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:

March 12, 2014

Interminable UK public sector procurement deters suppliers, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

Last week’s story about the jaded view UK organisations have of the way public sector organisations buy goods and services provoked a great deal of discussion on LinkedIn. Now new research from specialist purchasing data analysts Spend Network has revealed that the UK government is the third slowest in the EU when it come3s to tendering. The UK government takes 53 days longer than the EU average, with only Greece and Ireland taking longer, and they’ve had their own particular economic problems to deal with over the last few years. The data is comprehensive, covering 1.8 million EU tenders over a period of five years. It found that it takes 172 days for the UK government to award a contract after the posting of an OJEU notice, at a cost to the economy of £22bn.

March 12, 2014

Employees have spent average of £500 on BYOD, claims European survey

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

It’s not so long ago that companies were looking to ban employees from using social media and their own phones during work hours, or at least introducing policies to make it a disciplinary issue. Oh, we can LOL about it now but at the time it was routinely compared to the smoking ban, forcing educated adults to huddle outside fire escapes for a quick Facebook fix while their old-school colleagues sat in the warmth, offline but manning the phones. Of course, all this was before firms worked out they could actually get employees to pay for their own stuff and save themselves the expense. All they had to do was label it BYOD and talk about empowerment and people would cheerfully fork out what turns out to be a reasonable amount of money so the firm doesn’t have to.

March 10, 2014

The workplace of the future is one founded on uncertainty

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

We now know for a fact that the good people at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills take heed of what they read on Workplace Insight. After Simon Heath recently eviscerated the idea of the year 2020 as a useful marker for the ‘future’, a new report from the UKCES draws its line in the sand a bit further on in 2030. It means they can’t have a ‘2020 Vision’ and for that we should be very thankful. Yet the report still falls into the same traps that are always liable to ensnare any prognosis about the workplace of the future, notably that some of the things of which they talk have happened or are happening already. Then there’s the whole messy business of deciding what will emerge from the chaos; a bit like predicting the flavour of the soup you are making when a hundred other cooks are secretly adding their own ingredients.

March 7, 2014

Large and small firms demand greater transparency in government procurement

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Facilities management

The whole thorny issue of public sector procurement is never far from the news, but this week gained new prominence as one contractor walked out on a £1 billion contract because it felt the Ministry of Justice hadn’t grasped the idea of intellectual property amongst other things, while the Confederation of British Industry raised the stakes overall by claiming that a culture of secrecy in government purchasing continues to foster mistrust and waste taxpayers’ money. The CBI goes so far as to claim that even the most high profile botched contracts over recent years have not deterred the government from its move to inculcate a culture of opacity rather than transparency when procuring goods and services. It called on the Government to move to open book contracts so that all parties are aware of contract terms and margins.

March 7, 2014

UK commercial property thriving, as domestic investors shy from London

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Edinburgh is one city enjoying a resurgence in investment

The distinctions between the commercial property market in London and those in the rest of the UK are becoming increasingly evident, based on new data from DTZ. While the value of transactions hit a record breaking £44.7 billion last year, up nearly a third on the figures for 2012, the majority of investments into regional markets were made by domestic firms while those in London were dominated by overseas investors. Around £23 billion of the overall total was invested in property outside of the capital, a reversal of last year when more money was invested in the capital than outside it. Meanwhile foreign investors spent a total of £20bn throughout the year with the majority (£14.2 bn) invested in Central London. According to DTZ, one notable trend in the year was for UK investors to divest property in London and shift investment to other areas of the UK.

March 6, 2014

Business continuity report confirms technology still biggest threat to firms

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Forget the recent UK floods. When it comes to risks to their businesses, it’s still tech that keeps business leaders awake at night, according to the latest annual Business Continuity Institute Horizon Scan report. Technology related threats continue to rank higher than natural disasters, security and industrial action according to the report which gauges the threats that organisations consider to be their biggest concerns. Nearly four-fifths of business leaders fear that an unplanned technological event, cyber attack or data breach will harm their business. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) consider malicious attacks through the Internet a major threat that needs to be managed closely, while nearly two-thirds (63 percent) think that social media remains a challenge. Meanwhile, one of last year’s threats – supply chain resilience – dropped out of the top ten completely.

