Are we enjoying our 4 day week so far?

Workers across the UK and USA are largely currently enjoying a well-earned four day week after Monday’s May and Memorial Day bank holidays.

How does that feel? Our guess is most employees are fans of the concept and would love to see it rolled out permanently.

At our recent Workplace Trends Research Summit we were delighted to have Andrew Barnes, the founder of 4 Day Week Global, speaking – all the way from New Zealand.

Andrew took us through the mechanism by which he introduced a 4 Day Week to his company, and the hugely successful results thereof. Andrew outlines his 100-80-100 rule and the impact that it has on business, employees’ health and wellbeing, overall productivity, and the environment.

Generally we don’t make our event recordings too widely available but this is too good to keep a secret. Take a coffee and enjoy the 23 minutes below.

You can find out more about the 4 Day Week at https://4dayweek.com/

Key Points

“When we talk about the 4 Day Week we mean at its heart it’s a reduced hours working week on normal weekly pay but which maintains or enhances current levels of productivity.”

“British workers are actually only productive for about three hours a day.” (Economist Magazine).

“What we found when we implemented the 4 Day Week is that productivity in the company improved about 25% and this has been sustained since we implemented the policy full time in late 2018.”

Health & Safety Law – Duties to Protect Staff & Visitors from Covid-19 in their Workplaces

At last October’s Workplace Trends Conference we were delighted to welcome Simon Joyston-Bechal of Turnstone Law to our virtual stage.  

Simon has over 25 years’ experience as a solicitor. Specialising in regulatory defence, he is widely regarded as one of the UK’s leading health & safety lawyers. Having previously qualified as a doctor, he is in a unique position to advise employers on liability issues and planning in relation to Covid-19. He defends health and safety criminal prosecutions; and regularly lectures and provides training on health and safety duties for executive teams.

We thought his presentation was just too valuable not to share more widely, so here’s the recording of that session where Simon covers many very relevant issues, including: 

 

The Attendee Experience With Our Hopin Virtual Conference

Ahead of our Workplace Trends: Success in Uncertain Times virtual conference (15 October 2020) on the Hopin Platform, one of our founders, Maggie Procopi, recorded this short orientation video as a show-round for attendees. 

Transcription

Hello, welcome to this orientation for Workplace Trends: Success in Uncertain Times, which takes place here on the Hopin virtual event platform, on Thursday 15 October.

I’m Maggie Procopi, one of the founders of Workplace Trends and I manage the conferences on a day to day basis.

We want all our delegates to get the most out of the conference day itself, so we thought it would be useful to have this opportunity for you to have a quick look around and to make sure your tech works with the system.

First off I need to tell you that Hopin is largely a brilliant platform, but it only works really well with Chrome or Firefox. Other browsers might give you problems. If you still have issues even using Chrome or Firefox, try logging out and back in again, or even restarting your computer (turn it off and on again).

A couple of times we’ve also noticed using Zoom earlier in the day might affect your computer’s settings so that the Hopin audio or video doesn’t work, but restarting a pc or laptop usually does the trick.

So moving on, Hopin is really laid out just like a conference venue, with a main stage, sessions (or break out rooms), expo booths, and a reception area.

Main stage is where I am now, and where our speakers will present from. After each presentation we’ll all move to a Session, the link for everyone will pop up automatically, and this is where we’ll run our Q&As. Audience members can post questions either in the chat box to the right of the screen, or they can request for their video to be added to the session and they can speak direct to the speaker and the chair or moderator.

During breaks there’ll be a few different sessions for you to join as well, so you can meet and chat to other delegates. Attendees can also create their own sessions and invite colleagues and friends to join them there – a bit like a water cooler area.

There’s the option within all sessions to be a voyeur – to just watch and listen, or you can join in fully with your own video camera and microphone which are on your computers.

Expo Booths are like exhibition stands. Most of ours will be running a short into video about the organisation themselves and you can chat or leave messages for the company to get back to you. Some of them also have special offers on so they’re definitely worth a look.

