Contract furnishings provider, Hightower received multiple awards at NeoCon 2021, including IIDA's 'Best Small Showroom' (under 4,000 sf) and 'Best of Competition' for its newly designed Chicago showroom.
Humanscale welcomes Elizabeth Margles to its Marketing Division in the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Margles comes to Humanscale with twenty years of experience in design, fashion and retail and a background in public relations and advertising.
The exclusive relationship with Kontrol's BioCloud® Technology will provide real-time detection of airborne pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 to help make workplaces safer as organizations return to the office.
The US office sector at midyear is poised for continued growth, Marcus & Millichap says in a new report. Thanks to ongoing expansion in a number of office-using employment sectors as well as a slower pace of new deliveries, the national vacancy rate is expected to keep ticking downward while rent growth is expected to average 3.9% for the year—and considerably more in tech hubs.
Workplace amenities, both large and small, are helping shape and define corporate culture. Amenities in the past were fairly simple—cafeteria and conference center, and maybe a fitness center or on-site childcare. Today, companies are giving more thought to extra offerings, from laundry services to bowling alleys. In addition to delighting employees, these atypical spaces are defining culture both from within and outside their building or campus.
First there were Baby Boomers, then Generation X, and then Millennials. But now a new generation is entering the workforce and shaking things up by changing the way we look at employees and work in general. Gen Z arbitrarily applies to people born between 1995 and 2005, but it actually means more than that. As more generations come into the workforce, the focus is starting to shift from the year they were born to the characteristics they deliver.
Spending on workplace technology has doubled in the past five years as artificial intelligence is used to redefine how we connect in the workplace. That is the central claim of a new report from design firm Unispace based on interviews with CEOs and Heads of Real Estate at some 100 blue chip firms worldwide including KPMG, Cisco, Adidas, GE, Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Regus, Deloitte, UBS, Chevron, CitiGroup, and Ashurst, Respondents were asked to assess how they expect to use office space in 2020. According to the report, respondents indicated that they will continue increasing technology spend, irrevocably changing the traditional office space as we know it. Over the last five years, the average company spent 10 percent of its workplace budgets on technology with 30 percent going on services, partitioning and furniture. The trend has now reversed with technology spend outstripping other spend as companies strive to improve efficiency, collaboration, creativity, engagement and recruitment.
As the workplace continues to change, it’s important for us to take a step back and look at where we are today and where we are heading in the future. For the past two years Staples Business Advantage (the B2B division of Staples) has been conducting their annual Workplace Index which looks at what employees care about, both in the United States and in Canada. The full index explores topics such as technology, health and wellness, work overload, and much more. For the recent 2016 Workplace Index Staples asked me to participate as an advisor by giving them feedback on some questions and by sharing some of my insights on the data that was collected from almost 2,000 people.
But if you could enjoy all the benefits of living in San Francisco and also wake up in a beachfront property and also pay half the rent of living in the city, that would seem like a no-brainer for most people.
When they open in 2018, the 100-foot-tall orbs -- Amazon calls them Biospheres -- will host more than 300 plant species from around the world, creating what the company sees as the workplace of the future. Amazonians will be able to break from their daily labors to walk amid the greenery along suspension bridges and climb into meeting spaces resembling bird nests perched in mature trees, where the company expects them to brainstorm -- and perhaps even invent the next billion-dollar opportunity.
Looking for a major dose of news you can use? This month, Workplace Strategist Joelle Jach busts some of the biggest workplace myths. Do exercise balls increase productivity? Is technology necessary in the office? Do millennials even exist? For all these burning questions and more, we’ve got you covered.
In the last ten years, millions of millennials have entered the traditional workspace of musty cube walls and burnt coffee. Many of these employees have been quick to realize they hit a quarter-life crisis, where they question and doubt the decisions they made that brought them to that point in their adult life.
