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.

Workplace Design – Recollection not Revolution

Guest post by Nigel Oseland, Workplace Unlimited

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his rather ambiguous announcement last Sunday on his Covid-19 exit strategy. There have been plenty of previous posts from the workplace industry anticipating the announcement and how redesigning the office is the solution. But I firmly believe that we already have the answers, and have had them for some time, but have repeatedly chosen to ignore them. I recommend we start by recollecting and (re)introducing tried and tested best practice in the workplace before we push a design revolution. 

Let us just remind ourselves of those long forgotten best practice design principles which workplace strategists have been recommending for at least two decades:

1. Occupational density

For years in the UK we have been chasing density, the space provision per person in the office, in the name of space and cost efficiency. For example, the BCO’s Occupier Density Study published in 2009 found an average of 11.8m2 per desk, across the whole building NIA, compared to 9.6m2 per desk in the 2018 study. The 2.2m2 difference may not seem like a lot but it is equivalent to losing almost one workstation with associated circulation per occupant (or two industry standard desk surfaces). Sadly, UK legislation on workspace requirements does not help – the minimum is approximately 4.6m2 per person (assuming the 11m3 minimum and a standard 2.4m floor to ceiling height). These low standards allow densities to be chased and best practice ignored. It is well documented that in the animal kingdom, overpopulation often leads to disease – nature’s way of addressing the balance. High density impacts temperature, air quality and noise along with accessibility and egress. A return to lower density offices which support performance and health is long overdue. 

2. Desk Size

To meet the higher densities, desk sizes have reduced. I recall my 2 x 1m desk at my first architectural practice, providing me with a clear 2m between those sitting adjacent to or opposite me. The current UK industry norm is 1400mm wide desks, and I have worked with efficiency-zealous clients insisting that 1m wide desks provide sufficient space! These smaller desks result in more noise distraction, infringement of personal space (see Hall’s Proxemic Framework) and higher likelihood of cross-infection. Simply put, stop manufacturing and installing smaller and smaller desks. 

3. Partitioning

There are some similarities in designing workspaces to prevent noise distraction and cross-infection. Distance helps reduce noise, and infection. Semi-partitioning (not necessarily walls) also helps, as do desk screens that are sufficiently high enough to cover the mouth but not reduce the line of sight (approximately 1300-1400mm), but there has been an ongoing trend for low or no desk screens and minimal partitions. I am neither an advocate of private offices nor fully open plan workspaces. Office layout is not a simple dichotomy of open versus closed but a scale with an optimal layout that I refer to as the landscaped office, borrowed from Bürolandschaft. The landscaped office is predominantly open plan but with zoned and semi-partitioned spaces broken up by storage, bookshelves, planting, acoustic screens and alternative work-settings such as quiet pods, focus rooms, meeting areas and social spaces. Reintroduce zoning and partitioning in the workspace.

4. Indoor air quality (IAQ)

From a design perspective, temperature, noise and air quality are the most common causes of dissatisfaction and loss of performance in the office. In the past, the level of fresh air intake in mechanically ventilated offices was reduced, and the stale air recirculated, to minimise energy costs – outdoor air will need filtering and heating or cooling thus using more energy. This practice was partly responsible for Sick Building Syndrome and the transmission of other diseases. Fresh air rates and treatment will need readdressing in the post Covid-19 workplace.

5. Agile Working

Many workplace strategists are advocates of agile/flexible/smart/ remote/activity-based working and have been promoting the benefits since the early 90s, see one of my early reports. Benefits have been proven to include: increased performance, reduced absenteeism, enhanced cross-selling, increased attraction and reduced attrition, and business continuity as less disruptions due to travel issues or viruses. Empower people to work when and where they are most productive, including occasionally working from home. 

– Home Working

UK Government’s guidance recommends working from home, a very sensible approach that is fundamental to a good agile working environment. Now that most office workers, and their managers, have experienced working from home, the uptake is likely to be higher than previously.

If the workforce are allowed to work from home for say two days per week and the time in and out the office is well managed, then the number of desks required will reduce by up to 40%.

However, do remember it is the employers’ responsibility to provide a safe workplace for their employees, so there will be additional costs in providing the workforce with the right technology, equipment and furniture to work effectively from home. I have already spotted unscrupulous “no win, no fee” law firms offering to represent those who have had a fall when working from home.

The new office is likely to be a more blended environment mixing the physical with the virtual, so that those in or out of the office can seamlessly work together. 

