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Employees in Hong Kong reluctant to return to the office, with firms missing privacy office setting: Unispace Study

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Employees in Hong Kong reluctant to return to the office, with firms missing privacy office setting: Unispace Study

Key takeaways

  • Employers failing to spot burnout with 64% of workers impacted
  • Among 59% of hot desking employees, 95% prefer their own assigned desk to increase their sense of belongings
  • 63% of workers currently in the workplace four or more days a week, compared to 50% worldwide and 40% in Singapore
  • 64% of Hong Kong workers have experienced burnout, the same as in the UK, however most employers don’t believe this to be an issue
  • 82% of firms revealed that they had already expanded their space in the last two years, while a further 74% plan to do so by 2025

HONG KONG, June 15, 2023 — Employees in Hong Kong remain more reluctant to return to the office than in any other country, with mandates and heavy workload impacting employee wellbeing. That is according to a new study by global workplace creation experts, Unispace.

Returning for Good, a Unispace Global Workplace Insights report – which combined the results of an in-depth survey of 9,500 employees and 6,650 business leaders from across 17 countries worldwide – including 500+ Hong Kong employees and 100+ senior decision makers from mid-large sized companies  in Hong Kong – found that 60% of workers are reluctant to head into the office, With this largely driven by employer mandates, nearly 95% believe they will be asked to attend their workplace at least four days a week in the coming months. According to the data, employees in Hong Kong are in the office more than the global average, with 63% of workers currently in the workplace four or more days a week, compared to 50% worldwide and 40% in Singapore.

Burnout going unnoticed

According to the report, workers across Hong Kong are being impacted by burnout, but employers are failing to recognize the factors impacting their wellbeing. The majority (64%) of workers revealed they had experienced signs of burnout, the same as the UK, one of the most popular destinations for Hong Kong workers. Heavy workloads influenced this, according to 45% of Hong Kong people. However, just 29% of Hong Kong employers believed this to be an issue, suggesting firms are failing to spot the signs of burnout in workforces.

More privacy office setting for higher productivity

Meanwhile, the data revealed that the lack of privacy (29%) and more effective to work from home (26%) are two key factors causing more than half (60%) of employees reluctant to return back to the office. However, this goes opposite to the employers’ perspective, with businesses viewing the unwillingness of travel (21%) and carrying their work equipment between the office and home (20%) as the two key barriers for employees to come to the office daily.

The data also reveals that 59% of the respondents who are currently hot desking prefer to have their own space. Of those who are currently hot-desking, 95% would be more willing to return to the workplace more frequently if they have their own space. Comparing with UK, among 56% of the respondents who are currently hot desking, only 76% would be more willing to return to the workplace more frequently if they have their own space. It shows that Hong Kong employees prefer traditional workplace settings comparing with flexible workplace settings.

In Hong Kong, 82% of firms revealed that they had already expanded their space in the last two years, while a further 74% plan to do so by 2025. This indicates that businesses are responding to their employees’ preferences for an ideal workplace and are subtly encouraging them to come back to the office.

How Hong Kong compares with other Areas

Survey Findings

HK

US

UK

CA

SG

Employees currently in the office four or more days a week

63 %

57 %

34 %

50 %

40 %

Employees expecting to return to office in coming months

95 %

68 %

53 %

62 %

88 %

Reluctant to return to office

60 %

43 %

58 %

55 %

54 %

Workers currently hot desking

59 %

38 %

56 %

41 %

56 %

Employees struggle to work in current offices

69 %

52 %

63 %

53 %

68 %

Employees impacted by burnout

64 %

65 %

64 %

59 %

66 %

Sean Moran, Senior Principal, Client Solutions, Asia at Unispace, commented:

“As a world-class financial centre, Hong Kong is ranked as one of the most overworked cities in the world. Our study indicates that the significant disconnect between employer and employee has contributed to the struggling working environment and culture in Hong Kong. Hong Kong businesses need to understand the concerns and struggles of their staff, from work arrangement and office productivity to burnout. We see the need to build an encouraging workplace aligned with their employees’ needs and values as a platform to promote positive influence and culture. Fostering a better relationship with their employees, businesses can drive higher talent retention and attract high-quality talent, the stepping stone to the company’s success. ”

Unispace is a global leader in workplace strategy, design, project management, and construction with a goal of creating people-centric spaces that spark brilliance, deepen connections, foster a sense of belonging, and propel success. In Asia, Unispace has helped many corporations to design and revamp their office space, including TripAdvisor, Boston Scientific, Smith & Nephew and VaynerMedia.

