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:

December 11, 2015

Concentrating on visual tasks can lead to temporary deafness ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience has found that when people concentrate more on visual tasks, they can go deaf momentarily. Based on brain scans from 13 volunteers, the researchers from UCL, the Wellcome Trust and Newcastle University concluded that the senses of hearing and vision share a limited neural resource. So, when people are focussed on a demanding visual task, the brain’s response to sound can be significantly reduced. Examination of people’s ability to detect sounds during the visual demanding task also showed a higher rate of failures to detect sounds, even though the sounds were clearly audible and people did detect them when the visual task was easy. Lead researcher Dr Maria Chait said the phenomenon of ‘inattentional deafness’, where we fail to notice sounds when concentrating on other things, confirms earlier research.

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December 10, 2015

Australia needs to do more to tackle the problems of mental health at work ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Workplace

One in five Australians suffer from a mental health disorder and employers need to do more to tackle the related issues. That is the central claim made in a new OECD report called Mental Health and Work: Australia. The study claims that mental health issues cost the Australian economy AUD 28.6 billion per year, equivalent to 2.2 percent of GDP. Adding indirect costs, such as productivity loss or sickness absence, nearly doubles that amount. The report is the ninth in a series of reports looking at how education, health, social and labour market policy challenges identified in a 2012 report called Sick on the Job? Myths and Realities about Mental Health and Work are being tackled in OECD countries. The report suggest that while Australia’s recent mental health reform is an important and helpful development, the country ‘needs to do more to help people with mild to moderate mental health issues at and into work’.

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December 10, 2015

Report claims we will probably all be using at least three devices by 2018 ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Wellbeing, Work&Place

If you ever feel completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of technology demanding your time and attention, rest assured that things are only going to get worse. A new report from tech analysts Gartner claims that as each new type of device enters the market, we don’t choose between it and what we already have, we simply add the latest addition to our technological armoury. This challenges the commonly held assumption that people choose between different devices as new ones emerge. The report suggests that by 2018, a typical user in a mature technological market will own and use at least three devices including phones, tablets, PCs and wearable tech. Worryingly, the study also suggests we will use more than two devices per person at any given time. The report suggests that during 2016, the installed base of devices will total 7.8 billion units worldwide and is on track to reach 8.3 billion units in 2018.

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December 9, 2015

Offices and smart cities will drive uptake of the Internet of Things, claims report ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Property, Technology

A new report from analysts Gartner claims that the roll out of the Internet of Things will be driven by innovation in commercial property and smart cities. The study, Internet of Things — Endpoints and Associated Services, Worldwide, 2015 claims that 1.6 billion connected things will be used by smart cities in 2016, an increase of 39 percent from 2015 (see Table 1). The authors of the report claim that smart commercial buildings, particularly those subject to Building Information Modelling technology will pioneer applications until 2017, after which consumers will become the dominant force as devices migrate to a new generation of smart homes. Commercial real estate benefits greatly from IoT implementation. IoT creates a unified view of facilities management as well as advanced service operations through the collection of data and insights from a multitude of sensors.

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December 8, 2015

Linear equations are no longer enough to determine the size of offices

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

In 2013, the US Census Bureau announced that the official human population of the Earth had exceeded 7 billion for the first time. This provoked people to raise concerns that were couched in Malthusian pessimism. Although people might have assumed we’d left behind this kind of flawed thinking, there is obviously something appealing about the idea that exponential population growth is unsustainable when resources increase only in arithmetical terms. We’ve got a problem but what we should have learned in the two centuries since Thomas Malthus first popularised the idea is that there are complex factors that can influence the resources we need to survive, not least in terms of greater efficiency in the way we produce them. A similar debate is also apparent in the way in which the commercial property market is able to offer the right sort of buildings for modern organisations.

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December 7, 2015

Groundbreaking office sharing scheme rolled out to over 100 UK councils ⁰

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

One of the most intriguing and yet least talked about developments in the UK’s workplace design and management scene over the past couple of years has been the roll out of the One Public Sector Estate scheme, which encourages local authorities to share and divest parts of their vast, messy and under-utilised estate. The Cabinet Office, the central government department behind the scheme, claims that the current programme involving 32 local authorities will yield around £129 million in property sales and savings of £77 million in running costs over a period of five years. Now, more than 100 councils are set to join the scheme including several that are set to acquire greater autonomy through the Government’s plans for devolution. The new regions set to sign up to the programme include Greater Manchester, the City of Liverpool, West Midlands and Sheffield as part of 24 new ‘partnerships’.

