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:

UK needs industry wide carbon target for infrastructure, claims Green Building Council report

UK needs industry wide carbon target for infrastructure, claims Green Building Council report

by • News

The UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC) has published a report entitled ‘Delivering Low Carbon Infrastructure’, which recommends the establishment of a whole life carbon target for the infrastructure industry. The report’s  main findings are: There is no specific target for the infrastructure industry which organisations and projects can work towards; There is little similarity in ambition, duration and scope of the targets being set in the infrastructure industry; There is no single method used by all the surveyed clients to set their carbon targets; Regulators play a role in addressing carbon, however, they are not explicit in setting targets for carbon reductions and driving performance. Based on the findings, UK-GBC is recommending the establishment of a whole life carbon target for the infrastructure industry based on climate science and from which organisations can derive commensurate targets. The monitoring of such a target, and the reporting of progress against it, will be crucial.

More →

Top performing organisations build six elements into their design

Top performing organisations build six elements into their design

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Adopting agile ways of working makes a company five times more likely than competitors to be a top performer, with faster growth and higher profits, according to a new report from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), “Boosting Performance Through Organization Design”. The report describes agile as ‘a concept borrowed from software development, describes workplace processes that emphasise speed, autonomy, and teamwork to get products to market faster’. It is one of six key factors of organisation design that set top performers apart from rivals, according to results of a BCG survey included in the report.

More →

The world has its say on the Taylor Review into modern working practices

The world has its say on the Taylor Review into modern working practices 0

by • Features, Flexible working, Legal news

Yesterday, the much-awaited Taylor Review into modern working practices was finally published. And by modern working practices, the report focussed primarily on what has become known as the gig economy. People have been speculating about the contents of the report for months and things ramped up last week after a partial leak to the media. So, things were already bubbling under nicely before the actual publication of the document brought things to a boil yesterday. Assuming the government do more than kick the whole thing into the long grass, always a possibility, debate will continue for a while. We’ll let politicians do their thing with it, but here are a few of the initial reactions from interested parties and the experts. More →

Mayor launches initiative to enhance the design of Londons buildings and spaces

Mayor launches initiative to enhance the design of Londons buildings and spaces 0

by • Architecture, Cities, News, Property, Workplace design

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has this week launched his Good Growth by Design programme to ‘enhance the design of buildings and neighbourhoods for all Londoners’. In a speech at the London School of Economics, the Mayor spoke of his vision for the future of London as the city’s population heads towards 10 million people. In what is claimed to be his first major intervention on this topic, the Mayor is calling on London’s architectural, design and built environment professions to help realise his vision of London as a city that is socially and economically inclusive as well as environmentally sustainable. According to the Mayor’s office, the Good Growth programme will leave a legacy of world-class buildings, outstanding public realm and large-scale regeneration for Londoners of the future.

More →

Taylor Review on Modern Working Practices and the gig economy is published

Taylor Review on Modern Working Practices and the gig economy is published 0

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The long awaited UK government commissioned report into modern working practices and the so-called gig economy has been published at last. The Taylor Review was commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy last year and there has been a great deal of speculation regarding its content ever since, especially last week after parts were apparently leaked to the media. You can follow the pile in now on Twitter and the festering pits of ignorance, prejudice and bile known as newspaper comment sections. Or you can read it here before you draw your own conclusions. We’ll be having our say tomorrow and sharing the thoughts of various organisations into its contents. The report was authored by Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the RSA and considers the implications of new forms of working, especially with regard to the gig economy and freelance work on worker rights and responsibilities, as well as on employer freedoms and obligations. It sets out seven key principles to address the challenges facing the UK labour market, set out below.

More →

Google launches initiative to humanise artificial intelligence

Google launches initiative to humanise artificial intelligence 0

by • AI, News, Technology

Google has announced a new initiative that aims to improve the ways humans and artificial intelligence interact in both their personal and professional lives. Called the People + AI Research (PAIR) initiative, The programme will look to ensure that advances in machine learning and technical performance in areas such as speech recognition, image search and translation are better aligned with the needs of people. The project will bring together researchers across Google to study and redesign the ways people interact with AI systems. According to Google, the goal isn’t just to publish research but also create open source tools for experts in the field to use and completely redefine the way we think about artificial intelligence.

