Our realistic but gloomy predictions for 2025!
Happy New Year! Here are our somewhat doom-laden predictions for the world of work and more in 2025 - but with some positive undercurrents nonetheless! From time to time, not…
Videos and Podcasts – Flexibility in Sound and Vision
Here we have selected videos and audio featuring issues and ideas in the the worlds of flexible working, transforming workplaces, and the future of work. Bookmark this page to find…
It’s the Autonomy, Stupid! 6 reasons to avoid heavy-handed RTO mandates
Amazon has been much in the news for its sudden requirement to get everybody “back to the office” for five days per week. Actually, they are an outlier. Most organisations…
How Smart is Hybrid Working? Workplace Geeks podcast with Andy Lake
In April 2024, Andy Lake spoke with Ian Ellison and Chris Moriarty of the renowned Workplace Geeks podcast, with further commentary from Dan Wakelin. Now in its third series, the…
The right to disconnect – what could be wrong with that?
We all need to be able to switch off from work and have the control we seek between work and the rest of life. So a “right to disconnect” might…
![How productive and sustainable is flexible working? The research [Video]](https://flexibility.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Andy-Lake-productivity-sustainability-flexibility-video-300x300.png)
How productive and sustainable is flexible working? The research [Video]
For his recently published book, Beyond Hybrid Working, Andy Lake has dived into the research on the impacts of flexible working – in particular ‘remote working’ – on productivity and…
The ABC of Smart and Flexible Working – our helpful Glossary of terms
Here is our (occasionaly opinionated!) glossary of terms commonly used in the worlds of Smart and Flexible Working, including in some cases an explanation of preferred uses and the reasons…
Andy Lake and his new book - Beyond Hybrid Working
The book to help you move Beyond Hybrid Working
By Andy Lake Since 2020, we have seen an acceleration of trends that span more than 30 years. These include the rise of flexible working, new office design and new…
Smart Working Handbook – 3rd edition
It's time to take a strategic approach to flexible and hybrid working - and make them smarter! That's the message of the new edition of the Smart Working Handbook launched…
Four ways to address flexibility for hands-on and site-specific workers
Or, “What about the workers?” In all the debate about remote/hybrid working, the future of offices and the future of work, it’s often forgotten that the majority of the world’s…
Flexibility News in Brief
We're reviving our digest of news about Flexible Working, Smart Working and all things connected. And we add in a little opinion here and there too. If you have news…
30 years at the forefront of insight on Flexible and Smart Working
It's been my privilege to have seen, over the course of nearly 30 years, flexible working move from a dubious workplace eccentricity to mainstream acceptance. And, indeed, to have contributed…
Hybrid working: a case of old dogmas learning new tricks?
Is hybrid working a revolution in the way we work, or a case of old office-based place and presence-based ways of working reasserting themselves in a slightly different guise? A…
Evaluating ‘Remote Work’ success depends crucially on What Else Has Changed
Remote work is more productive. Remote work is less productive. Remote workers are more engaged. Remote workers are less engaged. They are more stressed. They are less stressed. Homeworking is…
How to go “Beyond Hybrid Working” for transformative change
I’m delighted to say the manuscript of my new book, Beyond Hybrid Working, is now in the hands of the publisher (Routledge), wites Andy Lake. It started out as a…
What’s in store for the flexible world of work in 2023?
The Flexibility predictions for 2023 and beyond One of my maxims in writing about the future of work is, “The future is always plural and multispeed”. And that plurality includes…
Time for a Bonfire of Useless Terminology about Work and Workplace!
There are certain words and phrases that consistently crop up in commentary on work and workplace that at best oversimplify, and at worst distort our understanding of changes to the…
Test how well your Hybrid Working works with a Smart Working evaluation
Across the world organisations have been adopting various forms of ‘Hybrid Working’ – trying to combine employee aspirations for more choice over how they work with the more traditional structures…
How to Make the Future Work – Book review
Review of ‘How the Future Works’ by Brian Elliott, Sheela Subramanian & Helen Kupp While many organisations are debating the “return to the office”, hybrid working and how many days…
Serendipitous innovation at the watercooler!