There’s also a networking feature, the link’s towards the bottom of the menu on the left. This is a bit like speed dating, conference style. It randomly pairs you with another attendee for a short time, 3-5 minutes, so you can say hi, get to know each other a little, and connect with them on social channels or with your business details.

On the right of your screen you should be able to see another column with chat, polls and people links.

The chat function is great, everyone can post here, either about the event in general, or specific to whatever session, presentation or expo booth they’re in.

Polls is where we ask attendees to let us know their opinions – these will pop us at any time during the day, often during a presentation in response to a speaker’s particular question.

The People tab is really important and a great feature we were so pleased to find on Hopin – It’s where you can see who else is attending. You can view their profile (so it’s important you set yours up early on – you can do that before the event). You can also everyone’s social links and connect with them there, invite them to video call, or just leave a chat message for them.

So that’s a quick show-round of what you can expect at the conference. Please take a few minutes to explore the features now. There might not be much going on just at the moment but you’ll be able to get a feel for how things will be on the conference day.

All the programme details for the conference are on our website, workplace trends.co.uk – but we’re covering themes around home and agile working, health and safety law, case studies (in particular from HSBC who based in the East, have a wealth of experience in handling business during a pandemic crisis), the future of real estate and the office market, wellbeing and mental health in general, FM, and the role of managing change in our current environment.

This is all set against a backdrop of the challenges posed by Covid 19.

So I hope this introduction was useful.

If you don’t have your ticket for the conference yet just search ‘Workplace Trends Conference Hopin’ and the link should come up for you.

Thank you very much for watching, and myself and our speakers, sponsors and exhibitors are looking forward to seeing you soon!

Stay Safe and Well.

The Case for Active Travel

Guest post by Maggie Procopi, Workplace Trends

Yesterday (Saturday 9 May 2020) U.K. transport secretary Grant Shapps announced what he called a “once in a generation” £2 billion plan to boost cycling and walking both during and after the lockdown.

Upmost in his mind must be the need for workers to return to their offices amid an already crowded transport system.

It’s somewhat sad that it takes a global pandemic to force this level of investment, but I hope organisations will embrace the opportunities presented.

Workplace Trends covered Active Travel in a recent Climate Change and the Workplace event earlier this year. The session took the form of a panel discussion, with Q&A from the audience.

Many delegates, like myself, had reservations around, for example, cycling safety and travelling longer distances, all of which were reassuringly dealt with by our panel – Neil Webster, Cyclo Consulting, Megan Sharkey, University of Westminster, Ben Knowles, PedalMe and Andrew Brown, Just Ride the Bike (moderator).


Guest post by Maggie Procopi, Workplace Trends
Maggie is a co-founder of the Workplace Trends series of conferences. Based in the UK, Workplace Trends, along with their international partners, run ground-breaking events for workplace professionals who want be at the forefront of work and workplace new thinking. We examine up-coming trends and best practice which enable people and their places of work to be happy, healthy and productive.


Designing Out Loneliness in the Workplace

We spend one third of our life working, but 60% of people feel lonely at work and 1.2 million office workers suffer from chronic loneliness (chronic loneliness is a harmful as having 15 cigarettes a day!) The problem hurts happiness and productivity, costing employers between £2–3.7 billion every year (that’s in the UK alone!)

The Loneliness Lab

You may remember last summer we asked our followers to take part in online research on Loneliness at Work. The full report is being written up at the moment, but the early results were presented at Workplace Trends London last October by Rachel Edwards (Lendlease) and Nigel Oseland (Workplace Unlimited).

We don’t usually release our conference videos except to registered delegates, but we really wanted to share this trending topic.

If you enjoyed this presentation, take a look at our Workplace Trends Research Spring Summit, coming up on 25 March in London. Virtual and in-person tickets and more information is at https://workplacetrends.co/spring2020/

The Auditorium of the Future

At our recent Design and Management of Learning Environments conference, Ian Stickland of Charcoalblue spoke about his work designing and installing auditoriums, not just in learning environments and theatres, but also in workplaces.