More →

Serviced and coworking offices top London leasing market for the first time

Serviced and coworking offices top London leasing market for the first time 0

by • Coworking, Flexible working, News, Property

 Serviced and coworking office space providers have accounted for the largest share of space leased in Central London for the first time, according to new research from Cushman & Wakefield. During the first half of 2017, serviced office or co-working providers – such as WeWork and The Office Group – accounted for 884,235 sq ft of newly-leased office space in central London. The second quarter of the year in particular witnessed a dramatic escalation in activity by serviced office and co-working providers with 651,540 sq ft leased – around a quarter of central London’s take-up across April, May and June. This was more than London’s traditionally dominant occupational sub-sectors such as technology, media and financial services. The H1 2017 total is more than serviced office and coworking providers accounted for in the whole of 2016 (853,178 sq ft). and is just a deal or two shy of the sector’s average annual take-up between 2012 and 2016 (908,972). It seems certain therefore that serviced office and co-working providers will this year surpass their record annual volume of 1,267,926 sq ft set in 2014, according to the firm.

More →

Three quarters of managers are happy to allow staff to work flexibly to watch Wimbledon matches

Three quarters of managers are happy to allow staff to work flexibly to watch Wimbledon matches 0

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

According to a survey from the Institute of Leadership & Management a majority of workplaces are dealing with the summer of sport, by using flexible working to accommodate people’s enthusiasms. Based on a small sample size of around 200 organisations, three quarters (75 percent) of managers would allow staff to watch or listen to sporting events in the office. Staff wellbeing (28 percent) and lower absences (25 percent) are seen by managers as the two biggest benefits in allowing staff to watch or listen to sporting events in the office, according to the study. 78 percent said holiday clashes leaving too many employees off was the hardest aspect of managing staff over summer. The survey claims that 45 percent of managers see sporting events as a tool to boost staff morale. ‘Dress down Fridays’, flexible working hours and picnics were other popular methods. The study also found that managers believed allowing sport to be watched in the office means less absence due to sickness.

More →

Improved employment rights would boost number of gig workers claims PwC survey

Improved employment rights would boost number of gig workers claims PwC survey 0

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News

While most workers favour full time employment, significant numbers of people would consider gig work and other flexible options such as zero hours contracts, according to a PwC survey of more than 2,000 UK adults. But key concerns remain job security, the ability to earn sufficient income and losing out on workplace benefits. The findings come ahead of the much anticipated Taylor Review into Modern Employment practices, expected this week. While 77 percent of the people surveyed prefer full time employment, 45 percent of the respondents would consider gig work (defined as short-term, casual work, typically organised or facilitated via mobile phone apps) or already work in this way. This number would rise if employment rights improved significantly, with two in five people saying it would make them more likely to take up gig work. Flexible options are most popular with ‘millennials’ – some 58 percent of 18-34 yr olds would consider taking gig work compared with 30 percent of those over 55. Likewise, while zero hours contracts would be considered by 35 percent of respondents overall, 45 percent of millennials say they would take a zero hours contract., falling to  just 24 percent of over 55s.

More →

Acts of kindness create a virtuous circle in the workplace

Acts of kindness create a virtuous circle in the workplace 0

by • News, Wellbeing

acts of kindness

This is the very definition of a Friday story. The results of a research project, published in the American Psychological Association journal Emotion suggests that the small kindnesses we show to others at work tend to propagate across an organisation. For the study, a group of researchers from the University of California told workers at Coca Cola’s Madrid headquarters that they were taking part in a piece of research to measure their levels of happiness, job satisfaction, relationships with colleagues (good and bad) and their positive and negative experiences of other people’s behaviour as well as an assessment of their own behaviour over a period of four weeks.

More →

Job mobility and labour markets in Europe continue to be shaped by last recession

Job mobility and labour markets in Europe continue to be shaped by last recession 0

by • News, Workplace

A new report from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) claims that the recent global recession continues to have significant and lasting effects on Europe’s labour markets, including a big drop in employment levels and job mobility, which are yet to recover in many countries almost a decade later. It also affected the structure of employment, accelerating changes and patterns of job polarisation across Europe, in which employment in middle-paid jobs declined more than in jobs at the top and bottom of organisations.

More →

“World first” biophilic design research project to explore impact of nature on buildings and people

“World first” biophilic design research project to explore impact of nature on buildings and people 0

by • Environment, Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

biophilic designBRE have launched The Biophilic Office project, a ‘groundbreaking’ office refurbishment in test conditions that will seek to provide quantified evidence on the benefits of biophilic design on health, wellbeing and productivity of office occupants. The project centres on a 650 sq. m. 1980s office building on the BRE campus in Watford, which will be refurbished according to biophilic design principles. BRE are partnering with architect and interior designer Oliver Heath, who will lead on the design element of the refurbished building.

More →

«< 64 65 66 67 68 >»