Overegging the Serendipity
Do people need be in the same building to be creative? This article, originally from 2014, still resonates today as people work through the "return to the office" and hype…
How flexible is a four-day week?
The 4-day week is not a single animal, and some versions of it are smarter and more flexible than others. Here we explore the concept, its different versions, and look…
Where are you on the Unreconstructed-Hybrid-Flexible-Smart Maturity scale?
We are living in a time of both uncertainty and innovation, both for the nature of work and the future of the workplace. Some commentators are saying the future is…
Beyond the Workplace Zoo – towards the human-centric office
Book Review: Beyond the Workplace Zoo, by Nigel Oseland Flexibility verdict: Highly recommended! Amidst all the current debate about home versus office, a vital factor – and one too often…
New Normal? It’s Time to Embrace the New Abnormal!
We’re hearing a lot these days about “the New Normal” to refer to future ways of working. The funny thing is, it sounds an awful lot like the old normal…
Being Smart about Flexibility – and how to put it into practice
Is your organisation wrestling with how to implement “hybrid working” as they approach an end to the lockdown? If so, it’s worth noting that most of the issues are not…
10 things to help people change to Smart Working
This is the follow-up article to 10 Things I Hate About Change, from January 2013. Most of the advice still applies, we feel. [Archive article] 10 things to help people…
10 Things I Hate about Change
Rolling out Smart Working involves extensive changes to ways of working, culture, property and technology. And some people are instinctively hostile to change. This is the first of two articles…
The potential pitfall of always-on working – a practical response
There's a continuing debate around the connection between remote working and working longer hours - the danger of being "always on" once you have the tools to do so. This…
Home alone and disconnected? A practical response
This article from 2012 is in the Flexibility tradition of not just pinpointing an issue, but setting out practical responses to it. Being isolated and disconnected have been constant themes…
OK Legislators – it’s your turn to work smarter!
This article, from 2014, argues that legislators (not least in the UK) need to get on board with smarter working. The nature of the work ought to make it a…
Why the Workplace industry should think outside its ever-shrinking boxes!
Andy Lake interviewed by Marcus Bowen for the Work & Place Podcast, about his article on The Emerging Social Infrastructure of Work and Why the Workplace Industry Needs to Think…
The Smart Work Network home page
The Smart Work Network – sharing experience and ideas on Smart Working
It’s good to share knowledge and experience about Smart Working, isn’t it? That’s what the Smart Work Network is all about. It’s a free-to-join network for people in organisations with…
Rethinking public policy to embrace 21st century working
This is the third of three linked articles examining the implications of the emerging world of work and the need to harness potential benefits from reducing the separation of work…
The office isn’t dead, but its future is smaller
The evidence is overwhelming, and it pretty much all points in one direction. The post-pandemic future will see a substantial reduction in office space as people become accustomed to working…
Modern and luxury office interior, large working space. 3D Rendering.
After the Pandemic – What’s next for Smart Workplaces?
‘Smart Working’ describes that combination of flexible working practices, digital technologies and ‘activity-based’ workplaces that support more choice and mobility. Organisations already on the Smart Working journey and embracing ‘flexibility…
What are homes for in the 21st century?
This is the second in a series of 3 posts on the rethinking the place of work in society, and how many of the assumptions and practices of how society…
Rethinking the social infrastructure of work after the pandemic
What kind of houses should we build when home is also the workplace? Over the past few years there has been a constant stream of articles and reports about how…
The uses and limitations of role profiling for Smart Working
It's useful for planning, but don't let it get in the way of more dynamic flexibility I’m sometimes brought into help with Smart/Agile working projects that are running into trouble…
The Smart Working Handbook points the way
(Probably) the world's most influential guide to Smart Working Our Smart Working Handbook has been enormously influential in helping to shape the way that organisations work. Business, public sector and…
Biophilic design for more natural offices – is there an elephant in the room?
The quest for more natural and humane workplaces raises some fundamental questions about the what and where of work There was sharp growth in interest in recent years in the…
Writing the British Standards Code of Practice for Smart Working
Comment from the author of PAS 3000, Andy Lake of Flexibility.co.uk (Article from January 2016) Note: All central government departments and agencies in the UK are now mandated to implement…