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Here’s why ‘cool’ offices don’t always make for a happier workforce

Posted on August 27, 2020 April 8, 2021 by Emma Jansen

Who are Britain’s happiest workers? The people who staff the London office of US travel tech firm Expedia, according to Glassdoor’s annual workplace satisfaction survey. In both 2016 and 2017, Expedia rated highest for employee satisfaction, according to anonymous reviews from current and past workers.

Reading this Business Insider profile of the “happiest office in London” might make you believe that Expedia’s high level of employee satisfaction is down almost entirely to the office itself and the various on-site perks – which includes table tennis, football, gaming consoles and a cocktail bar. There’s no doubt that this is a very attractive office.

But the survey of the employees shows that Expedia’s people like working there because of the business, not the fancy office. The most positive ratings cite “culture” and “career opportunities”. The physical surroundings barely merit a mention.

Welcome to E-Estonia, the tiny nation that’s leading Europe in digital innovation

Posted on August 26, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Big Brother does “just want to help” – in Estonia, at least. In this small nation of 1.3 million people, citizens have overcome fears of an Orwellian dystopia with ubiquitous surveillance to become a highly digital society.

The government took nearly all its services online in 2003 with the e-Estonia State Portal. The country’s innovative digital governance was not the result of a carefully crafted master plan, it was a pragmatic and cost-efficient response to budget limitations.

It helped that citizens trusted their politicians after Estonia regained independence in 1991. And, in turn, politicians trusted the country’s engineers, who had no commitment to legacy hardware or software systems, to build something new.

How to live with bears

Posted on August 25, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Bears have been on Europeans’ minds lately, as violent encounters with these powerful mammals make international headlines.

In late July, an encounter in the Italian Alps between a female bear, 14-year-old Kj2, a man and his dog ended with the man being hospitalised. A few weeks later, Kj2 was killed upon order of the provincial administration. Around the same time, in the French Pyrenees, a bear startled a flock of sheep and drove them to their death at the bottom of a cliff.

The increasing number of confrontations with bears is not coincidental. Like other large predators, bears have been reintroduced all over Europe since at least the early 1990s, thanks to European Union-funded wildlife programmes.

Introverts think they won’t like being leaders but they are capable

Posted on August 24, 2020 April 8, 2021 by Emma Jansen

Introverts often don’t think they will enjoy leadership roles and so are less likely to go for the top job, new research finds. In fact, introverts in our study thought they would be worried and distressed in leadership situations.

Whether or not someone is an introvert is usually measured by how much they exhibit the personality trait called “extraversion” – being outgoing and social. Compared to extraverts, introverts tend to be relatively passive, quiet and reserved.

Not surprisingly, someone’s level of introversion or extraversion is related to a range of important personal and professional outcomes. For example, research has found that extraverts are more likely than introverts to perform well in sales jobs. Introverts, on the other hand, are more likely to be honest or humble and are less likely to risk their own health and safety.

Cat lovers rejoice: watching online videos lowers stress and makes you happy

Posted on August 23, 2020 October 7, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Watching cute cat videos and looking at their online pictures may not be a waste of time. A new study has found doing so could boost energy levels and increase feelings of happiness.

Published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior the study even suggests that watching internet cats could be used as a form of digital pet therapy or stress relief.

Internet data shows two million cat videos were posted on YouTube as of 2014, totalling nearly 26 billion views. Celebrity cats – such as Grumpy Cat and and Lil BUB – have also sprung up on social media, garnering mass followings.

Getting serious about funny: Psychologists see humor as a character strength

Posted on August 22, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Humor is observed in all cultures and at all ages. But only in recent decades has experimental psychology respected it as an essential, fundamental human behavior.

Historically, psychologists framed humor negatively, suggesting it demonstrated superiority, vulgarity, Freudian id conflict or a defense mechanism to hide one’s true feelings. In this view, an individual used humor to demean or disparage others, or to inflate one’s own self-worth. As such, it was treated as an undesirable behavior to be avoided. And psychologists tended to ignore it as worthy of study.

