Recent research by TheNextWeb.com has confirmed long suspected views that open-plan office designs can reduce psychological well-being, affect moods, and create stress.

This Study

The most recent study, published online by Cambridge University Press, is based on an experiment which compared the difference between the effects of office noise on those in a larger open-plan office (an OPO auditory environment), and a quieter private office (an office auditory environment).  A range of objective and subjective measures of well-being and performance were compared between subjects in simulated versions of an open-plan, and a private office setting.  The researchers looked at both objective and subjective measures of well-being and performance.

The Results

The results showed that although noise didn’t have a negative effect on the cognitive task performance of those working in an open-plan office (compared to the quieter environment), the noise of the open-plan space did reduce psychological well-being.

How Did They Know?

The researchers came to their conclusions by studying self-reports of the mood of the research subjects, their facial expressions of emotion, and the physiological indicators of stress of the subjects such, such as heart-rate and skin conductivity.

Arguments For Open-Plan

Although there now appears to be a growing body of research to suggest that open-plan offices may not have lived-up to their promise of easier communication and collaboration, there are what appear to be some sound, practical reasons for having an open-plan offices in the first place.  These include the desire to make teams feel closer and to encourage interaction (even though this may only happen with those in close proximity), making office culture and informal communication more transparent, making the office space more flexible, and saving costs.

Previous Research

Previous research about the effects of open-plan office design on workers, has, however, reached many more negative conclusions, including:

– Distraction can be a problem in open-plan workplaces.

– Lack of privacy affects engagement in tasks. Also, a Steelcase study (2014), showed that a lack of employee privacy in the workplace can negatively affect an employee’s overall ability to become deeply engaged in the work they are doing.

– Open plan doesn’t necessarily improve interaction or collaboration. A study by Bernstein and Turban, funded by Harvard Business School (2018) found that, contrary to popular belief, open office architectures significantly decrease the volume of face-to-face interaction (by approx. 70 percent).

– Employees in open-plan offices may be less likely to speak up or voice their concerns when they disagree with others. For example, the ‘Room – 2018 Office Woes Report’ highlighted how 31 percent of employees in open-plan offices say they hold back their true thoughts and opinions for fear of being heard and judged by co-workers. Similarly, being constantly observable in an office can dampen interactions that could help collaboration.

– Privacy and concentration are sacrificed in an open-plan setting in favour of the need for collaboration and interaction, but this trade-off has negative outcomes for productivity and work relationships.

Noise At Work Affecting Stress Levels

Just as indicated in the recent TheNextWeb.com study, noise (background noise and noise at work) has long been known to be a stress-inducing factor. For example, The Remark Group study (2019) showed that 65 percent of subjects said that that noise in the workplace impacted on their ability to complete work in an accurate and timely manner, almost half (44 percent) reported that noise had a negative impact on their overall wellbeing, and 40 percent reported that noise at work caused them to feel stressed.

Too Many People in (Open Plan) Office No Better

Other research has shown that putting large numbers of employees in an enclosed space can also cause stress and can make it much easier to spread viruses and infections.  For example, studies have shown that employees in open offices take over 60 percent more sick days (average) than employees in more traditional style workplaces.

The Pandemic Factor

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that office noise and distraction in open-plan offices have gone further down the list of concerns (below safety) from infection as many employees are making the return to offices.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Open-plan working appears to make workers feel less in control of their environment, more conscious of what they’re saying (often to the detriment of the company) and exposes them to other stress-inducing stimuli (noise and other distractions) that can also have a negative effect on productivity. Businesses need to focus attention on how they can build a close, productive team of people with complementary skills and attributes. As far as office layout goes, assessing the impact of things like noise (and other distractions) could enable data data-driven recommendations about the design and modification of workspaces, and businesses need to create balanced office layouts that enable employees to feel as though they have enough boundaries to make sense of their environment and feel comfortable, minimise noise and distractions, benefit collaboration, and contribute to workflow. The pandemic, however, has made office environments less attractive altogether for workers, and the challenge of designing post-pandemic office spaces that minimise yet another source of stress (fear of infection at work) has become a new challenge for many businesses, open plan or not.

