Lifestyle

Redefining The Office Space with Muge Yalcin

Published

5 years ago

September 7, 2021

The way we work has changed forever. Before the Coronavirus pandemic, remote working was seen as a luxury, often even regarded with some level of suspicion and disdain as an ‘easy days work.’ Fast forward to 2021, and most offices have implemented home working as an alternative work mode for employees. Everyday office work is seen as ‘outdated’ and indicates that a company doesn’t seek to accommodate its workers with a more comfortable home/life working balance.

My name is Muge Yalcin and I am a senior Property manager at Vodafone. My experience has spanned decades and I for one am not surprised by the redefinition of the workplace. I have collated and devised four tips for companies that are seeking to implement a hybrid working pattern for their employees.

I am devoted to bettering the lives of employees through streamlining repetitive processes and engineering solutions that lead to better outcomes for people and businesses. With 17 years of business experience, I have witnessed many trends within the office environment and know what solutions and strategies help companies develop their work in the digital environment.

Here are four tips to enhance and create your digital workplace.

Look into options.

There is a burgeoning demand for digital workplace options to be facilitated for employees in the post-COVID-19 economy. As a result, companies are expected to provide alternative solutions to work that are feasible and comfortable and offer opportunities for collaboration and networking with colleagues.

Championing employees in the digital workplace is crucial, and this can be achieved through creating platforms and spaces that encourage social interaction. This helps facilitate and foster a team environment in which colleagues still feel connected and a part of a wider team working towards common goals.

Empower employees and enhance wellbeing.

Empowering employees in the digital workplace may seem complicated, but attention to proven strategies and careful implementation of such tools can be achieved with positive results. Providing employees with adequate tools and technology to do their job is, first and foremost, a crucial aspect of boosting productivity and morale. This should involve polished and automated digital workspaces, desktop and app virtualization, and file sharing and team collaboration opportunities. Access to support for technical issues also helps appease employees’ anxiety about being out of the office and working remotely.

Sir Richard Branson recently has been quoted as stating, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients”.

This sense of service to your employees takes form in the digital workplace by creating digital platforms for collaborations and discussions, focusing on instant messaging tools, which are the preferred mode of contact for many home workers.

As the digital workplace seems to divide employees by distance, regular communication tools to remind employees of the company vision and goals are welcome in helping to focus teams on a common purpose. Regular, upbeat, and concise communications will help align employees with business goals and ensure engagement and productivity among the team remain high.

Evolve

No digital workplace should be dormant and unchanging, but rather an evolving platform designed by business intelligence and feedback from users and employees. This business intelligence has seen ‘desk booking’ apps available for employees who wish to attend the office. Input from employees will continually expand and modify the digital workplace as different people will want to see other things. This will see a much richer and diverse hybrid workspace that offers inspiration and motivation for all users.

Generating reports and collecting statistics can help provide a clearer picture, portrayed by accurate data representing employee feedback. Enhancing innovation and ensuring the hybrid workplace remains the pulse of employees’ inspiration is the goal. A solid commitment to digital transformation sends a clear message to employees that the company is growing and working toward innovation and change. Agility in the digital workplace reflects the need for employees to be agile and develop a commitment to learning and innovation.

Integrated digital/physical workplace

The digital workplace will evolve and grow into a versatile and varied Centrepoint for employee interaction and business functions. Hybrid workplaces may become the norm in future times and I am offering my leading business advice and solutions for my company that wants to thrive in the new marketplace. Employee and customer satisfaction remain at the forefront of my expertise agenda, and I believe the digital space can become a space that sparks creativity, innovation, and outstanding achievement.

Lifestyle

The Message Women Need Today: Cathi Carrier’s Mission to Bring Back Self-Worth

Published

2 days ago

March 27, 2026

Michelle Langton

Many women spend years quietly stepping out of the frame, avoiding cameras, hiding behind filters, or brushing off compliments because they no longer recognize the person staring back at them. It is not vanity that drives those moments; it’s a deeper feeling of slipping away from yourself. That emotional weight is something Cathi Carrier has witnessed for more than three decades, and it’s what shaped the mission behind Purely Bella.

Cathi didn’t build her career in a boardroom. She built it in a treatment room, one client at a time, listening to stories that rarely make it into conversations about skincare. Women would sit down and immediately apologize for their appearance, convinced they were “too late” to take care of themselves. What she saw instead were women who had given so much to others that they had forgotten how to give to themselves.

Her understanding didn’t come from textbooks. It began when she was a teenager struggling with acne that felt bigger than a skin issue; it affected her confidence, her social life, and even the way she carried herself. That experience gave her empathy long before she had professional expertise. She knew what it meant to feel uncomfortable in your own skin, and she never forgot it.

In her treatment room, skincare became something deeper than cleansing and moisturizers. It became a place where women were welcomed without judgment, where they could talk openly, exhale, and feel seen. Over the years, she learned that skin reflects far more than age or stress. It reflects how much space a woman has allowed herself to take up in her own life.

Stories like Sara’s stayed with her. Sara, a retired schoolteacher, walked in with her shoulders rounded and her spirit dulled. She apologized repeatedly for her skin, barely making eye contact. Carrier designed a simple treatment plan, but the real change came from the conversations, the consistency, and the small moments where Sara started to reconnect with herself. Months later, Sara hugged her and said she finally felt like herself again. That transformation, skin healing paired with emotional renewal, is what convinced Carrier that skincare can be a form of healing when done with intention.

Still, she reached a limit. Her treatment room could only help one woman at a time. The desire to create a greater impact pushed her to start Purely Bella, a brand built to carry her philosophy beyond the walls of her spa. The transition wasn’t glamorous. She had to learn manufacturing, sourcing, regulations, and everything in between. But she stayed focused on real women and real results, clean formulations that worked, without the fear-based marketing the industry often leans on.

Purely Bella’s mission is rooted in a simple promise: you don’t need to turn back time to feel beautiful. You need to move forward with confidence and grace, knowing your best self is not behind you. Cathi believes this deeply. She speaks often about how a morning skincare routine is not just about products, it’s a daily choice to care for yourself, a reminder that you matter.

Her mission is also a response to the pressures women absorb from the world around them. Society is quick to tell women their value fades with every birthday. Cathi rejects that entirely. She wants daughters to grow up watching their mothers feel proud in photos, not hide from them. She wants women to recognize that aging is not the enemy; the real enemy is the culture that tells them to shrink as they grow older.

In a crowded beauty landscape, Cathi Carrier is not asking women to chase perfection. She is inviting them to remember who they are, and to step back into the frame with confidence.