March 5, 2014

New data suggests that London no longer belongs to the UK, but the World

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Property

One of the subjects touched on in the first episode of Evan Davis’s BBC documentary series about the economic distinctions between London and the rest of the UK Mind the Gap was the impact of investment by the global super-rich into London property. At one point he asked the Malaysian investor behind the £8 billion Battersea Power Station redevelopment whether he’d considered investing in other cities in the UK. The response was a straight no, but the accompanying glance said rather more. London is no longer a British city but one that belongs to the world, it said, so any comparison with Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh is meaningless. You might disagree with this point of view, but a raft of new data appears to make it very evident indeed that London is now shaped by global plutocrats in a way that cannot be mirrored in the rest of the UK.

March 4, 2014

Average UK working parents now spend more on childcare than mortgages

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Last month we questioned the financial wisdom of going to work for Britain’s working parents. Today the question became even more vexed as it emerged they typically pay childcare costs equivalent to over a quarter of the UK average salary. A report from the Family and Childcare Trust says that to have one child in a part-time nursery and another in an after school club would cost £7,549 each year. Not only does this represent 28 percent of the average salary of £26,500 and is more than an average mortgage which is £7,207 per annum. For those with full time childcare the costs are typically £11,700 per year. The report also notes that childcare costs have increased by over a quarter over the last five years and even the Government’s ongoing commitment to childcare is failing to alleviate the situation.

March 3, 2014

World Green Building Council to quantify productivity benefits of sustainability

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Property

In an attempt to broaden the business case for sustainable building, the World Green Building Council has launched a new initiative to define the productivity and wellbeing benefits associated with low carbon and sustainable property. The initiative, launched ahead of this week’s Ecobuild conference in London, will be steered by a group of experts who will produce a final report later in the year. The premise of the study is to show that, as well as cutting costs and improving environmental performance, green buildings have a beneficial effect on the health, wellness and productivity of occupants. According to the announcement, around 85 per cent of an average organisation’s costs are associated with salaries and other costs of employment so a modest improvement in productivity can have a huge impact.

March 3, 2014

Flexible working mothers often resented by colleagues and worry about career

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Working women who are offered flexibility to help them balance their jobs and childcare are often resented by their colleagues, according to a new report from campaign group Opportunity Now. The survey of 25,000 working women aged between 28 and 40 found that two thirds of those surveyed believe they are expected to work longer hours than mothers. Conversely, working mothers are often perceived by their colleagues as less committed according to around half of respondents and there was a general feeling across all those surveyed that flexible working can be detrimental to careers. The report is the latest which highlights the problems many people encounter in working flexibly as a way of achieving a work-life balance.

February 28, 2014

UK culture of presenteeism restricts productivity and flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Further evidence emerges of how the much talked about culture of presenteeism in the UK is hampering the productivity of the country’s workers and restricting the opportunities presented by flexible working. A survey from fit-out company Overbury claims that around four out of five UK employees believe they need to be seen at work to win the approval of bosses and two thirds think it will further their careers even though over two thirds of them (70 percent) believe they get twice as much work done when they are away from the office. “Our research found that presenteeism comes from a complex mix of factors including demands from management, peer pressure and a self-inflicted concern over how others see us. This complexity may be why presenteeism is proving so hard to shift,” said Chris Booth, managing director of Overbury.

February 27, 2014

UK Government urged to push ahead with zero carbon commercial buildings

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Legal news, News, Property

The UK’s Green Building Council has fired off its latest salvo in an ongoing battle with the Government over the implementation of environmental legislation for commercial buildings. A new report from the organisation’s Task Group urges the Government to push ahead with plans to ensure that by 2019 all new non domestic buildings will be built to zero carbon standards. The report claims that the implementation of appropriate regulations is hampered by a lack of clarity, including confusion over what zero carbon actually means as well as the government’s own stop-start approach to the environment. The current 2019 commitment to zero carbon buildings falls a year ahead of the deadline specified in European Law, but a recent focus from the coalition on reducing relevant legislation has added to confusion about the overall approach.