– Desk-Sharing

Using agile working to help reduce the density and number of desks is likely to mean that desk-sharing (hot-desking) in some form is required. It is unlikely that hot-desking will be carried out the way it currently is with people grabbing desks as they become vacant. It is more likely that a shared desk is obtained and used throughout the duration of the day followed by a deep clean overnight that allows the desk to be used safely by a colleague the next day. The service level agreements of cleaning contracts will need to be revisited with more regular desk cleaning.

Also worth considering in the short-term, if 40% of the desk chairs in an office are simply removed, perhaps every other desk chair, then the overall workspace density will be reduced, and the occupants will have more buffer space. Alternatively, alternate desks could be marked or coloured up to indicate days that they may be used.

6. Shift Working

The Government’s guidance also suggest shift working (technically a type of flexible working). This is a less popular alternative to home working. In theory, the workforce could work two or even three 8-hour shifts in one day and assuming they can travel to the office the density the number of occupants, and corresponding density, could be reduced by a half or two-thirds. Again, in the short-term alternate desk chairs could be removed or desk marked up to indicate the fays they may be used.

The issue of travel is fundamental and a tricky one that needs resolving. There is little point in designing for social distancing in the post Covid-19 office if staff are first travelling to work on crowded trains and the underground. Note, train carriages are approximately 60m2 thus accommodating just 15 people with 2m separation. Furthermore, many people work in high-rise buildings, where the wait times for lifts are already agonising at peak hours, so access to upper floors will be a challenge if there is only one or two people allowed per lift car. Maybe in the long-term we will see the rise of the low-rise building or perhaps the reintroduction of paternoster lifts. Travel to and from work is a priority but agile working, with home working, is the more obvious solution in the short-term.   

The above design solutions will only work if the right behaviours are in place alongside good leadership.

Humans are creatures of habit and unless continuously reminded or rewarded will revert to previous behaviours. For example, consider how behaviours quickly returned to “normal” after similar, admittedly less contagious, viruses such as SARS and MERS.

Also, my personal observation, is that basic hygiene such as hand-washing and social distancing has not continued with the same vigour as at the start of the pandemic. As a psychologist, I draw on basic theory to explain why new behaviours are not sustained.

For example, Operant Conditioning helped clarify why behaviours that result in reward, or the avoidance of unpleasantness or punishment, are more likely to be repeated. One issue with Covid-19 is that the negative consequences are not immediate and so the “distance” from the required behaviour change makes it less sustainable. Consider the Stanford marshmallow experiment in which a child was offered a choice between one small but immediate reward (a marshmallow or pretzel), or two small rewards if they waited for 15 minutes. It was found that those with lower education were more likely to take the immediate reward rather than wait. Furthermore, in terms of everyday health threats, 60% of those suffering a heart attack return to smoking, despite the clear benefits of quitting.

Behaviour change requires continuous reinforcement, but Covid-19 is a more like a one-off incident, so repeat communications with reminders and short-term rewards will be required to sustain new behaviours. The design solutions above and recently proposed by the workplace community will at least act as reminder and nudge behaviours, but I am not convinced that the required behaviours will stick beyond a novelty period.

In terms of leadership, trusting and empowering staff to occasionally work from home is a clear pre-cursor to adopting agile working. In the majority of my projects, it is middle management that object the most to working from home. Many prefer their staff to be to hand and take the easy route of managing performance by time in the office rather than by agreed deliverables.

More importantly, right now we need to cease the practice of presenteeism, where staff feel obliged to turn up to the office even when ill, and actively discourage staff from returning until fully restored back to good health. Our new-found skills with on-line meetings, supported by an investment in technology, will help staff connected when not in the office. In the long-term blended physical/virtual working environments will help sustain such practice.

In Conclusion

Workplace design can help us overcome infection from viruses but, rather than reinvent the workplace, we need to first recollect and adopt those best practices that have been repeatedly ignored.

There are some relatively easy low-cost short-term solutions, such as continuing home working and reducing desk densities by removing seats up marking up desks. Long-term design solutions will help nudge and sustain the required behaviours going forward. There are likely to be associated up-costs due to new technology, increased cleaning regimes and reduced space density, but consider it a form of medical insurance.

Right now ongoing clear and sensible communication and leadership, based on the management and design principals listed above, is essential.


Guest post by Nigel Oseland, Workplace Unlimited
Nigel is a workplace strategist, change manager, environmental psychologist, researcher, international speaker and author. He draws on his psychology background and his own research to advise occupiers on how to redefine their workstyles and rethink their workplace to create working environments that enhance individual and organisational performance and deliver maximum value. Nigel is a co-founder of Workplace Trends.


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/