits are among the most fervent remote workers during the coronavirus crisis

by George Eltringham • Flexible working, News

A new survey by CASS Business School, IESE Business School and HR Service Provider SD Worx claims that two thirds (65 percent) of British employees are working remotely during the lockdown. Almost half (47 percent) of the new batch of remote workers had never worked remotely before the COVID-19 crisis. The research focussed on salaried white-collar workers and covered six countries: Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. More →

June 4, 2020

Right, said Fred. Here I am again

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing

If there has been an underlying driver of workplace thinking over the past several decades, it has been a rejection of the principles of scientific management. These begat the idea of the office as a factory, subject to the same rigid times and places of work and the same culture of process, efficiency and productivity. This made a pantomime villain of its key figure Frederick Taylor. The worst adjective you could use to describe a working culture was Taylorist. More →

June 3, 2020

Data is changing the role of the workplace and HR

by Shaun Guyver • Comment, Property, Workplace

Business leaders have been heavily dependent on HR, real estate, and technology functions working together to help their organisation adapts to this new world of work during the pandemic. Ensuring personal safety, promoting wellbeing, encouraging collaboration, and maintaining efficient service delivery will never be more important than in the coming months. The challenge facing CRE leaders is how to advise on the appropriate range of workspaces and hygiene standards to allow organisations and their people to thrive, and how to cut through the complexity of accessing and interpreting data to achieve this. More →

June 2, 2020

Working life set to become more precarious and unequal

by Neil Franklin • News, Working culture, Working lives

The future of work is likely to be even more precarious and unequal, according to a new research review from academics at Durham University Business School, Kings College Business School and University Paris-Dauphine. Dr. Jeremy Aroles, Assistant Professor in Organisation Studies at Durham University Business School, alongside colleagues, Dr. Nathalie Mitev (King’s College) and Professor François?Xavier de Vaujany (University Paris-Dauphine), reviewed a wide range of research related to working life new work practices and summarised this into a number of predictions for the future of work. This research review paper was published in the journal ‘New Technology, Work and Employment’, which is open access throughout June. More →

June 1, 2020

Zoom fatigue and the new era of online meetings

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology

When it comes to that annual announcement the publishers of dictionaries like to make about their Word of the Year, 2020 will have only one candidate. But if there were a shortlist, you can bet that Zoom would be on it. The uptake of Zoom and other apps to help people connect during the lockdown has been remarkable. Numbers emerge each week of the scale of growth, but they’re instantly out of date and probably meaningless anyway. We could make up something like there having been a 2,300% increase since March 23rd, and it might as well be true. More →