Welcome back to Collective Bookmarks. This week’s newsletter is a 5 minute read, or about the time it takes to get connected to the in flight wifi. Collective Bookmarks is sponsored by HqO, the world’s leading workplace experience platform.
Last week we announced the formation of our Collective Connect community and we couldn’t be happier with the response we’ve gotten. If you want to learn more and join us you can find out more here. Our community invites will start rolling out August 7th.
In This Week’s Issue:
- Three Things You Should Know
- A Person You Should Know: Brian Elliott
- A Product We’re Into: Avuity
Events We’re Attending: Employee Experience Happy Hour & Panel with Epoch & Collective
Books We’re Reading: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
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.Asynchronous Work Can Fuel Creativity
In a recent HBR article Aruna Ranganathan looked at whether creativity was impacted by synchronous vs asynchronous work. She and her research partner hypothesized that while synchronous creativity has some benefits, it also limits the creativity of people who are typically marginalized or of lower status. They conducted research with Baul Folk musicians and found that the found that “women’s performances were rated 17% higher when they recorded asynchronously.” Their research reaffirms previous research that has shown that for those who are less empowered within a system, asynchronous work can empower them to be more creative by removing the obstacles to their creativity.
What We Think: This piece of research also reminded us of research into the best way to run a brainstorm. Often people think that brainstorms all happen in person at that moment. However, the brainstorms with the best results often start as an asynchronous independent exercise and then bring together those people to continue brainstorming together. If there is one thing to take from this article, it is that many of our assumptions about what works “best” may change in the coming years. As we learn more, we must be open to adapting our own practices and trying new things.
2. Why We Need Community
In his first article for Collective Thoughts our CEO and Co-Founder Omar Ramirez dives into why community and connection are more important than ever. In the face of a loneliness epidemic, and a massive upheaval in how we live / work – coming together has never been more important. He also explains how these factors have led to our creation of the Collective Connect community to enable workplace professionals to go further, together.
3. Why Hybrid Work Can Become Toxic
Most of us have likely experienced issues with toxic work environments. In the HBR article linked below Mark Mortensen outlines how toxic work issues can be exacerbated by hybrid working arrangements. He outlines that in the hybrid working model these issues can become more prevalent due to changes in dynamics caused by remoteness, some fundamental imbalances in hybrid, reduced cohesion & trust, and challenges with resolving issues. He also outlines that these effects can be met by educating employees & managers, laying a solid cultural foundation, have ongoing conversations, and intervening quickly.
What We Think: As the author notes these issues are not unique to hybrid companies and many companies that started remote have great foundations that lessen the frequency of issues like this. Hybrid working is not inherently bad, however, it does require updated skill sets and structures in order to make it work properly. We appreciated Matt’s outline for how to address / get ahead of some of the issues of hybrid working. Particularly, educating employees and managers with new practices is very important. Companies should be deploying new training and updating skill sets as soon as they can in order to avoid some of the sticky issues that can quickly bubble up as hybrid becomes a more permanent fixture.
Together with
HqO, ranked No. 75 on the Inc. 5000 list, is transforming how people connect with each other and the places they work. The HqO Workplace Experience Platform and App makes it easy for companies and commercial property teams to create modern workplaces through world-class amenities and services that allow people to thrive and produce the best results. Active in over 250 million square feet in 25 countries, 57% of the Fortune 100 rely on HqO to enhance their workplace experiences, improve employee satisfaction, and drive operational excellence.
One Big Thing
“I was completely free. I could sing as I wished. I missed some notes at a place, but then I caught on with it later on. I had complete independence and it felt like I was flying like a bird.” Baul Folk Musician
Someone You Should Know
In The World of Work And Place
Brian Elliott
From His LinkedIn: “I’ve spent ~25 years building teams and leading companies in technology. The one thing I’ve learned over and over is that culture eats strategy for breakfast.
After decades building high performance teams and products that people love, I’m now acting as an advisor, speaker and advocate for building ways of working together that are better for people and organizations.
The world has moved past financial and physical capital as the determinants of success. Business challenges and competitive advantages in this century come down to people: how you attract and retain diverse talent, how you align them against common purpose that engages them fully, and how you enable them to act with agility to achieve great things.
It’s also time to focus on making the world of work great for all people. Diverse teams create better companies and better products. But we’ve been failing for decades to make real progress not just on the “diverse” part but more importantly on equity and belonging.
The challenges of 2020 created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reset how we work together. Let’s not squander it.”
What We Think: We’re fairly biased on Brian since he’s an advisor to Collective. However, Brian and the work he began at Future Forum and that he continues to produce – are something that every workplace practitioner should be digesting. Brian brings much needed nuance to the conversations around how, when, and where we’ll be working in the future. Hit the link below and follow him today.
Know someone Incredible?
A Product We’re Into
Avuity
AVUITY uses proprietary hardware and software to measure the occupancy, utilization, temperature, light, noise, and humidity of a space. This data informs real estate, workplace experience, and facilities teams about how to best design, utilize and service their space. With AVUITY, customers can expect to improve the utilization of their space by eliminating unnecessary or poorly utilized space, the in-office employee experience by delivering the types of space employees use most, HVAC operations by understanding which spaces fall outside the allowable range, and even improved cleanliness through targeted, usage-based cleaning.
What We Think: Avuity is unique to the market since they are both a software and hardware company providing workplace professionals with data to make better decisions on space utilization and how employees engage with various space types. We know how important data is to our industry as it helps to ensure we’re optimizing our real estate appropriately and encouraging a sustainable workplace experience.
We like Avuity because their sensors and data also capture temperature, light, noise and the humidity of a space – this additive information helps workplace professionals understand how their space is performing and the reasoning as to why or why not users utilize the space.
That’s It For This Week
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