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:

February 11, 2014

Mental illness costs the UK economy £70 billion each year, claims OECD

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

According to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), issues related to mental health cost the UK around £70bn every year in lost productivity, benefit payments and spending on healthcare. The OECD’s Mental Health and Work report is an international initiative which has already produced reports over the last year exploring related issues in Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and now the UK. Forthcoming reports are due later this year for Australia, Austria and the Netherlands. The new UK report calls for employers to adopt better policies and practices to help people cope with mental health issues.

February 10, 2014

Architects should accept that other people do have a right to an opinion

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Comment, Facilities management

All professions tend to wallow in a mire of their own existential angst, perpetually complaining that they are misunderstood, undervalued and misrepresented. But any members of the human resources, facilities management or other professions which come across as habitually concerned about their role, public image, direction or esteem in which they are held might want to contrast their situation with that of the UK’s architects. This is a profession that wrestles not only with the common professional gripes, but also with what it perceives as a fall from public grace coupled with falling fees and complete disdain for what muggles – non-architectural folk – think. And all in a country in which literally anybody is allowed to design buildings.

February 6, 2014

Guidance from GCHQ suggests that Windows XP is no longer secure

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

Working from home to avoid the tube strike or weather-related travel chaos? Well, the perils associated with working from home may be more complex than contending with poor time management, feelings of isolation and a propensity to gain weight and neglect personal hygiene. The UK’s Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) is advising that all public sector staff who are still using Windows XP at home should be denied access to networks. By extension we can conclude that it’s not safe for anybody to be running the old yet still commonplace operating system after Microsoft announced it was withdrawing support from the 8^th April despite the fact that over a third of all PCs worldwide still use Windows XP.

February 5, 2014

Corruption in procurement perceived as widespread across EU

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Public Sector

According to the EU’s newly published Anti Corruption Report, around 15 percent UK firms believe that corruption has prevented them from winning a public contract at at least one point during the past three years. Although this rate compares favourably with an EU average of 32 percent, the report concludes that the total cost to the European economy of corruption is some €120 billion. The most commonly cited practices cited by the firms responding to the survey included specifications and procurement processes tailored for certain firms, conflicts of interest in bid evaluation and collusion between suppliers. Although under a fifth of UK businesses claim to have been directly affected, nearly half (46 percent) feel corruption is widespread compared to an EU average of 75 percent.

February 3, 2014

3D printed pizzas – the future of fast food for (very) remote workers

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working

The printed word may be on its way out, but how about the printed lunch? Last year, an Indian engineer called Anjan Contractor was commissioned by NASA to develop a working 3D pizza printer and has now announced his first prototype. The machine prints each pizza in layers with dried ingredients from cartridges that Anjan Contractor claims can last up to 30 years and cook in just over a minute. If NASA pushes ahead with the idea, it will mean that astronauts will be able to enjoy at least some semblance of fast food in space, while the rest of us can speculate at the implications for the UK’s growing army of homeworkers and road warriors currently subsisting on biscuits, coffee and Ginsters’ pasties. Video (if you must) below.

January 31, 2014

Economic recovery may be constrained by lack of skills and office space

by Mark Eltringham • Property, Technology, Workplace

There are signs that the nascent recovery in the UK economy is already starting to put pressure on the availability of skilled employees and appropriate commercial property for the most rapidly growing sectors. While the Government has announced that the UK’s economy has been growing at its fastest rate since 2007, a new survey published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES ) has claimed that nearly a quarter of vacancies in the UK have gone unfilled because of a shortage of much-needed skills. At the same time, claims a new report from DTZ, demand for commercial property is strengthening with take-up growing across the country while the availability of Grade A office space is declining rapidly.

January 28, 2014

New data suggests parents are frustrated at lack of flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news

Following last week’s revelation that the planned extension of Flexible Working Rights to all UK employees would be delayed beyond the proposed implementation date in April, new statistics released by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and a new report from the Working Families charity have revealed some of the disparities that exist in flexible working arrangements across the country. The Working Families survey of a little over 1,000 adults with dependent children, found that almost a third claim there are no flexible arrangements on offer where they work, leading many to feel resentful against their employers, with young fathers twice as likely to strongly resent the lack of flexible working affects their lives.

January 27, 2014

Cities report highlights skewed nature of UK economic recovery

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

The Centre for Cities has today published its seventh annual report into the economic conditions in the 64 largest urban areas in the UK. The Cities_Outlook_2014 report paints a picture of a patchy economic recovery across the UK, with many cities such as Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Liverpool and Leeds seeing an upturn in their economies, but one that lags significantly behind that of London. The capital continues to disproportionately attract investment and people from across the UK and overseas, sometimes to the detriment of other towns and cities. The report argues that more power and finding needs to be devolved away from London to ensure that the UK enjoys a sustainable and balanced economic recovery.

January 25, 2014

Latest issue of Insight now available to view online

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

The latest issue of our weekly newsletter is now available to view online here. This week: Ilkka Kakko argues that designing for serendipity is about more than facilitating chance meetings; Mark Eltringham looks for the missing link between offices and avocados; we report on the ongoing recovery in the construction and property markets; raise questions about what happiness at work really means; and Sara Bean argues that we should never assume that working from home is the best way for an individual to work. If you don’t already subscribe, please do by adding your email in the box on the home page and we’ll make sure you see the freshest thinking on workplace design and management each week.

January 23, 2014

UK commercial property investment in 2013 hits a six year high

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Last year marked a six year high in commercial property investment across the UK according to a new report from property information providers CoStar, driven by increases in regional markets and a sharp upturn of interest in Central London from overseas investors. A total of £52.7 billion of transactions was completed across the UK in 2013, albeit that two-thirds of investments were made in London and the South East of England. It was also a year for record breaking deals, notably the Broadgate office development in the City (above) and More London on the South Bank, each of which were valued at £1.7 billion. London was particularly attractive for Asian investors who CoStar claim see it as a safe haven and invested £9.2bn, up 80.6 percent on 2012.

January 22, 2014

Plans submitted for 19 storey tower in Manchester business district

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Developers have submitted plans for the development of a new tower on the site of an existing office building in Manchester city centre. Allied London is looking to create a new 19 storey office in Spinningfields, the city’s troubled £1.5 billion business district which ran into development problems at the height of the recession between 2007 and 2010. The new building a will offer over 340,000 sq. ft. of office space and is designed by Ian Simpson Architects who were responsible for the design of the Beetham Tower. The ground floor is also likely to incorporate retail outlets, cafes and restaurants. A final decision on the application from the local authority is due in April. Quay House, the current building on the site, is argued by the developer to be under-occupied and outdated.

January 20, 2014

Blue Monday hype obscures the real debate about workplace happiness

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

So here it is. Blue Monday. Officially the most depressing day of the year. We say ‘officially’, but like the idea of ‘Body Odour’ its common usage hides the fact that it was originally created as part of a 2005 PR campaign. For Sky’s travel channel. The whole idea of Blue Monday is couched in a pseudo-mathematical equation which includes factors like the weather, levels of debt, time since Christmas, low levels of motivation and, apparently, an unspecified variable known simply as ‘D’. Now, of course, none of this is either easy to define or measure and while we mock the idea, it’s not so far removed from Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempts to measure ‘happiness’ as an alternative to GDP.