Tag: Linda Trim

In an era where the corporate landscape often champions extroversion, it's time to recognise the unique and invaluable contributions introverts bring to the workplace.  Recent insights from various studies, expert analyses, and workplace trends highlight how introverts excel in corporate life, leveraging their inherent strengths to drive success. 

The workplace is one of the most important social resources in a typical adult’s life but more meetings, faceless chats and fewer work friends is fuelling an epidemic of loneliness. Right now, people are experiencing a surge in loneliness so profound that the American Surgeon General has characterised it as an epidemic. Some believe remote and flexible work is at fault, fraying our social ties by removing incidental interactions from our daily lives but the data tells a different story.

The hybrid worker of 2023 is recognised as very different from the pre-pandemic office worker - but how to manage the hybrid workspace is the number one question asked of. How to get the hybrid work model right is causing confusion in South African workplaces this year.

It’s been nearly three years since we converted our couches, kitchen tables and bedrooms into our work from home offices - but WFH habits risk ageing our bodies and brains even as many people return to work or follow a hybrid model.

Did you hear? Gossip, whispered conversation, speculation and half truths that once flowed through the workplace, has all but vanished in our new network of home offices.  But while it might seem like a good thing as gossip is often damaging, the truth is it is one the things we miss most about the workplace.

The coronavirus pandemic will have long-term effects on offices as the habits and routines developed of a century of work have vanished overnight. While the office has an important future, the 2021 version is likely to be markedly different: materials, layouts and even how we interact with it will all evolve. 

After working from home and collaborating at a distance, the importance of the workplace and all that it offers has become clear: An office is more than just a place to work and while some people have adapted to working from home (WFH), many people miss the office, perhaps even surprising themselves.

After nearly two months of remote working, South Africans are ready to get back to working in the office as the initial novelty of remote working has revealed unexpected difficulties, detracting from people doing their jobs properly. The reality of working from home was certainly different to expectations now that we are well into what is a giant social experiment.

Approximately 15 to 20 percent of people are neurodivergent, a collection of conditions that includes autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia. 

Co-working spaces are increasingly popular in South Africa and around the world as more people and companies jump on the trend. From what we have seen in past few years and the massive expected further adoption of shared work spaces as the norm, we think it is the future of work.