WELL Building Standard increases adoption rate in Europe

WELL Building Standard increases adoption rate in Europe

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) claims that its WELL Building Standard has now been adopted in more than 780 projects worldwide, covering 147 million square feet of real estate in 32 countries. In Europe more than 170 projects across 13 countries are applying WELL, representing a quarter of of global project square footage. According to the Institute, the growth over the past year has been led by early adopter markets, notably France, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands – as well as new expansion in Poland, Sweden and Ireland. Finland, Germany, Hungary and Italy, which registered their first projects in 2017.  Nearly 300 industry professionals in Europe have now passed the WELL Accredited Professional exam.

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Poor mobile connectivity in the workplace is undermining UK productivity

Poor mobile connectivity in the workplace is undermining UK productivity

Mobile connectivity in workplaces all around the UK is inadequate and is holding back the country’s productivity, claims a new report from telecomms provider CommScope.  In the poll of 2,000 British office workers almost half (44 per cent) said they need to step outside to make a phone call, or access 4G services on their mobile devices. The same report claims that 77 per cent of respondents see mobile coverage as ‘important’ for being able to complete tasks, and being productive, in general. There are also differences in connectivity, depending where you are located. London, Yorkshire and West Midlands have a relatively stable 4G connectivity, compared to the likes of North East or Wales.

Best workplaces in London honoured at the British Council for Offices annual Regional Awards

Best workplaces in London honoured at the British Council for Offices annual Regional Awards

Five businesses celebrated success last night, with Bloomberg, White Collar Factory, Havas UK, Here East and 10 Lower James Street all recognised as some of the best workplaces in London at the British Council for Offices’ (BCO) regional awards. The BCO’s awards programme claims to recognise the highest quality workplaces and sets the standard for excellence across the regional and national office sectors.

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Remote working may be doing some people more harm than good

Remote working may be doing some people more harm than good

Remote working isn’t necessarily as ideal as we have grown to believe, according to a new survey which claims it may be doing more harm than good in some cases. The new research report from Citrix claims that remote working may actually hurt productivity and often makes employees feel disconnected, lonely, and not having access to all the right and necessary technology to get the work done on time, and in proper fashion. Out of 1,000 workers and 500 managerial-level employees in the UK who were polled for the report, 81 per cent said their companies do have more than one location where they can work. These locations differ in performance regarding technology, culture, resources and collaboration.

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Small changes could save UK businesses millions on wasted energy

Small changes could save UK businesses millions on wasted energy

commercial property innovationThe UK’s 5.7 million businesses are spending £29.1 billion on energy every year, and could be making significant reductions in its cost according to a study by printerland.co.uk. With Earth Day this Sunday, (April 22) the research claims that tiny tweaks to workplace routines could make a positive impact on the environment, whilst slashing companies’ electricity bills.

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Demand for commercial office space in London’s West End at highest level for six years

Demand for commercial office space in London’s West End at highest level for six years

Nova development at VictoriaTake up of commercial office leases in London’s West End had its strongest start to the year since 2012, with the banking and finance sector continuing to actively seek space, new figures from CBRE have revealed. The amount of office space under offer on in Central London at the end of Q1 2018 stood at 3.2m sq ft, representing an increase of 6 percent on the previous quarter and showing a 3 percent increase on the same point last year. Take-up in Central London reached 2.8m sq ft in Q1 2018, with its largest deal boasting a 65,900 sq ft letting to WS Atkins at Nova North in Victoria. Availability in Central London increased by 7 percent to 14.3m sq ft but that is still below the total 12 months ago. A total of 1.1m sq ft of development and refurbishment space completed in Q1. A further 2.3m sq ft is expected to complete before the end of the year, of which 54 percent has already been committed to be leased. By the end of the quarter, 9.1m sq ft was being actively sought by occupiers, primarily from the banking and finance sector (26 percent) and creative industries sector (24 percent).

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Number of skyscrapers under construction in London tops 500 for first time

Number of skyscrapers under construction in London tops 500 for first time

The number of skyscrapers being built in London has exceeded 500 for the first time, raising fears of further damage to the capital’s skyline. There are 510 towers of more than 20 storeys under construction or in the planning process, more than ever before. That is a rise of 12 per cent on a year ago, according to the annual report by GL Hearn, the property consultancy, and think tank New London Architecture. A record 115 towers are already under construction, up from 91 in 2016, but the number of applications is down by 10 per cent, according to the study.

