About Mark Eltringham

Mark is the publisher of Workplace Insight, IN magazine, Works magazine and is the European Director of Work&Place journal. He has worked in the office design and management sector for over thirty years as a journalist, marketing professional, editor and consultant.

Posts by Mark Eltringham:

July 9, 2014

New Internet of Things consortium aims to set new global standards

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Technology

The familiar sight of companies scrabbling to define a standard global technology format on their own terms is evident with the announcement of yet another consortium intent on becoming the de facto standard for the Internet of Things (IoT). The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) includes heavyweights such as Samsung, Intel, Dell and Broadcom and is intent on defining ‘connectivity requirements to ensure the interoperability of the more than 30 billion devices projected to come online by 2020’. It joins the AllSeen Alliance and the Industrial Internet Consortium as one of a triumvirate of organisations, some with shared member companies, intent on cutting through the mish-mash of protocols associated with the Internet of Things. The principle will see a growing number of products and materials connected directly to the Internet and so able to exchange data. The adoption of the technology will have a profound impact in many areas of our lives, including workplace design and management.

July 7, 2014

UK’s men and women have significantly different attitudes toward flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

As we have seen, the implementation of new flexible working legislation in the UK at the end of June has already shone a spotlight into some intriguing corners of the nation’s workplace. The latest revelation, according to a new survey from recruitment firm Kelly Services, is that men and women have markedly different attitudes towards the idea. While just over half (51 percent)of the UK’s female workers believe that the chance of flexible working would make an organisation a more attractive employer, just over a third of their male counterparts (36 percent) feel the same way. Similarly, a fifth of women surveyed (20 percent) would consider moving job in search of flexible working arrangements compared 15 percent of men and nearly two thirds of women (62 percent) believe their ideal working environment would include flexible working arrangements compared to under half of men (49 percent).

July 7, 2014

Green building design ‘goes mainstream’ in major US cities

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, News, Property, Workplace design

Minneapolis – the home of US green building design

It’s not just Europe that is experiencing an explosion of interest in green building design. According to a new report from CBRE and Maastricht University, the past ten years have seen a transformation in the way the US corporate real estate market approaches the environmental performance of buildings. According to the National Green Building Adoption Index for 2014, produced by CBRE there has been a remarkable increase in the application of green building standards in the thirty most important regional commercial property markets in the US. Based on data from the US Green Building Council, the number of office buildings which are LEED* or Energy Star** certified has surged since 2005. The proportion of LEED certified buildings in America now stands at 5 percent, up from under 0.5 percent over the course of the survey period. The total proportion of office space which now has some form of green accreditation is just under a fifth.

July 4, 2014

A third of BYOD use is invisible to the organisation, claims new report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

In spite of the ongoing effort by companies to manage the use of employees’ own technology through Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, around a third of all BYOD activity is invisible to the IT department, according to new research from Ovum and Samsung. The report also claims that while over half of employees now use their own devices to work and access information, nearly two thirds of them are not subject to any formal IT policy. According to the report, the problem centres on the issue of ‘multi-screening’, whereby people decide which device is appropriate for whatever they are doing and don’t much care what the IT department thinks. In addition, nearly a quarter (22 percent) of employees use their own software and apps to work, which means that this is not a problem restricted to hardware. The upshot is that between 30-35 percent of BYOD is invisible to the organisation, although that represents a marked improvement on the situation a couple of years ago, when the proportion was around half.

July 1, 2014

Living longer, still working but earning more – the changing world of the UK’s older workers

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Workplace

A new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies challenges some of the most commonly held misconceptions about the UK’s older workers, their health, income and status. The Changing Face of Retirement has been produced by the IFS in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council. Over the next ten years, it claims that changes to the pension provision, a rise in the retirement age, improving levels of long term health and the fact that many more people will remain in relationships as the life expectancy of men improves will mean more and more older people will supplement their pension incomes with paid work. The report also suggests that there will be more women between the ages of 65 and 69 in work than men by 2021 but both groups will see significant increases as the proportion of the total population aged over 65 increases by over a fifth.

June 30, 2014

As UK extends flexible working rights, nearly half of people say they’re not equipped

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

As the UK extends the right to request flexible working to millions of new workers, a new and unsurprising survey from Virgin Media Business claims that nearly half (44 percent) of the country’s businesses do not equip staff properly to do their jobs away from a main office. The survey of 1,274 people already working remotely found that only 30 percent of firms supply staff with a corporate approved smartphone and a mere 16 percent offer tablet computers. Other problems highlighted in the survey include problems accessing broadband (cited by 36 percent), access to company information (32 percent) and access to emails (21 percent). The survey also reported a mismatch between employer and employee when it comes to perceptions of security. While only 22 percent of staff feel it is a concern, 50 percent of them concede that it is a major issue for their employers.

