Category: Our Thoughts
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Bring a Touch of Home Back to the Office
Virtually overnight, professionals turned dining room tables into workstations, closets into conference rooms. We found creative ways to make space feel busy, from blow up dolls and mannequins to distancing beanies with foam floaties to 6 foot perimeter rolling bumper tables. In exchange, work from home taught us healthy habits and an improved sense of work-life balance…
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Flexible or traditional workspace?
Do you want to remain flexible or return to a dedicated, more traditional office environment? Real estate remains the second highest cost to the bottom line of every business, exceeded only by staff salary. With the impetus for firms to maintain some semblance of a flexible workplace, how might management convince their teams to return…
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Do you need to downsize to go hybrid?
You want teams back in the office: your staff wants to be in 10 days or less each month for face-to-face connectivity. Does space have to get smaller with less people on any given day? Spontaneous, intimate breaks aren’t happening at the water cooler: creativity flows during zoom happy hour. Do you go to the…
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Workplace FOMO in 2022
Enthusiasm to return to the office continues to grow, yet FOMO is here to stay. Having lost those intangible advantages of co-working in the same space, connectivity has suffered as decreased engagement with senior colleagues leaving many feeling less productive, although technology kept us connected, it was no replacement for unscripted exchange. Forbes stated…
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Green light red light (go desk, stop desk)
I remember playing in the back yard with all the neighbor kids. My dad turned his back, and the game began as he yelled green light! We crept closer to tag him, knowing that the moment he spun around and shouted red light, we would freeze in our tracks. The first one to reach him without being sent…
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The wheels on the bus go round and round…
The wheels (employees) on the bus (going back into the workspace) go round and round and round… Put yourself in your bosses’ shoes. While we remain vigilant to stay safe and not spread the virus, not going back into the office is not always an option. Staff may welcome going back to workspace: others reel from the…
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Evolving Workplaces and the Impact on Productivity
Alternative work styles continue to morph, evolving differently for every organization. With no standard operating procedure in place for a one size fits all outcome, there are benefits and pitfalls to a functional, yet alternative, workstyle. The positives include: decreased expenses and operational costs; access to a global talent pool; increased engagement and improved job…
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The generations deal differently with their return to the office
When it comes to health and wellness, work and life balance, how we deal with this today creates different consequences tomorrow. The initial switch from in office to virtual was unplanned, and while we experienced the impacts of the Pandemic differently, how our future attitudes, behaviors, and expectations change will vary. Generations share experiences that have…
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Legal Battles Rage On
Businesses will continue to protect their staff although they face legal battles in the time of Covid-19: Litigation continues as employees get sick. In May 2020, The Washington Post published that nearly 800 lawsuits had been filed by prisons, followed by healthcare and every facet of hospitality and tourism, claiming illness and wrongful death. By September 2020 “…more than 5,000 lawsuits…had been filed as the ‘tidal wave’ of litigation was just getting started, although rarely will a business be found liable for…
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Should we believe in those workplace trends ‘they’ say are inevitable? And who are ‘THEY?’
Forecasting how we might work and live prepares us for the future. The work environment is under siege by economic challenges, technological developments, automation, and globalization. As the world changes, so do anticipated trends, although trends can be guesstimated with little accuracy depending on who is doing the collecting, assessing, and reporting. The workplace of today can help us prepare for tomorrow’s initiatives. If the trends are pointing to your business redefining workplace ethics and…