Search Results for: people management

Problems at Twitter, grease proof chairs, and the trouble with AI

Problems at Twitter, grease proof chairs, and the trouble with AI

by • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

The level of layoffs at several Big Tech firms has been the main source of news and comment over the past week or two. Around 11,000 people at Facebook and another 7,500 at Twitter are to be made redundant. Elon Musk then ensured the conversation moved on by forbidding remote work completely. (more…)

Workplace wellbeing remains a neglected issue for many firms

Workplace wellbeing remains a neglected issue for many firms

by • News, Wellbeing

Two people sharing a coffee and a joke at work to illustrate workplace wellbeingTwo in five businesses have either cut or maintained workplace wellbeing budgets despite growing pressures on their staff, according to a new report. Faced with stressors such as the cost-of-living crisis, political uncertainty, and the ‘return to work’ post-Covid, just 16 percent of directors and risk practitioners said their wellbeing budgets had seen a significant increase. Around 40 percent of businesses had increased their budgets slightly to tackle issues such as mental, physical, financial health, organisational vision, values, culture and working standards, according to the poll by Deloitte, the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management (IIRSM) and the Institute of Directors (IoD). (more…)

EFG utilises KI products to create an elegant, sophisticated workspace

EFG utilises KI products to create an elegant, sophisticated workspace

by • Company news, Works Magazine

KI products at the new installation for EFGSwiss private bank firm EFG International has recently moved to Park Street in London’s Mayfair neighbourhood. Their new facilities are a manifestation of their brand and provide an elegant, sophisticated experience for their team and visitors alike. The move has allowed the business to change its layout from traditional offices to a more open space that supports hybrid working. The new space was designed by Simon Hart and Stefano Albanese of AIS Interiors. As part of the transition, project furniture consultants byBailey selected KI desking and storage solutions. (more…)

Ethical organisations can pave the way to hell with their good intentions

Ethical organisations can pave the way to hell with their good intentions

by • Business, News

An AI generated painting of the road to hell to illustrate how ethical organisations can create the conditions for bad behaviourDespite the growing focus for more ethical investment and management styles, a new paper from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) claims to have uncovered eight unethical effects that can ‘sneak in’, even when organisations are doing their best to act ethically. In his research Muel Kaptein, Professor of Business Ethics and Integrity Management, has looked at how even ostensibly ethical organisations can sometimes facilitate unethical behaviour. (more…)

Younger workers turn to friends rather than colleagues for career advice

Younger workers turn to friends rather than colleagues for career advice

by • News, Workplace

A painting of two people sharing a drink and some career adviceA new poll from Right Management, claims that British office workers aged 18-24 years are much more likely to turn to friends in similar jobs for career advice, than to seek guidance from their immediate manager or any other colleagues (older or younger) in their team. After two years of remote and hybrid working impacting on office life, younger workers who need career guidance are more likely (38.1 percent) to turn to their friends in similar jobs for advice, whereas all other working age groups (those aged 25+) prioritise getting their career advice directly from their immediate manager. (more…)

World Green Building Council launches guide to climate change resilience

World Green Building Council launches guide to climate change resilience

by • Environment, News

climate changeThe World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) has launched a new industry guide on ‘Climate Change Resilience in the Built Environment’, collating effective and practical steps that can be taken on a building, community and city scale in order to adapt and build resilience to the changing climate. Under the inevitable impacts of climate change, which are affecting at least 85 percent of the world’s population, bringing acute hazards such as droughts, rising sea levels, heat waves and floods increasing frequency and severity, resilience action is essential to build community capacity to survive and thrive in our built environments. (more…)

The underlying problems with the way we think about work

The underlying problems with the way we think about work

by • Features, Wellbeing, Workplace design

people and workAn idea that has never really gone away, but which seems to be enjoying a new lease of life is the tabula rasa. The conception of people as a blank slate is something a that has crept back into mainstream political and social thought for a variety of reasons. Arguably, it is also behind many of the most misleading notions about work and workplace design, perhaps most importantly that a change to some single element or characteristic of a working environment will lead to a specific outcome in the behaviour of people. (more…)

Winter is coming: don’t be in the dark about blackouts

Winter is coming: don’t be in the dark about blackouts

by • Environment, Features, Wellbeing

a lit candle to illustrate the idea of blackoutsThe National Grid has warned that the UK could face blackouts this winter. The worst-case scenario is that homes and businesses could lose power for pre-defined periods of up to three hours if gas power plants are not able to keep running due to the energy crisis that keeps on giving – or rather, taking. While the British government has dropped its energy rationing campaign, which once formed a crucial part of its plan to prepare for potential energy shortages and blackouts, countries across Europe are drawing up winter contingency plans, as are forward-thinking businesses. (more…)

Working habits are changing in response to cost of living increases

Working habits are changing in response to cost of living increases

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

commuters in London to illustrate changing working habitsThe so-called cost of living crisis is having a fundamental impact on people’s working habits, according to Beamery’s latest Talent Index – Sixth Edition. Almost a third (29 percent) of workers polled for the report are now avoiding the office because of the increasing cost of travel whilst another third cited (31 percent) they were considering leaving their jobs completely due to lack of salary increases. (more…)

Why should anyone care about your change?

Why should anyone care about your change?

by • Business, Comment, JB, Workplace

A butterfly emerging from a chrysalis to illustrate changeWhenever I first meet a potential client or am brought onto a new change project, there are three questions I ask:  why, why now and why should anyone care about your change? Now the first two have typically been thought through and there are answers for them – not necessarily crystal clear and concise answers, but answers, none the less.  However, the third question, in my experience, is rarely even considered, much less discussed or thought through. If it has been thought through, then this is many times expressed starting with the words, “effective…efficient…,” which is what I would call the management spiel. These are not answers that will motivate or galvanise employees and teams to support and adopt a change. (more…)

Condeco and iOffice + SpaceIQ announce merger

Condeco and iOffice + SpaceIQ announce merger

by • Company news

Investment firm Thoma Bravo has announced the merger of Condeco, a provider of workspace scheduling software with workplace and asset management firm iOffice + SpaceIQ to create a new business called Eptura. The firm claims that the “strategic combination creates a global worktech leader that provides software solutions to power the modern workplace”. The merger follows previously announced investments in Condeco and iOffice + SpaceIQ by Thoma Bravo and JMI Equity, who will remain the primary investors in Eptura. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. (more…)

There is no F in work

There is no F in work

by • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Neil Usher is an energetic, wiry critic of workplaces and offices. Long ago – in 2018, actually – his proposal that the good office is composed of 12 simple elements, beginning with daylight, was also energetic and wiry. Here he widens out from the delicious nitty-gritties of temperature control and lighting in The Elemental Workplace to the wider phenomenon of work. As the title already suggests, the style is laden with expletives: there are no fewer than 25 mentions of the word ‘crap’. He is withering, too, about the ‘easiest fat-arsed squatting duck of targets, the hapless office, with its rituals and theatrics’. On top of a fresh, Elemental-style bow to the nostrum of inclusion, there is a critique of management fads, but also reference made to (white male) privilege, plus, in a lofty manner, ‘our essentially Stone Age cognitive wiring’.

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