Only 6 months after the storming of the United States Capitol in Washington and having his social media accounts suspended, former US resident Trump is suing Google, Twitter and Facebook, and their respective CEOs for allegedly censoring him.

Twitter Account Permanently Suspended

Trump’s presidency was characterised by his choice to constantly use Twitter as a means to bypass the mainstream media, who he often accused of spreading ‘fake news’. On January 8, Trump fell out of love with Twitter, and lost his chosen platform after Twitter imposed a permanent suspension of his account following 2 Tweets that, in the context of US events of the time, were found to be in violation of Twitter’s Glorification of Violence Policy.  The tweets were:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

and shortly after:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Facebook

Trump was also suspended from all Facebook platforms following the 6 January US Capitol riot, and then his Facebook account was suspended until 7 January 2023, a period that could be extended if Facebook still believes there is a risk to public safety through reinstatement.

Google (YouTube)

Google and Alphabet Inc’s CEO Pichai Sundararajan (Sundar Pichai) fell out of favour with Donald Trump and now faces a lawsuit because Google’s YouTube video sharing platform indefinitely banned Trump back in in January.

Announced at News Conference

The news that Donald Trump had launched a class-action lawsuit against the 3 social media companies and their CEOs came at a news conference held at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey last Wednesday. On the same day, Mr Trump’s Republican allies in Congress announced their intention to “take on Big Tech” and get rid of the Section 230 law that protects social media companies from being liable for the things that users post.  Following the news conference, which was also attended by those with links to not-for-profit America First Policy Institute, messages appealing for money were sent out, with one reportedly including a link to the fundraising entity ‘Save America’, which also raises money for other Republican political initiatives.

Criticism

News of the lawsuits has prompted criticism from a variety of legal commentators, some of whom have dismissed any chances of success for the actions, highlighted how Trump appears to have a habit of instigating litigation, and suggested that the lawsuits may be more of a PR exercise.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The views expressed in the press appear to indicate that the lawsuits have little chance of success and are, therefore, unlikely to trouble the CEOs of the 3 named big tech companies. It is well-known that Trump, his supporters, and other Republicans appear to believe that Silicon Valley is somehow working behind the scenes to censor and silence conservative and far-right messages.

Trump himself though is facing a number of criminal and civil lawsuits and investigations and just days ago, the Arizona Secretary of State called for a criminal investigation into alleged efforts by Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others to put pressure on Maricopa County supervisors following Trump losing Arizona in the presidential election. Also, the Trump Organisation and its finance chief have just been charged with tax-related crimes, which Mr Trump has, of course, dismissed as a “political witch hunt”.  It seems, therefore, that with all the trouble that Mr Trump appears to be facing, and with limited hope of success in his latest lawsuits against the tech giants, that not much will come of this, apart from some more publicity for Mr Trump, which may please some of his supporters.

Google is facing an antitrust lawsuit by 37 US states over allegations relating to how it may be abusing its position of power in relation to Android app distribution and competition.

The Lawsuit

The lawsuit makes allegations in three main areas, which are broadly that Google:

1. Unlawfully maintains its monopoly in the market for Android app Distribution.
2. Has unlawfully maintained a monopoly in the Android in-app payment processing market.
3. Is engaging in unfair and deceptive conduct that harms consumers.

The key arguments in the lawsuit focus on allegations that Google is using its market monopoly power as the main Android app distributor through its Play Store to charge 30 percent fees for in-app purchases (the same as Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft XBox) from developers.  The lawsuit also alleges that Google offered to “buy off Samsung” in order to prevent it from developing its competing app store.

Competitors

Competitors have taken advantage of the situation to make themselves more attractive to developers by charging less.  For example, Big G in India, which is a key market of Google, cut its commission to 15 percent to those app developers who make less than $1 million per year.

Google Says….

In a recent, detailed blog post, Google has argued that the lawsuit appears to ignore the choice that it offers compared to competitors, saying, “If you don’t find the app you’re looking for in Google Play, you can choose to download the app from a rival app store or directly from a developer’s website. We don’t impose the same restrictions as other mobile operating systems do.”

Also, Google has taken a swipe at the group of state attorneys who are filing the lawsuit by saying that it attacks a system “that provides more openness and choice than others.”

There is also an argument in Google’s favour that Google has been relatively loose to date in enforcing app developers to use its payment system for purchases made through the Play Store.

Criticism and Other Lawsuits

Critics who are more sympathetic to Google, have also suggested, however, that the lawsuit may be less about consumer protection and fairness, and more about protecting the interests of a number of app developers who are benefitting from Google Play without paying for it,

Other critics have suggested that while Google may allow other app stores, it appears to have taken steps to limit the traction of those stores; for example, other app stores can’t be downloaded from its Google Play Store.  Also, the Google Play Store is preinstalled on all Android smartphones, and it has been reported that other app stores can’t buy advertising on the Google search engine or YouTube.

Google has faced other similar lawsuits, such as Epic Games suing Google over the removal of Fortnite from the Play Store last year (it was also removed from the iOS App Store).

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With Google’s Play Store being pre-installed on Android phones, it is clearly a very important platform for app developers to be part of. Yes, apps can be downloaded directly from developers, but discovering and downloading apps would appear to be more convenient and likely via a central store. It also seems fair, however, that having access to that route to market should come at some price, and it is inevitable that the level of commission charged is a contentious issue and an area of competition between app stores.  The tech market has long been characterised by a group of big players apparently taking the lion’s share of the market, all of whom, including Google, have face various antitrust legal challenges before, often with little real success. The fact that this one is from a multi-state group of attorneys, however, appears to give this one the impression of a bit more clout although it still remains to be seen how this plays out.

Google Tasks (like Microsoft To-Do), which is already built into Gmail and Google Calendar offers an easy way to create simple to-do lists. Here’s how to use it:

– Sign-in to Google, open Calendar, and click on the ‘Tasks’ symbol (right-hand side, blue circle with pen symbol).

– Click on “Add a task”.

– Add the title, details, date, and time, and click on the tick/complete link. You will notice that it has then been added to your calendar.

– For bigger tasks, click on the three-dot symbol next to the task name (right-hand side of Calendar), select ‘Subtask’, and add each subtask of the main task including time and date.

– When a task is completed, right-mouse click on it in Calendar and select ‘Mark completed’. This will put a line through the task.

– In Calendar, clicking on the yellow light bulb symbol enables you to add notes via Google Keep.

Recognising that Microsoft 365 does not comprehensively back up your data means that making sure that you have a third-party, “point-in-time” backup solution is an important consideration for your business.

Only For 30 Days

Microsoft 365 may be a very secure platform and infrastructure, but it’s worth knowing that although geo-redundancy offers protection against a site or hardware failure, Microsoft 365 only has a 30-day retention period for your data built-in, and that SharePoint Online is only backed up every 12 hours and has only a 14-day retention period.

Microsoft’s Service Agreement

Microsoft’s service agreement says, “We recommend that you regularly backup Your Content and Data that you store on the Services or store using Third-Party Apps and Services.”

Why?

There are many good reasons to use a third-party back-up solution with 365 including:

– Guarding against the risk of files being lost due to cyber-attackers attempting to gain/gaining admin access, or accidental file deletion by genuine admins.

– Protecting the businesses from data loss through ransomware attacks by having a separate back-up of important data.

– Helping with compliance e.g., GDPR and making sure that company records are kept for required time limits and helping to maintain business continuity.

– Preventing situations where there is a need to Recover accidentally deleted emails that may have been saved somewhere in OneDrive file, or SharePoint before the retention-period ends (if versioning is not enabled), or situations where emails may be lost because they are destroyed by malware.

– Stopping important files from being permanently deleted as part of deletion of an ex-staff member’s 365 account by providing a separate location for back-ups.

– Stopping the risk of problems caused by retention policies (with Exchange Online).

– Restoring a folder within a single user can’t be done with 365, but may be possible with a third-party solution.

– Conforming to the basic tried and tested 3-2-1 back-up rule, i.e., making sure that you keep three copies of your data on two different pieces of media, with one of them being offsite (third-party).