About Unispace

A strategy, design, and construction leader creating people-centric spaces for a rapidly changing world. Unispace is a global firm that offers a unified team solution for creating spaces that spark brilliance, deepen connections, foster a sense of belonging and propel success. With 5,500 projects completed, a presence across 26 countries, and 600+ employees worldwide, Unispace creates spaces powered by collaborative client partnerships, delivered seamlessly across borders, and enabled by real-world insights

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Trident IoT Launches Taurus Z-Wave Series Silicon

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Chip series and SDK support next-generation Z-Wave capabilities for the global market.

Trident IoT, an RF technology and engineering company focused on decreasing time-to-market for connected device manufacturers, today announced the release of the new Taurus Z-Wave Series of silicon solutions.

The Trident IoT Taurus Z-Wave Series will encompass system-on-chip (SoC) solutions and modules that support the latest advancements in Z-Wave technology, including Z-Wave Long Range (ZWLR) for the U.S. and the implementation of the ZWLR European specification. The Taurus Z-Wave Series will ship with an SDK based on Open Z-Wave Specification Release 2024A.

“The Taurus Series gives global manufacturers access to cutting-edge Z-Wave capabilities,” said Trident IoT co-founder Bill Scheffler. “This silicon series and SDK will be the first to implement the ZWLR European specification, accelerating IoT product development worldwide.”

Taurus Series Silicon Specifications
The Taurus Series is based on an ultra-low power, high performance Z-Wave SoC. The Taurus SoC solution is designed to enable Z-Wave solutions with class-leading battery life, range, and memory.

Taurus Series chips feature an ARM® Cortex®-M33 microprocessor, 1MB of flash program memory, and 288KB of SRAM data memory for exceptional processing and response time. The powerful sub-GHz radios transmit at +20dBm and +14 dBm, enabling communication over distances up to 1+ miles.

Taurus chips support Z-Wave Plus, Z-Wave Plus v2 and ZWLR, enabling the development of highly secure, reliable, scalable, and backwards-compatible solutions for smart home, hospitality, multi-dwelling units and more. Using the ZWLR 12-bit addressing space, the Taurus Series supports networks of up to 4000 nodes; Taurus chips also leverage ZWLR dynamic power control, enabling end point battery life of up to ten years from a single coin-cell battery.

“ZWLR is a revolutionary technology, with the power to expand the reach, scale and utility of IoT applications while preserving full backward compatibility with currently deployed Z-Wave devices,” said Avi Rosenthal, Z-Wave Alliance Chairman of the Board. “This new Z-Wave silicon offering, paired with the Trident IoT SDK and design services, will enable more Z-Wave Alliance members to take advantage of ZWLR capabilities, bringing exciting new products to market faster around the globe.”

End-to-End Product Development Support
In line with the company’s mission to decrease time-to-market for IoT devices, Trident IoT will offer end-to-end engineering consultation for new products integrating Taurus Series silicon. In addition to the Taurus Series SDK, Trident IoT customers will also have access to an exclusive library of both Z-Wave and ZWLR device and sensor reference designs, created to accelerate the development of innovative new edge-of-property applications.

Trident IoT also offers in-depth consulting from some of the industry’s foremost experts on wireless connectivity, including Z-Wave technology. “Trident IoT was launched in response to a gap in the availability of IoT product design services,” says Mariusz Malkowski, Trident IoT CTO and founder. “The demand for consultation has been extraordinary: in just six months we’ve had to double our engineering resources.”

To support the development of market-ready products, the Trident IoT lab is fully equipped and available for Z-Wave, Z-Wave Plus v2, and ZWLR end product compliance and testing.

By providing silicon, design services, and in-house compliance testing, Trident IoT can help device manufacturers decrease time-to-market for new Z-Wave products by more than 60%. According to Kevin Kraus, VP of Technology Alliances and IoT Business Development, Yale – Fortune Brands Innovation, “In-depth consulting services from the Trident IoT team will be an invaluable accelerator for Fortune Brands, helping us to bring new Z-Wave-certified products to market in the near future. With the launch of this new single-die silicon solution, we look forward to collaborating on new devices with next-generation capabilities, including long-range and potentially even multi-protocol devices.”

Taurus Series Previews for Product Developers
Taurus Series silicon will begin shipping at scale in Q4 2024. In the meantime, Trident IoT will issue Taurus Series samples to select partners for initial testing and product development.

