Workplace Insight

Mark Eltringham chats with Jo Knight over a glass of red sine about all things sustainability. Jo is forthright and uncompromising on an issue that everybody cares about, but about which they are also frequently misinformed, taking actions that often have unintended consequences.

Will Easton joins Mark Eltringham for a chat over a drink. They discuss many things including: the scope of facilities and workplace management and why it offers so many career opportunities for people; punk approaches to work; what presence means and why it can be found in mosh pits as well as when touching grass; the role UX in designing offices; and why you should take the claims of iconic office designs with a pinch of salt.

Change management consultant and author Jennifer Bryan invited Mark Eltringham to share a Cosmopolitan and discuss how firms can better help people to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Along the way they talk about the futility of trying to work out how much time everybody should spend in an office, how an American came to use words like brilliant and Zed so effortlessly, the need for crises to get things moving some times, and what happens next.

For the second week running, the football talk takes place off mike. Joe Croft shares a coffee and a chat with Mark Eltringham. Instead of the mixed fortunes of Middlesbrough and Stoke City, they talk about everything to do with sustainability in office fitout and construction. They discuss the limit of accreditations and standards, the need to get beyond box ticking and greenwash and what best practice really looks like. They also discuss what might happen when our favoured recycled materials become scarce, and also how resource hungry the online and digital world is.

David Sharp joins Mark Eltringham over a bourbon to discuss a wide range of issues - and avoid one that won't help either of them. They discuss the ethics of artificial intelligence, why we need more friction in our lives (and less seamlessness), the philosophy of work, how to deal with social media, making your own life difficult on purpose, and the pleasures of finding out you are wrong about something.

Domino Risch uses her new found freedom to discuss the limitations of relying on a single place to get work done. Sharing a hot drink over numerous time zones, she chats with Mark Eltringham about what firms get wrong about hybrid and in-office work, the best places to have ideas and how hard the modern world makes it to achieve flow states. They discuss the potential of anthropology to change the way we work. And what the current news about Deutsche Bank's insistence people come into the office on Mondays and Fridays tells us about the avoidable tensions that exist in the tedious debate about remote and office based work.

Over a well-earned G&T, Antony Slumbers and Mark Eltringham discuss what makes work and workplaces great, the origins and wisdom of determining how much time people should spend in an office and how we escape the interminable binary loop of headlines about whether the home or the office is a better place to work. Antony talks about the role of AI in the future of work and property and what people should focus on in their changing lives.

It's bitterly cold outside but over a glass of hazy IPA, Nigel Oseland and Mark Eltringham warm to a conversation about fish guts, the sounds that make us cringe, what comfort means and what it would really take to get people to spend more time in the office.

Monica Parker joins Mark Eltringham to share an Old Fashioned and discuss how to find wonder in the everyday, the limits of workplace design, how to achieve flow states in a world of distractions and what it means to be truly happy.

Take me home, with Mike Petrusky by IN Conversation

Mark Eltringham is joined for a glass of red wine (or two) by Esme Banks-Marr of BVN architects and Jo Sutherland of Magenta. They discuss the joys of shared space, when people should tell AI to FO, the limits of workplace design, how to create a great culture wherever people work and much more

Workplace Cocktail Hour... with Chris Moriarty by IN Conversation

Do organisations truly understand how their people work? A big question that needed some unpacking and was explored at a recent Workplace Evolutionaries event, led by Tim Allen and Mark Eltringham. Raw audio from the event so includes brief chat about dogs. It explored aspects of how to encourage organisations to explore their understanding in more detail; how questions around productivity (personal and organisational) can hinder that exploration and set you on a different (and difficult) path that might have more to do with presenteeism and control; how trust is still a dominating factor in the decision-making process; are we mistaking hybrid working for rota working and how is it different to flexible working; where best for creativity and innovation; are we entering a time where organisations need to accept more uncertainty in the short-term as it is a complex area of functionality; it's about the meetings between the meetings and the individual, informal organisational structure to achieve delivery rather than the official hierarchy. And then a wider conversation including a discussion on the idea of the 4-day week and other ideas centred on the new era of work.