Whilst he covered the effects of the digital age in both the design and use of  lecture theatres and presentation spaces, even more interestingly he dwelt too on the why and how of designing spaces that enhance the relationship between the presenter and their audience. So once again the importance of engagement was highlighted as a driving and necessary force in the design of a productive space.

The session also drew on the rich history of theatre, teaching and storytelling spaces to explain the fundamentals of auditorium design. 

We don’t usually release our conference videos except to our delegates, but just on this occasion we really wanted to share this with you!

Filmed and edited by our friends at McLeod Audio Visual.

Check out our up-coming 2019 Workplace Trends events in London on 15 October, and Copenhagen on 19 September.

The Role of Psychoacoustics in Designing Learning Environments

Nigel Oseland, Workplace Unlimited, and Colin Campbell, Saint-Gobain Ecophon, speaking at the Design & Management of Learning Environments 2018, on the early findings of their literature review on classroom noise and teacher personality.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xds2mq9EKMM&w=560&h=315]
Despite resistance to open plan classrooms in the UK, the movement towards innovative learning environments continues in parts of Europe, especially Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand. Their definition (ILEs) is an ongoing discussion in itself and their success is dependent on many aspects. However, understanding the changes in pedagogic approaches, including aspects like the profile of teachers in this context and the quality of the acoustic design are key to informing the design process in order to deliver successful and sustainable learning outcomes.


Office Culture & Creating Workplaces for Wellbeing

Catherine Gall of Steelcase, speaking at our 2012 Workplace Trends Conference, on Office Culture and Wellbeing.
It’s interesting to look back on this six years later. Workplace has definitely moved on, but there’s still much to do.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3-pGEf_9ss&w=560&h=315]
Understanding local culture is vital to using space as a key strategic tool for global organizations. Whether you think your company is global or not, you’re global. Businesses compete in a global marketplace.
Catherine presented new research that demonstrates the importance of understanding the differences in how people work, their sense of hierarchy and teamwork, how they manage others, negotiate, and conduct knowledge work activities.


Activity Based Working in the Netherlands

Louis Lhoest of Veldhoen + Co, speaking at our 2012 Workplace Trends Conference, on the concept of ABW, just as relevant today as it was then.
According to Wikipedia, the term “activity based working” was first coined in the book the Art of Working by Erik Veldhoen, Dutch consultant and author of the book The Demise of the Office.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnSYXmrrF04&w=560&h=315]
Society is changing, technology is changing even faster and the complexity of our world and overload of information is giving people and organisations new challenges. Reflecting on this there is no other answer than that our past and current ways of working will not be able to match the needs these changes bring about.
Customer demands rise, employers behaviours change and organisations must be able to cope with continuous change in order to survive and flourish. New ways of working are inevitable and will help organisations and individuals to meet the new challenges.
Activity Based Working is a way of looking at how work could be organised and supported differently. It does not offer solutions but provides a framework for developing and realising new ways of working.
More info on ABW and a short animated video can be found on Veldhoen’s website here.


How (and why) happiness works as a business model

We aim to highlight new thinking at Workplace Trends events. Happiness and wellness are today’s buzzwords, but even way back in 2012 we were honoured to have Nic Marks, whose happiness and wellbeing research methodology is world-renowned, give the keynote at our Workplace Trends autumn conference.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9Bf7ilDUrw&w=560&h=315]
Sometimes people think that happiness is somewhat frivolous in a business context but Nic argues that happiness is in fact highly functional. Happiness helps people build stronger relationships, become better able to deal with unexpected events and be generally more creative and innovative. People are happier at work if they are able to be themselves, have a sense of control and progress, are surrounded by people they along with and importantly feel their work is meaningful and socially valuable. A focus on happiness can help make organisations higher performing as well as a better places to work.


Nic is perhaps best known for his trailblazing work on the Happy Planet Index, National Accounts of Well-being and the Five Ways to Well-being which is used extensively within health and education institutions as well as within governmental policy. Nic is the founder of Friday, an organisation that changes the world of work for the better and is a fellow of nef (new economics foundation) and on the board for Action for Happiness. Read more about Nic at https://nicmarks.org/about/


Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash