What will things be like in a year? Is a crisis approaching the Czech market? How will it affect the office market? Can we already identify any negative trends?
These are just a few of the questions that the attentive reader of financial and B2B periodicals should ask, and not just about the office and interior furnishing markets. At TechoCon we will focus on providing an expert view inside the market and the sharing of experience across market segments, such as office furnishing, acoustics, work environment or human resources. When you look at this year’s programme, it is clear that inter-disciplinary variety is the main watchword of the programme. Therefore, even the theme of economic crisis and cyclic changes in the market will not be overlooked. Today we will take a look at the theme of people. Their diversity and requirements. They are different, and dynamically changing, and can really occupy the attention of firms …
“In 2020 the composition of companies will be different: on the global and the Czech scale the use of external employees, freelancers, contract employees is expected to increase. Organisation will thus need to find a way of engaging these alternative workforces into the company culture and effectively manage them. A fifth of Czech respondents considered this trend to be very significant, but only 5% of those questioned are well prepared for it. In contrast to the international trend, Czech companies frequently provide these non-traditional employees with training and induction, and this contributes to maximising the potential of this workforce,” says Martina Zapletalová of Deloitte with an advanced look at the coming year from its study Trends in Human Resources.
A comparison of the Czech and European markets will be possible during a talk by keynote speaker from the Netherlands, architect Michiel Hofman. How do we at TECHO perceive the trend of hiring freelancers and contract staff?
As part of an international group we are used to the international themes that today operate all over the world: whether at issue are sales or project delivery teams. For these various professional combinations it is necessary to lay-out office interiors accordingly. Last year’s conference covered the theme of coworking and its importance in detail, and therefore this year we will consider more the “soft criteria”.
Well-being, as one of our main themes this year, highlights the interconnection of the diversity of employees in the office environment.
“When talking about the employment environment, sustainability here relates to, for example, the engagement of employees, their comfort and health, as well as energy consumption. In the past sustainability from the short-term perspective didn’t make much sense. It doesn’t bring immediate benefits – they tend to accrue over the long-term and are not always reliably quantifiable. Today, however, people’s values are changing and sustainability is starting to make sense also in the short-term. For this reason it is now much more widespread amongst firms,” says one of our panellists, Dan Heuer of Fair Venture.
Sustainability vs. greenwashing
What has led to this change? Employees and customers see value in sustainability; they value responsible firms and want to work for one. Sustainability has a tendency to be a marketing tool and introduced “top-down”. In his talk Dan will address the theme of greenwashing. Have you heard of this? Greenwashing is a trend that serves as a marketing tool with limited and long-term unsustainable results. Listen to the panel discussion that will cover this theme in detail.
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A taster of this year’s conference
TechoCon Conference Guide I / Creative stage
TechoCon Conference Guide II / Satellite stage
TechoCon Conference Guide III / Keynote speakers