One of Europe's most experienced and eminent property and workplace specialists, Chris Kane talks about his new book on workplace transformation, published at a time when the pandemic has changed everything.

Dr Sarah Norgate and Sir Cary Cooper have just published an extremely timely new book exploring the links between wellbeing and flexible working. They discuss why firms have been slow to adopt the practice and what they and their employees can do now.

The digital twin for buildings creates enormous opportunities for owners, tenants, users and facilities managers. In this conversation, Peter Löffler , Head of Innovation at Siemens Smart Infrastructure discusses what digital twins are and how they have the potential to transform the built environment and the experiences of people.

One of the UK’s greatest ever athletes and now a corporate wellbeing consultant, Sally Gunnell discusses with Kate Usher the challenges faced by women in the second half of their lives. Kate is a menopause and relationships coach and the author of a new book: Your Second Phase: Reclaiming Work and Relationships During and After Menopause.

In the third in our series of podcasts looking at different aspects of workplace wellbeing I am in conversation with Derek Clements Croome, one of the world’s leading experts on wellbeing and sustainability in the workplace. We look at the increasingly powerful links between personal wellbeing and green sustainable building design and consider some of the most important yet last talked about wellbeing and productivity issues such as temperature and air quality. Derek also talks about his new Flourish model which offers an unparalleled framework for considering the complexities of wellbeing and its links to engagement, productivity and creativity. The model also explores the links between green building design and personal wellbeing and the importance of offering people the chance to work in buildings with the WOW factor.

This is the second of six special episodes of the podcast in which we consider what are the most important facets of workplace wellbeing. We are incredibly grateful to Wellworking for making the series possible. Not only with their sponsorship but in their role as one of the UK’s leading organisations in the field and their commitment to an informed debate on what is a complex and changing issue. Today’s guest is Anna Davison who is head of workplace wellbeing at ukactive, one of the driving forces behind a new approach to physical activity and wellbeing in people’s lives. It draws on the expertise and energy of such high profile figures as Dame Tanni Grey Thompson and Dame Carol Black and works with people and organisations across the UK. Anna talks about the ways that organisations can help to improve the wellbeing of people in the workplace, looking at the vital role of ergonomics as well as the growing emphasis on movement and physical activity and the role that workplace design and working cultures can play. Enjoy.

Elina Grigorou is the author of a fantastic new book called Wellbeing in Interiors: Philosophy, Design & Value in Practice. The book looks not only at the ways organisations can use design to address the wellbeing of individuals, but also the impact this approach has on them as individuals in terms of their creativity and productivity. This in turn can have a transformative impact on the organisations for which they work. Crucially the book also looks at the philosophical underpinnings of wellbeing as well as the hardwired physical and psychological characteristics of people that mean many of the things we know about wellbeing have been apparent for hundreds or even thousands of years. In this episode, Elina is in conversation with Mark Eltringham in the first of a series of Wellbeing Matters podcasts in partnership with Wellworking. The idea for the series came about because of a debate that took place in 2018 and hosted by Wellworking featuring several of the people who have taken part in this series. What became apparent during that discussion was that while wellbeing is one of the most talked about workplace issues it is also one of the most complex, nuanced and yet misunderstood. This series aims to consider the facets of that issue in a sophisticated, informed and provocative way.

Is there a crisis of leadership in the 21st Century? And if so, what can we do about it? Mark Eltringham addresses the issues in conversation with Chris Lewis, the co-author along with Dr Pippa Malmgren of the book The Leadership Lab, diverting briefly to talk about the golden age of football and its lessons for the modern day leader.

Mark Eltringham talks to Sandra Gritti of Edge Technologies about the experiences of creating what is widely regarded as the most advanced and green office building in the world and what happens next.

James Woudhuysen talks to Mark Eltringham about the future of work, its myths and realities and the potential for the next generation of technology to completely transform workplaces and the world.