BY PHIL KEOGHAN
One thing is certain when we look back at 2020 – it is a year that the world will never forget.
For me, the personal and professional impacts of the coronavirus outbreak are too numerous to count and sadly at the time I write this foreword, the end of the upheaval is not yet within sight.
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Worry comes in many forms. Of course, we worry about the health of our friends and family, for our colleagues and our communities, but more and more, we’re beginning to worry about our future. For businesses around the world, the responsibility is severe. Not only do we need to adapt our work practices, physical spaces and supply chains to ensure they are safe and effective, we also need to support staff by enabling them to be productive whenever and wherever they need to work.
The productivity puzzle itself is an older issue, one which Ricoh has committed firmly to addressing in recent years. Two years ago, we partnered with Oxford Economics to research the unrecognised value of the contribution that employees make and could be making to our success, ultimately resulting in value converted to gross-domestic product (GDP). Our research culminated in a report entitled ‘The Economy of People’, which revealed that the UK could stand to gain as much as £36.8 billion by investing in change.
In the past year, we have developed an active roadmap to help businesses begin their transformation, and launched the Pathway to Productive People series, which focused on the steps that every business could take to realise immediate results. This year, under the circumstances and in response to our most recent research we present, The Conscious Workplace; Making sense of the new world of work.
In the report you will find evidence of our latest findings with perspectives from managers and staff in business from multiple industries across the country, as well as insightful guidance and advice from both workplace consultants and leading psychologist, Emma Kenny.
The Conscious Workplace hinges on a simple premise: that every component of the workplace, whether it is physical or virtual, now requires conscious consideration and active decision making. We can no longer take for granted the escapism of closing the office door, traditional working hours or even the typical behaviours of our clients and colleagues. The good news for any business leaders reading this is that the report also definitively shows that the outcome of a more conscious working environment is greater productivity.
Phil Keoghan, CEO, Ricoh UK & Ireland