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Business leaders struggling to keep up with demands of individuals and technological developments in the workplace

Business leaders struggling to keep up with demands of individuals and technological developments in the workplace

Organisations are struggling to keep pace with workplace shifts including skills gaps, the development of artificial intelligence, the demands of employees and new social expectations, according to the latest Human Capital Trends report from Deloitte. In its 2018 edition, The Rise of the Social Enterprise, Deloitte focuses on the growing expectations of individuals and the pace at which technology is shaping organisations’ human capital priorities.

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Investment Association asks major employers to address lack of progress on gender diversity

Investment Association asks major employers to address lack of progress on gender diversity

The investor lobbying group the Investment Association (IA) and the Hampton-Alexander Review have written to 35 FTSE 350 companies with low female representation at leadership level, calling for change. 14 companies in the FTSE 100 have been singled out in the letter. Companies in the FTSE 100 who have all-male Executive Committees, such as BP and Smurfit Kappa Group, and companies whose combined Executive Committees and Direct Reports have low proportions of women, such as Persimmon and TUI, have been asked to explain their poor gender balance and what steps they are taking to move towards the targets as set out in the Hampton-Alexander Review. The Investment Association and the Hampton-Alexander Review have also written to 11 companies in the FTSE 250 who have all-male Boards, including Sports Direct and Stobart Group, and 10 companies who chose not to report their gender diversity data to the Hampton-Alexander Review last year, including The AA, J D Wetherspoon and Wizz Air.

 

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Majority of staff say employers must do more to support their physical and mental wellbeing

Majority of staff say employers must do more to support their physical and mental wellbeing

Majority of staff say employers should do more to support physical and mental wellbeingMore than half of working adults believe that UK businesses are not doing enough to support the physical and mental wellbeing of their employees. The vast majority (86 percent) believe that firms are specifically not doing enough to help employees deal with work-related stress, anxiety and other mental health issues. And with seven out of 10 of those surveyed by Westfield Health saying that the NHS does not have the budget to provide wellbeing services, such as health check-ups and cognitive behavioural therapy, almost three quarters agreed it would be a good idea for a portion of their National Insurance contributions to be redirected towards employee wellbeing programmes. More →

Robots will lead to increased productivity without stealing jobs, but wages will fall

Robots will lead to increased productivity without stealing jobs, but wages will fall

AI will take time to lead to higher productivity but it may also depress wagesRobots will not as feared steal people’s jobs and will eventually improve productivity, but they will undercut workers’ contribution sufficiently to depress their wages. According to the third report in Barclays Impact Series, titled Robots at the gate: Humans and technology at work, technology is fundamentally re-shaping the nature of work, and the implications of this re-shaping process will accelerate in coming decades. The report authored by Barclays’ Research team and supported by the Barclays Social Innovation Facility sets today’s technological advancements in the context of historical precedent and argues that robotics and Artificial Intelligence do not portend a jobless future. However, these new technologies have important macroeconomic consequences, such as wage disinflation, which will likely continue in the years or even decades to come. The report also argues that productivity spurts lag behind technological leaps, as it can take years or even decades for an economy to figure out how to best use a new technology. Eventually, economies of scale are reached, consumer behaviour adapts, companies refine their business models and productivity growth finally kicks in. More →

Older people want the same things from their job as millennials, major new study shows

Older people want the same things from their job as millennials, major new study shows

This is a drum we’ve been banging for a long time along with a number of others, but a new study of half a million people proves what we should have known all along; people of different generations want broadly the same things from their workplaces, stereotypes are often wrong and any differences that do exist may well be explainable by the stages of their lives. The study of 500,000 people at 750 organisations in the US, Australia and Europe was conducted by employee feedback startup Culture Amp. It found that older workers are more likely to look for work where they can have a positive impact and workers want a job where they can develop personally and have confidence in leadership at all age levels. One of the significant differences between generations was that older workers are less likely than millennials to be looking for a new job at any one time.

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