June 26, 2014

The debate about open plan offices is not helped by its use of stereotypes

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Workplace, Workplace design

The incessant debate about open plan offices is informed by a number of assumptions that can lead us to misunderstand the issues involved. Nigel Oseland eviscerates several of them excellently here, making it plain that a great deal is lost in translation somewhere over the mid-Atlantic. In truth, the European and US experiences of the open plan are very different and while we in the UK could always laugh along with our US counterparts at the organisational insanity of Dilbert, the cubicles themselves were largely alien to us. Another red herring in the debate is the idea that the open plan office is for extroverts and its alternatives for introverts. There is something in this but it’s too simplistic an idea and is often built around the stereotypes associated with sectors such as TMT, the age of workers (especially Gen Y) and supposed national characteristics, not least the reserve of Brits and the brashness of Yanks.

June 25, 2014

The new issue of the Insight newsletter is now available to view online

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Facilities management, Newsletter, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

The new copy of Insight is now available to view online. It’s been a busy few weeks for sure and this edition certainly reflects that. We introduce the new issue of Work&Place, the journal we publish in partnership with Occupiers Journal, with contributors that include Professor Franklin Becker of Cornell University, Chris Kane CEO of commercial projects at the BBC, Andrew Laing of AECOM, Simon Allford of architects AHMM Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, designer and workplace strategist Ziona Strelitz and Ian Ellison of Sheffield Hallam University. Elsewhere, Sara Bean reports on key structural changes in the UK property market, Mark Eltringham ponders what we have learned in the build-up to new flexible working regs, Simon Heath casts a jaundiced eye over a mixed bag of RIBA Workplace Award winners and Justin Miller pays tribute to a product that 20 years ago first radicalised then permanently transformed the way we viewed ergonomics and workplace design.

June 24, 2014

Five things we have learned about flexible working ahead of the new right to ask regs

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

You can’t help but notice that surveys about flexible working have been pretty thick on the ground over the last few weeks and months. The reason is that – as well as the usual ongoing fascination with the subject – the UK Government is extending the right to request regulations at the end of this month, allowing all staff to ask their employers for flexible working after six months in a job. As well as the numerous studies that firms have commissioned to explore the issue, there has been even more commentary and guidance, often from law firms. While we should always view each of these in context, adding however much salt we deem necessary to season their findings, what is always interesting when you have a media pile-in like this is to sift through it all to look for patterns, common themes and contrasts. Here are just five:

June 24, 2014

The ties that bind facilities management with workplace design

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

There is an ongoing feeling within the facilities management discipline that when it comes to the design of workplaces, the majority of facilities managers are not consulted early enough or well enough or consistently enough to ensure that the end result of the design process is a workplace that is as functional and as effective as it could be. The reason this feeling persists is that in many cases it is true. Or at least is true to a greater or lesser extent depending on how you view these things. And if that sounds woolly, then you have to remember we are talking about facilities management here, finding a definition for which has been like nailing jelly to a wall for many years. In many cases the demarcation between workplace design and workplace management is based on the mistaken idea that the two have little correlation when in fact the relationship between them should be more akin to that between sex and parenthood. One is an act of creation and the other of care, with the latter a direct consequence of the former.

June 20, 2014

The new issue of Work&Place is now available to view online

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Premium Content, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

The new issue of Work&Place is now available to view online. Published by Occupiers Journal in partnership with Insight it offers a wide range of thought leadership, research, commentary and case studies from the world’s foremost commentators, academics and practitioners in the world of workplace design and management. Contributors this quarter include Professor Franklin Becker of Cornell University, BBC CEO of Commercial Projects Chris Kane, Andrew Laing of AECOM, Simon Allford of architects AHMM Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, designer and workplace strategist Ziona Strelitz and Ian Ellison of Sheffield Hallam University. Work&Place offers progressive and informed commentary on some of the most pressing and cutting edge issues facing workplace designers and managers around the world today including co-working, office design, architecture, facilities management, workplace analytics, technology, flexible working, productivity and urbanisation.

June 20, 2014

Where office workers would really like to work? Outdoors.

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Furniture, Workplace design

Last year, we shared research from Overbury which suggested that what most people really wanted from their offices was for them to be a lot more like Starbucks. Now new research from Steelcase Solutions claims that what people would really like is to be working in bucolic splendour, or at least an indoor approximation of it. The survey of around 800 UK based office workers carried out by IPSOS claims that people would feel more optimistic about their work if natural light, more control of temperatures and informal, dynamic spaces were core elements of their working environments, which coincidentally are also important factors in fostering wellness and productivity. In addition, the authors of the report claim that more offices in future will apply biophilic design principles to offer staff a daily glimpse (or illusion) of the great outdoors. More →