Workplace Design
June 12, 2017
Forget it being all about millennials, we need to design for a multigenerational workforce
Excitingly, the workforce is becoming increasingly diverse. However there’s more talk about millennials in the workplace than anyone else. In stark contrast to popular belief, the reality is that the British workforce is getting older on average which means that office design must now consider a new set of workplace requirements. The challenge for designers is to create inclusive environments that address the needs of highly skilled and experienced older workers, while still providing productive environments for all users, ensuring the entire multigenerational workforce is engaged, happy and productive. International bodies are already worried about the fiscal impact of an older workforce, in May the World Economic Forum (WEF) said that a looming fourfold rise in over-65s by 2050 is the financial equivalent of climate change. With people born today having a life expectancy of more than 100, WEF warned of more years in the office to provide financial security in later years, as well as a creeping retirement age heading towards 70. This ageing population and workforce will certainly need consideration when it comes to supporting their health and wellbeing.
June 12, 2017
What will the UK General Election mean for the workplace? Some experts respond
Any residual feelings of certainty that anybody in the UK may have had about the country’s future following last year’s Brexit vote, will have had them pretty much eradicated by last Thursday’s General Election result. However, we must try to make sense of things for society and the wider economy as well as specific facets of it, such as the world of work. The whole thing looks like the pig’s ear that it is, of course. Fortunately, as some experts have already argued, there are some reasons to see some positive outcomes, including a soft (or softer) Brexit and the chance of a more positive approach to workplace rights, now that the Government needs to maintain a broader consensus. The fear or hope that the UK would lighten its already soft touch approach to workplace legislation would seem at least to be less well founded.
June 11, 2017
Bisley’s classic MultiDrawer recognised with a Design Guild Mark
Bisley’s iconic MultiDrawer, one of the office’s most recognisable products for 60 years, has been awarded a Design Guild Mark, recognising its timeless qualities in design, functionality and quality. Now approaching six decades from its launch, the MultiDrawer has never lost its appeal, becoming an icon in storage. Almost 2 million of the diminutive cabinets have been sold, helping the brand name Bisley become part of the lexicon in the German language to describe storage cabinets, such is the reach of this British born icon. Created by Freddy Brown, founder of Bisley and an experienced metal worker, the MultiDrawer was first made in 1958. The Bisley factory was expert in metalwork having evolved from car body repairs, then making metal waste paper bins and, during the war, designing and making the large metal containers that were dropped by parachute into war zones to deliver supplies. The Design Guild Mark is awarded by The Furniture Makers’ Company, the furnishing industry’s charity, in order to drive excellence and raise the profile of British design and innovation. The award recognises the highest standards in the design of furniture in volume production, by the best designers working in Britain or British designers working abroad.
June 8, 2017
Whether you choose order or chaos depends on what you want to achieve
Chaos gets a bit of a bad rap when it comes to running a business. Yet as Greg Lindsay highlighted in his interview with Insight a while back, chaos is something that many organisations should actively try to harness as a way of fostering the creativity they claim to desire. Certain structures, be they cultural silos, traditions, professional demarcations or the physical walls and storeys of a building inhibit chaos and so restrict interactions and creative processes. So, if you want to achieve what many businesses say they want to achieve, they need to introduce a little anarchy. We’ve known about or suspected the links between harnessed chaos and creativity for a long time. In his 1883 novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, writes, “I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.” The same idea has been expressed in many ways, but few of them quite so poetic.
June 8, 2017
Nearly half of occupants say their building’s toilet facilities need some improvement
Most FMs would tell you that the state of the workplace toilets is often one of the main determinants by occupants on how well the facilities department is doing its job. So it’s disturbing to learn that according to a new survey a significant number of employees have cause to complain about the state of their workplace toilet facilities. The research, carried out by the Association of Plumbing & Heating Contractors claims that 16.5 percent of people are unhappy at work due to the condition of their employer’s toilets which is having a negative impact on their levels of engagement. Their research found 43.8 percent of the people surveyed felt their workplace toilets needed to be better maintained. And when asked if their workplace toilets require updating or refurbishing, 44.4 percent said they did. London seemingly has the worst workplace toilets with 50.9 percent of workers surveyed believing they need to be better maintained and require refurbishing.
June 7, 2017
Coworking and the current French revolution in the workplace
In France, we might have been the first to behead a King and hold a revolution, or to stand on barricades and die for ideals of justice and equality, but when it comes to change – especially in large organisations– we always seem to lag behind. You could blame it on a number of factors: a cultural bias towards tradition, the legacy of an interventionist and ever-present state, spawning bureaucratic models of large state-owned corporations, the everlasting grasp of the elites stifling innovation and the ability to “think outside the box”… Whatever this may be, the debate around remote working – a type of work organisation which allows employees to work regularly away from the office – in France has always been articulated around the preconception that France was behind. And that while its Anglo-Saxon or Nordic European neighbours displayed a boastful 30 percent of the working population as remote workers, France struggled to reach a meagre 9 to 10 percent in 2010.
June 6, 2017
Office temperature is most likely source of conflict at work
Nearly half of office workers (47 percent) cited differences over the office temperature as the aspect of their working environment that causes the most frustration in the workplace, according to a survey of 1,371 working UK adults by Emo Oil. 57 percent consider their office too hot, whilst 43 percent believe the opposite that the office temperature is in fact far too cold for working conditions, which just goes to show what a contentious issue it is. 63 percent state that the temperature affects their productivity in the working day. And as many as 1 in 6 (17 percent), even admitted to having asked their manager to work from home, due to being unhappy with the temperature in their working environment.
June 5, 2017
FIS publishes new guide to office fit out
The Finishes and Interiors Sector (FIS) trade association has published a new guide to help occupiers and others apply best practice in the creation of an office fit-out. The publication, A Client’s Guide: Office Fit-Out and Refurbishment, was launched at this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week and is available free to read or download. They do want your email details however. Image: Claremont
June 2, 2017
Google submits revised plans for vast new campus in London
Google has submitted a revised application for planning permission to Camden Council for its proposed £600 million King’s Cross Campus in London. This building will be the first, wholly owned and designed Google building outside the United States. Construction on the purpose-built 11-storey building, comprising of more than 1 million square feet, of which Google will occupy 650,000 sqft, will commence in 2018. The building, designed by Heatherwick Studio and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) will feature a natural theme, with all materials sourced through Google’s healthy materials programme. This new building, combined with the current building at 6 Pancras Square and an additional third building, will create a Google campus with the potential to house 7,000 Google employees. The new building is being developed from the ground up and will contribute to the Knowledge Quarter and King’s Cross’s growing knowledge-based economy. The original plans for the building from 2013 by AHMM had been put on hold, although some features such as a running track remain.
June 2, 2017
Revised guidance is published by the BIFM on space planning and management
The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) has issued updated guidance to help in-house FM teams understand what is involved in managing and changing space. The revised Space Planning and Management Good Practice Guide aims to provide practical advice on the tools and techniques that can be deployed when planning and managing space, clearly illustrating the processes involved and enabling facilities managers to set overarching space management strategies for their organisation. Key areas covered in the guide include space demands, strategy and standards, programming and managing projects and the technologies available to help with the process. The guide has been updated by its original author Joanna Eley, director of Alexi Marmot Associates.
June 2, 2017
Sprinkling a little stardust on the workplace design debate
The idea that extraterrestrial organisms have throughout time seeded the surface of the Earth is not the sole preserve of loonies, mystics, conspiracy theorists, the permanently stoned and various wishful thinkers. This idea of panspermia has some pretty high profile and serious adherents. Perhaps one of the most surprising was the renowned but controversial astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle; pillar of the scientific community for much of his life, atheist, Darwinist and the man who coined the term Big Bang, albeit as a way of disparaging it. Yet also a man who believed that the global 1918 flu pandemic, polio and HIV were each the result of micro-organisms that fell from the skies rather than developing here on Earth. The broader scientific community dismisses such thinking because it derives in part from either an incredulity at the processes involved – as was the case with Hoyle – or an ignorance of them.
June 14, 2017
Workplace wellbeing is now embedded in the very bricks and mortar of the building
by Sion Davies • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design
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