Getting Over it Being Over, Not Over
It’s been a rather hectic few months here at Looking Up Feeling Good in between getting a complete site rebuild, multiple interstate travel commitments and assisting an assortment of clients trying to deal with one rather interesting challenge – what to do when we’re supposed to be done and dusted with a pandemic, yet we still can’t get employees we need, we’re struggling to keep employees healthy, connected and back in the space we once called ‘the office’?
For many workplaces and Senior Managers, whilst declarations of ‘it’s all over’ are coming from the Political level, the reality for businesses and other organisations is they’re over it being Over but NOT Over. In fact there’s some significant pushback.
One core challenge is the now emerging fight between the CFO and Director of HR. CFOs in city locations and larger suburban office environments have finally twigged to the sheer and arguably unnecessary expense that is Commercial leasing. And they have allies in the workplace – employees who know the sheer and completely unnecessary expense that is ‘traveling to work’.
It seems the only ones out of the loop are CEOs and HR Directors who are more comfortable seeing human activity, regardless of whether or not that human activity is being productive. What this ‘Over Not Over event has shown is that work from home works, Workers can be trusted, often prefer it and more importantly are as, and if not MORE effective than they are in the open plan, noise ridden citadels that are modern workplace designs. Maybe HR Directors ought to get themselves of the delightful book ‘Quiet’ by Susan Cain. In fact the mayors of the three major cities in Australia might want to grab a coy too for, despite call, incentives and pleas for workers to come back, they’re NOT coming back!
Well not in the way they once did. Rather it’s time for the Commercial Property Managers to take stock and by that I mean changing their portfolios from Offices to other uses. The two big uses will be decent size apartments for regular people (not shoeboxes for students), and indoor farming. About three years ago I did a presentation for the Property Council at a Victorian conference – they can’t say they weren’t warned, regardless of the trigger.
So the pandemic is NOT OVER. But I’m well over being told it’s over by politicians running on wish lists
Stay safe people
The Advanced one day Strategic Planning Workshop in Sydney on the 11th of December at Rydges World Square is now fully booked For inquiries about the next series of dates for the 2009 series, keep an eye out on The Australian Strategic Planning Institute website at www.taspi.com.au or contact us via email here
Read More >Every now and again what sounds like a really good idea turns out to be less beneficial than what was hoped for. There’s lots of talk right now about technology solutions and ways in which societies can change the way they use water – there’s conferences and ‘talkfests’ a plenty featuring many of the industry…
Read More >The second annual fund raiser was held in late October and attended by almost 300 people. Marcus Barber offers a brief update: The Blackwood 8 commitee put together a great fund raiser on behalf of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Melbourne. With a delightful crowd warm up by Greg Champion of the ‘Coodabeen…
Read More >The slides used as part of Marcus Barber’s key note address to the Regional Produce Summit are now available via the link below Held at the Wangaratta Gateway Motel (and the first conference event staged in its very impressively redsigned function room) the conference brought together a range of speakers to discuss culinary tourism,…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will be kicking off proceedings at the 2008 Regional Produce Summit in Wangaratta on the 20th of October where he’ll detail some of the emerging issues likely to impact upon the tourism and food sector in the foreseeable future and suggest ways that businesses in the sector might be able to…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will both key note and act as Master of Ceremonies at the Lockhart Industrial symposium on the 9th of October, in Lockhart NSW. Marcus will discuss the clear business advantages that Eco Industrial parks provide to businesses, the way that symbiotic supply chains work to improve business resilience and the way…
Read More >Marcus Barber joined host Tim Cox and co-host, author and writer Andrew Peglar on the Conversation hour to muse about the types of futures one might expect to see in coming years. After Tim asked for clarification between a General, Theoretical and Strategic Futurist, Andrew kicked off with a question over the singularity. The…
Read More >Members of the Futures Foundation and the AFFA will be congregating in Pearl Beach in the coming weeks to consider the state of play in the Australian Futures community. Given the emerging challenges in Australia and around the world, the futures community requires just as much serious contemplation and forethought as does any one …
Read More >One of our many Nordic watchers, Are Thorsteinsson, has posted the Future Matters segment looking at the future of robotics, along with marking up full language captions in Danish. Although a couple of years old now, the early signs listed in this segment are only now coming into more mainstream focus Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber has contributed a chapter to Volume Five of the ‘Death and Anti-Death’ Anthology which has just been published by Ria University. With contributors including Aubrey de Grey and Kevin Kelly and edited by Dr. Charles Tandy, Volume Five in the series is dedicated to the memory of Loren Eiseley, the renowned…
Read More >