Common Ways To Back-Up 365

Broadly speaking, businesses can use storage capacity on their own servers/on-premise servers or back-up to a cloud-based service. There are many different Office 365 backup and recovery solutions available, including Altaro, Carbonite, Druva, Commvault, Rubrik, SolarWind, Veeam, Zerto, SysCloud, and many more.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

There are many different ways that important data can be lost. Bearing in mind that Microsoft 365 only backs up your data for a relatively short time, Microsoft itself recommends that companies also back-up to third-party apps and services and, not least for security and compliance reasons, companies should make sure that they have a reliable, third party, “point-in-time” backup solution in place.

Mobile operator EE has become the first to re-introduce roaming charges in Europe from January as a result of the Brexit trade deal that was signed at the end of 2020.

When?

EE says that for those who take out a pay monthly handset or SIM plan from 7 July onward, there will be a daily charge for using their mobile phone in what it defines as the “European roaming zone”, but the new charges won’t apply until January 2022.

Those customers who were already on a pay monthly plan and whose contract started before 7 July 2021 will not be affected by the charges.

Even though UK operators have been allowed to introduce the charges since January 2021, they have chosen not to do so until EE’s decision to break ranks and start introducing them in January 2022.

How Much?

The roaming charge from January 2022 will be a fixed payment of £2 per day. EE customers won’t need to take any action to opt-in.  If a customer’s allowances are used, they’ll be charged £2 for that day, and if the allowances aren’t used, EE says they won’t be charged anything.

From January 2022, those EE customers who have a plan that includes ‘Smart Benefits’ will be able to avoid the £2 daily roaming charge in the EU by using a roaming pass as a Smart Benefit. Alternatively, EE customers can pay £10 per month to have a roaming pass as an add-on which will exempt them from paying the daily roaming charge.

It has been reported that for those travelling for periods longer that the usual week or two-week holidays, 30-day packages will be available.

Limits on Charges

Any UK operators who introduce roaming charges will have to abide by UK laws which place a £45-a-month limit on the amount that customers can be charged for using their mobile data abroad before they have to opt-in for further use that could take them beyond that amount.  Also, UK law states that mobile customers must be informed when they have reached 80 percent and 100 percent of their data allowance, and operators must take “reasonable steps” to stop customers in Northern Ireland who have used a signal from the Republic of Ireland form being charged (although EE isn’t introducing roaming charges for the Republic of Ireland).

Fair Use

Customers on all networks should also be aware that there are likely to be ‘fair use’ limits on how much they can use their phones abroad and UK users could expect to be charged extra for using their phone in another country for more two months in a four-month period (for example). UK operators also have fair use limits for data, beyond which customers can be charged.  For example, O2 customers have a monthly data limit of 25GB, beyond which the charge is £3.50 per GB of data.

Where?

This is a large list of countries (47) where EE’s roaming charges will apply which includes most European holiday destinations such as Spain, Greece, Portugal, France, and Italy.  A full list of these countries can be found on the EE website here: https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/roaming-and-international/using-your-device-abroad/what-impact-will-brexit-have-on-roaming.

EE customers, however, will not face roaming charges to use their phones in the Republic of Ireland.

Why?

The Brexit deal trade deal from December 2020 gave UK mobile operators the ability to start charging again for roaming.

Who Else?

Vodafone, Three and O2 have said that they have no plans to introduce roaming charges, and other operators appear to be reluctant to comment or commit themselves as yet.

What Are Roaming Charges Anyway?

Mobile operators apply roaming charges as a way of covering the costs of a mobile phone being used outside the range of its home network and connecting to another available ‘visitor’ network. Mobile operators have legal roaming agreements with other roaming networks that cover aspects like authentication, authorisation, and billing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

After the Brexit deal from December gave the go-ahead for mobile operators to re-introduce roaming charges, it seems that the pandemic travel restrictions and a period of goodwill were the only things likely to delay the inevitable re-introduction by at least one operator. Roaming charges may be good news for mobile operators, but for UK citizens, whether going on holiday or for business, it’s simply another unwelcome expense. It is good to see that, as yet, Vodafone, Three and O2 have ‘no plans’ to re-introduce to charges, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t happen in some way or won’t be covered in a different form or as part of a different kind of agreement. There are now, at least, some legal limits in place to protect customers from the worst excesses of old-style roaming charges, but EE’s plan to limit roaming charges to a relatively small daily sum that only really affects new customers has gone some way to making the news more bearable and limiting bad publicity.