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December 2, 2015

Lack of talent will hold back any investment in infrastructure and building ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Property, Workplace

When faced with inconvenient facts, there is always a temptation to just ignore them. It’s a temptation to which the big thinkers of the political class readily succumb, especially when they’re selling an idea. So it was with George Osborne’s Autumn Statement, which maintained the Chancellor’s commitment to using public sector spending on infrastructure to boost the economy. This intriguingly Keynesian way of thinking seems pretty seamless, especially while the memory endures of what happens when you use credit to grow the economy. But it rests on the assumption that there is a limitless supply of the right people to build things in the first place. The flaws in this way of thinking are already becoming evident with HS2, a project that continues to drain talent away from the rail network’s already disastrous investment programme. A growing number of voices are raised to point them out on other issues too.

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December 1, 2015

How our preconceptions can lead us to fail the office design bench test

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

The office furniture design scene certainly came alive in the early 1990s. New ideas and new technologies wove themselves into the grand narrative of new ways of working. Everything was possible and there was no longer one best way of doing things. In New York, Chiat Day’s offices featured touch-down desks, garish crimson floors and walls and a reception framed by a huge pair of plastic, glistening lips. In Helsinki, Sol Cleaning Services did away completely with ideas as outmoded as desks and working hours. In the UK, British Airways gave their staff olive groves and indoor streams to work alongside. And in London a small media company called Michaelides and Bednash had offices that consisted of a room furnished with a single 20m long serviced table for its 20 staff to share. Such workplaces were surely one-offs, mere footnotes to the grand narrative.

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November 30, 2015

BRE acquires rival green building scheme to create new accreditation ⁰

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

Those bewildered by the confusion of acronyms that surrounds building environmental standards will be pleased to hear that BRE has acquired a rival standard to merge with itsBREEAM accreditation. BRE claims that the acquisition of CEEQUAL, a sustainability scheme for civil engineering, allows it to ‘create a single, science based standard and certification tool for civil engineering and infrastructure projects’. As a result of the acquisition, CEEQUAL will transfer its operations to BRE Global after which CEEQUAL will then be delivered by the BREEAM certification team with support from a CEEQUAL management team. The move is supported by the Institution of Civil Engineers and has been prompted by ‘the industry’s desire for a single sustainability rating scheme that addresses the challenges that infrastructure clients, professions and contractors currently face in delivering more sustainable and resilient infrastructure.’

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November 24, 2015

WeWork announces latest plans to dominate London’s commercial property scene ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property, Workplace design

Coworking giant WeWork has announced three new deals as it seeks to become the major player in London’s commercial property market. The firm, founded by Adam Neumann in New York in 2010, has made no secret of its plans for London as we reported earlier this year. The office space provider already has six London locations which it lets out to members (not tenants) who have access to the network of 57 locations in 17 countries on flexible terms via an app. According to a report published this week in Estates Gazette it is now set to add another 1 million sq. ft. to its portfolio in the capital with locations on City Road, Waterhouse Square and Docklands. The plans were announced to coincide with the launch of its largest London centre at Moor Square designed by Oktra. The company has also announced that it intends to launch its WeLive residential property concept in London in the near future following its successful launch in New York.

November 24, 2015

Many staff are planning to bunk off or shop online at work this Black Friday ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Whatever you make of Black Friday, and we see it quite clearly as an alien intrusion that taps into the worst instincts of some people, there is no doubt that it has quickly captured the imaginations of pretty large parts of the UK population. Although only on these shores for a couple of years, its influence is such that the media has already begun what promises to be an annual hand-wringing over this coming Friday’s outpouring of consumerism. Meanwhile logistics companies are dusting off their mothballed depots to cope with demand and gum up the roads while retailers continue to ponder whether they want to associate themselves with the whole wretched exercise in the first place. It’s also a growing problem for employers as two new surveys show that a significant number of their employees are planning to spend at least some part of their day shopping online, throwing sickies or taking the day off work.

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November 23, 2015

Two thirds of managers have little idea what their organisation’s strategy is ⁰

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

While facilities and human resources managers continue to agonise over their lack of strategic influence, a new study from researchers at the London Business School and MIT confirms what cynics may have suspected all along; a significant number of senior managers don’t have any real idea what their organisation’s strategy is in the first place. According to the study of 11,000 senior executives and managers from 400 companies worldwide, only around a third of respondents were able to correctly identify their employer’s main strategic priorities. “We asked people to list their company’s top three to five priorities”, says Rebecca Homkes, a fellow of London Business School, who led the study. “Even with five tries, on average only around 50 per cent could list the same one priority and only a third can list their firm’s top three priorities. For firms to execute a strategy well, that strategy must be clearly communicated and understood throughout the organisation.”