Six simple ways to fill your wardrobe with sustainable clothing

Posted on August 21, 2020 October 7, 2020 by Emma Jansen

The environmental impact of fashion waste is overwhelming. Every year the UK alone sends 350,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill. And as the majority of garments are made from oil-based materials like polyester – 22.67 billion tonnes of polyester clothing is produced every year worldwide – they aren’t going anywhere fast. Oil doesn’t decompose, and if burned the material will release harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. There are also problems associated with trimmings such as buttons, zips, studs and interfacing or lining. When buried with other waste in landfill, the combination of metal components, moisture and heat causes gases such as methane to be emitted.

In response to this, and other elements of the fast fashion crisis, the industry is changing. Some brands have introduced recycling schemes to address what happens to their products post-purchase. And the UK’s Environmental Audit Committee recently recommended a penny charge on each garment sold to fund more and better clothing collection and recycling schemes.

Winning worker hearts and minds is key to companies achieving their green goals

Posted on August 20, 2020 April 8, 2021 by Emma Jansen

A lot of companies say they care about the environment and commit to certain goals but don’t end up doing much about it.

A whopping 78% of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500, for example, issued sustainability reports in 2018 and 66% of all U.S. companies committed to the U.N.‘s Sustainable Development Goals in 2017 through either explicit statements about the goals or implicit actions that support them.

But relatively few say they’ve actually embedded the sustainability goals into their business strategies or into departments such as communications, human resources and supply chain management, corporate functions that can play a huge role in boosting sustainability. A 2016 report found that just 2% of companies actually achieve their sustainability goals.

Driverless cars could see humankind sprawl ever further into the countryside

Posted on August 19, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Self-driving cars will change how we live, in all sorts of ways. But they won’t just affect us humans – the coming revolution in autonomous transport has significant implications for wildlife as well. Nature conservationists and planners need to think hard about the impact of driverless vehicles, most notably in terms of renewed urban sprawl.

In some ways, wider developments in automotive technology bode well for the environment. Electric cars will increasingly replace the internal combustion engine, and that should, in theory, reduce carbon emissions and health-afflicting air pollution.

Through minimising traffic jams, driverless cars may also reduce overall energy use. Unlike human drivers, computers can avoid the “concertina” effect of needless acceleration and braking that exacerbates congestion, and won’t be tempted to “rubberneck” when passing an accident. And, as autonomous vehicles aren’t restricted by human reaction times, it may make sense to increase speed limits for them on major inter-city routes.

How to make the green belt productive – but still green

Posted on August 18, 2020 October 7, 2020 by Emma Jansen

England’s green belts have had, and continue to have, a major impact on town planning. The idea of a ring of countryside surrounding an urban area to prevent sprawl originated in the 1930s and spread to post-war London and was adopted nationally in 1955. Today, about 13% of England is green belt land.

But what made sense in the 1950s seems outdated and rather stale now. A one-size-fits-all approach to tackling complex planning issues tends to create more problems than it solves. You don’t need a belt-shaped area of land to check urban sprawl; you don’t need to block all development to promote greener outcomes. Perhaps in the 21st century it is time to admit that green belts are no longer fit for purpose.

With fewer cars on US streets, now is the time to reinvent roadways and how we use them

Posted on August 17, 2020 October 7, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Sticking closer to home because of COVID-19 has shown many people what cities can be like with less traffic, noise, congestion and pollution. Roads and parking lots devoted to cars take up a lot of land. For example, in Phoenix, Los Angeles and New York City these spaces account for over one-third of each city’s total area.

When stay-at-home orders went into effect in many parts of the U.S. in March, streets and parking lots went dormant seemingly overnight. Within days, municipalities across the U.S. started shifting these spaces to other uses that better suit people.

Sustainable cities need more than parks, cafes and a riverwalk

Posted on August 16, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

There are many indexes that aim to rank how green cities are. But what does it actually mean for a city to be green or sustainable?

We’ve written about what we call the “parks, cafes and a riverwalk” model of sustainability, which focuses on providing new green spaces, mainly for high-income people. This vision of shiny residential towers and waterfront parks has become a widely-shared conception of what green cities should look like. But it can drive up real estate prices and displace low- and middle-income residents.