The new workforce, made up of Millennials and Gen Z don’t like the concept of cubicles. Those entering the workforce or looking for positions now are doing so in a time when tech companies are the holy grail for employment. These tech firms have set the standard for what an office space should look like. These office spaces are certainly not the cubicles of the past. So how do you set yourself apart from the competition and use your office space as an advantage in the talent war? We’ve included 10 features that will make your workspace more attractive to Millennials and Gen Z.
I’m at my standing desk, typing this note. But instead of looking at my 24-inch monitor as usual, I’m wearing an HTC Vive headset. And thanks to the new VR productivity app Space, I’m surrounded by six giant, 70-ish-inch screens. To my left, a small tower of YouTube videos. On my right, CNN’s latest on Brexit, and the Trump campaign page loaded just for a laugh. And in the middle? I can look up to see my Gmail and down to see this very document sitting below.
The state of the modern workplace is evolving, perhaps more quickly than ever. Increases in diversity, the flexibility and scalability that technology provides, the nature of benefits and work environment that employees are willing to demand—all contribute to an ever-changing dynamic that’s exciting for workers and, to a certain extent, a challenge for employers.
Brian Shapland, general manager of turnstone, and Mark McKenna, Director of Design for turnstone and Steelcase Education, join Jane Graham to share insights around entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and how turnstone research within those ecosystems has informed new product development. Turnstone is a Steelcase brand dedicated to helping companies leverage their space and their culture to accelerate business results.
Endless oceans of electronic ink have been spilled on the problem of making millennials more productive at work. We're told that millennials want exciting assignments, a chance to change the world, the opportunity to make a difference, etc. All quite true, no doubt, but what do millennials really want at work... more than anything else? Well, according to a recent study conducted by Oxford Economics (a research firm associated with Oxford University), what millennials want exactly what other employees want, only more so: less noise in the workplace.
Space topologies in the open office frequently include zones for solo, heads-down work and phone calls.
A big chunk of American workers have checked out from their jobs -- and are thinking about ending the relationship. That's troublesome for employers. Study after study shows that companies with engaged workforces outperform their competitors. Conversely, low morale saps the bottom line. If people don't like their jobs, they're less productive or quit. And replacing them is expensive. Fortunately, employers don't have to set aside two months' salary and get down on one knee to engage their workers. They simply need to change the way they interact with them -- and give them more control over their work environments.
When The Frontier Project, a Richmond, Va.-based boutique consulting firm, moved into their new studio last fall, they saw it as an opportunity to create a place that not only reflected their brandbut also amplified the performance of employees.
How do you get your news these days? If you get the paper off of the driveway every morning and read it with your coffee, you are in a small minority. You may catch the early morning news on TV while you get dressed; you may get some news tidbits on the radio while you drive to work; or you may, like a growing majority, turn to the internet for short snippets of news, using your smartphone or tablet. This is an example of micro learning, and we engage in it every day.
Could a chia pet make you happier at work? How about a nature soundtrack? Maybe slapping some pictures of flowers on the wall? Everyone seems to have an opinion about how to make your office more bearable. Indeed, it often seems like every week, a new scientific study is telling us the latest, greatest way to make our workspaces more conducive to human occupation and productivity.
Over 82 percent of people say they feel more productive when working from home according to a survey of 2,000 employers and employees conducted by remote conferencing provider Powwownow. The report also claims that over 60 percent of employers say that flexible working is the key to staying competitive and 77 percent saying it leads to better work-life balance. Conversely, 44 percent of workers said that being able to get work done with no distractions was the biggest appeal of flexible working, however, less traffic was a close second with over 40 percent citing that as a benefit. Over 50 percent of workers In the UK said that they would work the same hours (9-5) if they were able to work from home. However they also admit that they would take fewer breaks. Women tend to ask for flexible working more than men, as they would like to spend more time with their families. Interestingly, the report also claims that women bosses tend to be less trusting when an employee asks for flexible working.
