Something that stuck in my mind when I was a kid was the idea of ‘deferred gratification’ – the idea that you work hard now and got your reward in some future time for example by doing well at exams. This carried me through grinding poverty by giving me the hopeful vision of a better …
Whilst Covid is becoming a distant memory (or rather a new, less intense background feature for most people) the post-Covid age is marked by the harsh reality that organisations have limits to how far they can accommodate the wishes of their employees. In addition, the age-old lack of understanding between different groups of people still …
Not many people working now were also working thirty years ago, but, for those that were, work has changed beyond recognition. Virtually gone are whole industries and sectors (for example coal mining, shorthand typists or textile production), replaced by waves of different roles in technology and the service sectors in the UK. As industries shrank …
Introduction Welcome to the brave new world of work. ‘What’s Happening to Work?’ is a collection of observations about work, society and individuals, and how workplaces are stumbling through the most rapid evolution in living memory. In the not-so-distant past, the office was a land of cubicles, where coffee breaks were sacred and water cooler …
The Progress Jury met and talked about no-platforming following the vocal opposition to Professor Kathleen Stock speaking at the Oxford Union. There was a range of opinions (as ever), with most people feeling that freedom of speech is a fundamental right. Some transgender people certainly feel that people who believe that men cannot biologically become …
Are we are now so worried about what we say that we are filtering out wit? The recent decision to produce a new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with Augustus Gloop no longer being ‘fat’ but ‘enormous, ‘little men’ becoming ‘little people’ and ‘secretary’ becoming ‘business woman’ shows to me that this has …
You can still see the vestiges of Covid if you look closely: masks in the doctor’s surgery, emptier buses and (in part) an economic crisis. One sector that looks to be shaken up by Covid is education With Covid turning education on its head, I talk to Dr Tony Breslin on my podcast ‘Any Better …
Any Better Ideas about education after lockdown? Nyla Naseer talks to Dr Tony Breslin. Read More »
Being scammed can be a lottery Earlier in the week the BBC announced that more people will be winning bigger prizes on Premium bonds. Savings with the government that go into a lottery every month and offer prizes from £25 to 1m. Chances of winning 1 in 24,000. That compares to 1 in 97 to …
For some decades there has been a growing gap between what people expect out of life and what they can actually access. This has huge repercussions for people in terms of reality versus hope. This affects huge numbers of people and the way that we deal with changing realities matters at an individual and societal …
Covid lockdowns enabled the great remote working experiments of 2020/21 around the world. 60% of the adult working population worked remotely at some point during the first lockdown in the UK, a total of over 8 million people or a quarter of the population working remotely, as opposed to half that figure in 2019 according …