About Trident IoT:
Trident IoT is a technology and engineering company focused on simplifying RF development, increasing product success rates, and decreasing time-to-market for connected device manufacturers. Founded by a team of IoT veterans with over a century of industry knowledge, Trident IoT is aimed at making connected devices work as intended. With an initial focus on companies manufacturing Z-Wave devices, Trident IoT seeks to expand and build new relationships through a human connection at every level, including certification and market knowledge. 

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Generative AI Surge Triggers Nationwide Rush for New Data Center Infrastructure

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Demand for new AI Data Centers which are powering the rise of such popular AI platforms as OpenAI’s ChatGPT is being grossly underestimated according to analysts at this year’s Bloomberg Intelligence summit. The ongoing generative AI boom is kicking off a rush for new data centers, and the providers of the infrastructure behind them. With this boom comes many challenges including power supplies and the price of necessary hardware. For 9 of the top 10 US electric utilities, data centers have been the main source of customer growth, according to analysis made by Reuters. The booming Global Data Center Market is expected to hit US$792.3 billion by 2032, according to Astute Analytica, while analysts at Christian & Timbers have identified what they believe will be a 27% increase in AI data center talent demand in 2024 over 2023. Behind the scenes are several developers advancing the data center surge, who over the last week updated the market with recent developments, including: Avant Technologies Inc. (OTC: AVAI), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NEO: GOOG), Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) (NEO: META), Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD).

The article continued: Some experts are raising concerns that the AI revolution itself could crash the existing supply of data centers, and create a serious capacity shortage worldwide. All the while, Fortune is declaring private equity firms as the early winners in the race to feed AI’s infrastructure demands.

Avant Technologies to Implement AI-Empowered, Zero Trust Architecture in Its Data Centers

Avant Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: AVAI) (“Avant” or the “Company”), an artificial intelligence technology (AI) company specializing in the development of advanced AI and data center infrastructure solutions, announced today its plans to implement a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) framework powered by AI within its data center operations. Avant asserts that this strategic move is aimed at providing the highest level of security for its customers’ critical data.

“By integrating AI with Zero Trust Architecture, we are creating a robust and future-proof security framework for our data centers,” stated William Hisey, Chief Executive Officer at Avant. “This combined approach ensures the highest level of security for our customers’ data while optimizing data center operations for efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Avant is committed to providing innovative technology to help businesses optimize data center operations, improve resource utilization, and enhance security.”

ZTA is a security model that eliminates the concept of inherent trust within a network. It assumes that all users, devices, and workloads – regardless of location – must be continuously verified before granting access to resources. Implementing AI-controlled ZTA allows Avant to achieve continuous authentication and authorization, enhanced threat detection and response, dynamic access controls, and adaptive security policies.

Avant’s ZTA implementation aligns seamlessly with its existing AI-powered data center management focus. The company’s AI technology already provides predictive analytics and optimization, automated incident response, and enhanced cooling efficiency.

In other industry developments and happenings in the market this week include:

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NEO: GOOG), best known as the parent company of Google and YouTube, recently broke ground on Google’s fourth data center in the Netherlands, as confirmed by Senior Operations Manager in a LinkedIn post. Valued at ~US$643 million, Google says the new data center will create 125 new jobs and has pledged to prioritize sustainability. The announcement is in line with the company’s commitment to invest billions of dollars in 2024 both inside the USA and abroad, where they’ve also announced plans to build a $1 billion data center campus in Kansas City, Missouri, and another $576-million data center project in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“Organizations and governments in the Netherlands are increasingly moving to the cloud,” said Google in a statement. “Cloud computing usage has almost doubled in the Netherlands in the last five years. The rise in demand is why Google is investing in digital infrastructure, which helps expand everybody’s access to information.”

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) (NEO: META), best known as the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, announced plans to “accelerate infrastructure investments” for AI, including plans to spend billions of dollars more on servers and data centers. However, the initial response to the Facebook parent company’s plans was not positive. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta plans to increase spending ahead of generating much revenue from their new products, reassuring his investors-call audience that Meta has a strong track record of monetizing new AI services once they reach scale.

“We anticipate our full-year 2024 capital expenditures will be in the range of $35-40 billion, increased from our prior range of $30-37 billion as we continue to accelerate our infrastructure investments to support our artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap,” said Susan Li, CFO for Meta Platforms in the quarterly financial report. “While we are not providing guidance for years beyond 2024, we expect capital expenditures will continue to increase next year as we invest aggressively to support our ambitious AI research and product development efforts.”

Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the leading enterprise AI decisioning and workflow automation platform provider, recently announced its Q1 2024 financial results, highlighting’s the company’s outstanding cash flow and margin expansion in the quarter.

“The strong cash generation in Q1 demonstrates the power of a SaaS business,” said Ken Stillwell, COO and CFO of Pegasystems. “Given our financial strength and differentiated GenAI capabilities, we are in a great position to accelerate profitable growth.”

The financial results came just over a week from the company introduced its Pega Gena™ Coach, a generative AI-powered mentor for Pega solutions that proactively advises users to help them achieve optimal outcomes. Coach analyzes existing opportunity, lead, contact, and interaction data within Pega Sales Automation™ and offers suggestions to help overcome barriers in moving deals forward.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD), a global semiconductor company, has credited its decision seven years ago to discontinue making monolithic datacenter chips in favor of a chiplet architecture with helping cut global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by tens of thousands of metric tons per year.

“Chiplets not only avoid waste and conserve resources in manufacturing, but also in the data centers powering the digital services and experiences we use daily,” said Justin Murrill, Director of Corporate Responsibility for AMD. “Each chiplet houses multiple processor cores, and different chiplets can be added and even stacked in a package to create higher-performance and more energy efficient processors.”

AMD’s EPYC processors are at the forefront in powering the most energy-efficient x86 servers available today. Employing these leading servers significantly reduces the number of physical servers required to fulfill computing needs. This reduction has a broad environmental benefit, including decreased use of raw materials, less manufacturing and shipping, reduced energy consumption, and minimized data center space requirements. Such advantages are vital for businesses aiming to upgrade their data center infrastructure and enhance computational capacity while actively striving to meet sustainability objectives.

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Venture Capital Fund Manager Token Bay Capital Granted In-Principle Approval To Invest In Tokens With First of Its Kind License in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM)

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  • License will permit investment in both the equity and tokens of crypto start-ups
  • Opening of Token Bay’s new offices in ADGM aligns with planned second fund

Token Bay Capital Limited (“Token Bay”) is expanding its venture capital footprint in the capital of the UAE and has been granted an in-principle approval (IPA) from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) to carry out regulated activities in the ADGM. Subject to final regulatory approval for the grant of the Financial Services Permission (FSP), Token Bay brings niche capabilities to manage both token and equity investments in early-stage crypto start-ups under the FSRA’s Venture Capital Fund Manager (VCFM) framework.

Founded in 2021, Token Bay is a leading Crypto Venture Capital Fund that has adopted a regulatory-first approach from day one. Token Bay invests in start-ups building next-generation blockchain infrastructure and decentralized applications for Web3. Building on the success of its first fund, Token Bay is now launching its second fund and will continue to back outstanding entrepreneurs building infrastructure solutions for the new token economy. In addition to Abu Dhabi, Token Bay also has offices in Hong Kong, and is strategically positioned across digital assets hubs in both the Middle East and Asia.

Founder and Managing Partner of Token Bay, Lucy Gazmararian: “This marks the first phase of global expansion for Token Bay, and we’re excited to have been granted the IPA in ADGM for venture capital investment in tokens as well as in equity. Blockchain technology has the potential to drive innovation through tokenization, and as blockchain networks continue to evolve, it is important that as venture capitalists we are fully equipped to support talented founders building in Web3 by directly participating in these networks and taking an ownership stake through tokens. We extend our sincerest thanks to the regulator for their forward-thinking approach and open dialogue so that we were able to reach this important milestone and establish Token Bay in one of the world’s leading international financial centres and digital assets hub.”

ADGM’s progressive regulatory framework, English common law legal framework, status as a leading centre for financial innovation and vibrant blockchain and digital assets ecosystem have attracted Token Bay to set up offices in the capital of the UAE.

Arvind Ramamurthy, Chief of Market Development at ADGM said, “We extend a warm welcome to Token Bay Capital as they join ADGM’s international financial centre and commence their establishment in Abu Dhabi, marking the beginning of their global expansion journey. ADGM is dedicated to cultivating innovation and excellence in the financial sector, particularly within the virtual asset space. With progressive regulatory frameworks that facilitate companies like Token Bay Capital, ADGM’s vibrant ecosystem stands as the optimal platform for initiating their global growth trajectory.”

Token Bay’s Venture Funds offer institutions, multi-national companies, private banks, family offices and high-net-worth individuals the opportunity to invest in an emerging asset class right at the start of a multi-decade cycle.

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