Welcome back to Collective Bookmarks. This week’s newsletter is a 6 minute read or about the time it takes to read the comments section on a LinkedIn post about AI.
Last week we attended Gable’s first panel on the future of workplace in San Francisco. The event brought together experts from a variety of companies in the Bay Area to discuss how they’re addressing change now.
Quote of the event, “If you hire folks under duress conditions and don’t provide a great work experience, they won’t stick around once conditions improve.”
In This Week’s Issue:
- Three Things You Should Know
- A Person You Should Know: Bex Moorhouse
- A Product We’re Into: Freespace
Events We’re Attending: Next week you can find us at HQO‘s Workplace Forum in Boston
Books We’re Reading: The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
As always, if you have feedback or questions please reach out.
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Three Things You Should Know
From The World of Work and Place
1.The Latest From FlexIndex
In their latest FlexIndex report the folks at Scoop took a look at how flexible different industries are. They specifically take a look at Tech companies vs all other industries as an aggregate. Tech as a whole is much more flexible, but when they dove deeper they found that small startups less than 100 people were much more flexible than large startup, and being remote first was also more prevalent amongst smaller companies. They pose an interesting question about whether as companies scale up, if flexibility will naturally go down and remote work would decrease?
What We Think: We would love to dive even deeper to understand whether there is a big difference amongst the companies within the “non-tech” group. However, the question posed by the team at FlexIndex is an important one. A lot of companies were created during the pandemic, so it’s natural to wonder if all of these companies that started remotely will eventually scale up and become less flexible. However, we think that as Dror Poleg has noted before, any company of a sufficient scale will naturally become distributed. So perhaps, there is a middle section where companies become more rigid?
2. The ROI of Empathy
This week brought us Kelly Colon’s first article for Collective Thoughts. In her first piece Kelly dives into how creating a more human centric working environment can help companies to drive engagement and some actionable tips on how companies can create such an environment. She emphasizes a number of points but a critical one is the idea that to build an empathetic culture you must continually learn and improve as your company grows. There is no end point to this journey.
What We Think: We’re obviously fans of Kelly’s but we think her article was extremely well timed given what we’ve seen in recent employee engagement reports, and even the report directly after this one. We hope that with the actionable information Kelly has provided, more companies will get curious about how to start creating a culture that is truly empathetic. By doing this companies can not only improve their employee engagement, but their own outcomes as well.
3. State of the Global Workplace
In the latest Gallup State of the Global Workplace report there is a plethora of awesome information. One key insight: “Galllup’s analysis finds that engagement has 3.8x as much influence on employee stress as work location. How people feel about their job has a lot more to do with their relationship with their team and manager than being remote or being on-site.” They also highlight in the report that while there is a record level of global engagement (23%), the majority of people (77%) are either passively disengaged (quietly quitting) or actively disengaged. Strangely, the report also suggests that employees are aware of what would make them more engaged, and Gallup’s CEO had actionable advice for executives. Focus on engaging your “winnable” employees, and get them better managers.
What We Think: With continuing record levels of stress, and continuing issues with employee engagement it’s clear that workplace teams need to take action. As highlighted in the report, engagement has 3.8x more impact on an employee’s stress than physical location. Perhaps by dropping the location focus for a moment, zooming out, and focusing on engagement – we can actually make some positive change for employees. If you’re looking for a place to start, go back to the second article in this newsletter.
One Big Thing
“When combined with actively disengaged employees, low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion dollars, or 9% of global GDP.”
-Gallup State of Global Workplace Report
Someone You Should Know
In The World of Work And Place
Bex Moorhouse is the Founder and Director of Invigorate Spaces Ltd – a corporate wellness consultancy focusing on workplace environments, experiences, and culture. With over 22 years’ experience in workplace, working for some of the world’s most exciting and innovative global brands, such as Nike and Converse. Bex set up Invigorate Spaces with a big mission – “To breathe life into the corporate world” because when companies put their people first, employees feel seen, valued, and heard and absolute magic happens!
In Her Own Words: Throughout my life there have been two consistent red threads, Sport and Workplace, so of course it was only natural that when I finally took the plunge to set up my workplace consultancy it’s focus was on wellbeing.
I have been in this industry for 22 years and I really find joy in creating and curating workplaces that are a physical manifestation of a company’s brand. Where everyone is welcomed with open arms and can enhance their performance just by working or playing in the space itself. I believe we should be creating destination workplaces that positively impact on colleagues, communities, and visitors beyond the four walls of the real estate itself.
Growing up I struggled with self-confidence and so when I found my voice, I promised I would speak up for the people that sometimes can’t. Equity in all aspects of work is very important, no one is forgotten when I consider either the environment, experience, or the culture of an organisation. Being Independent from the clients I serve, is a big superpower, as it allows me to challenge biases, push boundaries and fight for the investment that many workplaces really need, especially in the wellbeing space.
My company’s mission is to breathe life into the corporate world, we are more than numbers! Truly my work inspires me daily as I get to travel, workout, meet and help so many amazing people…if you are likeminded, please reach out as I would love to meet for a virtual coffee!
Know someone Incredible?
A Product We’re Into
Freespace
From Freespace: Companies worldwide are adapting their workspaces to evolving hybrid working patterns while keeping employee preferences at the forefront. They often end up trying to build on technology from a pre-pandemic world or through painful incremental integrations on archaic platforms to respond to the shifting requirements of the changing work environment. Freespace was founded in 2015 to support flexible working for companies intending to go free-address and evolved into a suite of fully integrated solutions supporting the transition to hybrid over the pandemic.
Freespace understands the nuanced balance between business objectives and people-driven goals and are uniquely positioned to simplify workspace management, planning, and utilization into a single comprehensive ecosystem. For over seven years, Freespace has provided “live” data and actionable insights to globally recognized brands, with over 150,000 app users and 140,000 sensors in 150 cities across the globe. Our suite of proprietary products, configurable apps, and software are all developed and produced in-house, providing clients with a fully integrated approach to fulfilling their goals.
What We Think: We always love a fully integrated platform like Freespace. Whether you want to plan, manage, or optimize your space – they have a tool for that. We also appreciated their focus on delivering privacy and security safeguards for employers & employees as well. Besides building a robust platform the team is also putting out some helpful content that you can find linked below. We hope you’ll check it out.
That’s It For This Week
We Appreciate You
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Until next time – Omar and Kayla