March 7, 2015

Latest Insight newsletter is now available to view

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Colin Watson reflects on how the Internet has ushered in a new world of work over the past two decades; Mark Eltringham explains why the current obsession with ‘engagement’ should not exclude employing the right people in the first place and Charles Marks extols the vital role of the office for key sectors such as the financial services industry. A new OECD report suggests that flexible working still has a negative impact on many women’s career prospects; while a separate study finds the majority of workers are happy with their work/life balance. You can also view a video and gallery of Google’s new Silicon Valley headquarters and read about the offices that have been recognised in the latest BREEAM awards. Sign up to the newsletter via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar and follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

March 6, 2015

Best performing office buildings included in the annual BREEAM awards

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News, Workplace design

A Grade A listed building at London’s King’s Cross; a former industrial warehouse complex in London’s Clerkenwell and an office building off Paris’ Champs-Elysées were among the award winners for best performing buildings assessed under sustainable buildings standard BREEAM. Over 50 green projects from across Europe were shortlisted with eight awards going to UK-based projects and four others shared equally between France and Norway. Winner of ‘offices new construction’ is One Pancras Square, a Grade A office building based at the gateway to the King’s Cross development. ‘Offices in use’ winner Washington Plaza is a 47,097 sq.m office building, at 42 rue Washington 75008 Paris. ‘Offices refurbishment and fit-out’ winner Morelands sits at the junction of Old Street and Goswell in London’s Clerkenwell area and comprises a cluster of warehouse buildings built around a U-shaped courtyard.

March 5, 2015

The financial services sector leads the way in how we think about office design

by Charles Marks • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The office as we know it may continue to change, but that doesn’t mean its vital role at the heart of the organisation will diminish. The recent downturn meant some tough decisions had to be taken by many companies. It certainly focussed more attention on the way firms design and manage their workplace, based on a clear understanding of their economics. It is one of the most commonly cited truisms about office design that after staff, buildings are easily the second highest item of expenditure for the majority of organisations. The conclusion often drawn from this is that there is a compulsion to reduce space through new working practices or more efficient office design and management. Which may be true but the challenge is to take advantage of these opportunities without adversely affecting the company’s most expensive and valuable asset; its staff.

March 3, 2015

Video and gallery: Google’s new Silicon Valley headquarters

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Facilities management, News, Workplace design

Google may be having second thoughts about the design of its new London offices, but it is rather less reticent about that of its new Silicon Valley headquarters. It plans to transform a 2.5 million square foot site in the Californian city of Mountain View into a home for around 10,000 workers. The pastoral setting has been designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Engels and incorporates parkland dotted with glass buildings including some Eden Project like geodesic domes. Unsurprisingly the campus buildings have been designed to achieve a LEED platinum accreditation and cars are largely discouraged from the site. Heatherwick has described the plans as humanistic and the plans include a number of community facilities including a new public safety building, two new parks, an educational science centre and even a residential development on neighbouring land.

March 1, 2015

The latest issue of the weekly Insight is now available to view online

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

In this week’s issue; A new study from IBM challenges some of the most commonly held myths about Generation Y and lays down a few uncomfortable truths for employers; Our regular columnist Simon Heath likes this year’s shortlisted Design Awards entries, but not the way they are described; the Government sets out to define what makes a good public sector property design and management specialist; a call for greater understanding of how more women could develop and stick with STEM careers; some good news about fit notes workplace absence; the Green Building Council challenges developers to take a lead in environmental property; and the latest moves to shift London’s traffic, cyclists and pedestrians to new underground routes. Sign up to for weekly updates via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar and follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

February 27, 2015

Report exposes myths and uncomfortable truths about Generation Y

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

A new report from IBM proves what we at Insight have been arguing for some time; Millennials have some differences to previous generations of employees, but ultimately they have more in common than most commentators acknowledge and their impact on a multi-generational workplace has been completely misrepresented. While the report, Myths, Exaggerations and Uncomfortable Truths, acknowledges Gen Y’s different experience of the digital world, it also demonstrates what we would suggest has been obvious all along; that unless Generation Y has arrived from another planet, it will share many of the strengths, weaknesses, drives, fears and abilities common to other demographic groupings. The study of 1,784 employees from organisations in 12 countries challenges many of the key myths about Generation Y and also lays out a number of ‘uncomfortable truths’ for employers.

February 27, 2015

Employers embrace mobile workforces but retain traditional workspaces

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Nearly three quarters of employers that offer staff the opportunity to work flexibly are failing to reorganise their workplaces to reflect the new ways of working. Research commissioned by US based AV company Barco, found that while 86 percent of organisations indicated a remote working approach was being used within their business; rather than using this policy to reduce desk space, 73 percent of organisations admitted they still had allocated desks. This is despite the fact that the top three drivers for unifying communications are to increase productivity (51%), reduce costs (44%), and increase collaboration (27%). And though the BYOD trend is continuing, with half (50%) saying personal laptops and personal tablets (45.2 %) are being used in the workplace; 82 percent of those surveyed said that laptops are still company issued.

February 24, 2015

Design Museum Awards: the buildings may be accessible, but the language isn’t

by Simon Heath • Architecture, Comment, Workplace design

One of the fundamental challenges when asked to offer a critique of something is that you may find that you actually like a great deal of what you are presented with. And this is precisely the challenge offered up by the shortlist for The Designs of the Year awards, organised annually by London’s Design Museum to honour work “that promotes or delivers change, enables access, extends design practice or captures the spirit of the year”. It would be churlish indeed to take issue with projects that seek to address the provision of education in deprived areas; remove pollutants from the air and from the oceans; advance technological solutions to help people with impaired sight or mobility and improve sanitation to eliminate the diarrhoea which kills approximately 1.8 million people annually, primarily children under the age of 5.

February 23, 2015

Latest Insight newsletter is now available to view

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Newsletter, Property, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Maciej Markowski says most companies are not like Google, so don’t require a Google-cloned office; and Mark Eltringham explains why Charles Handy was largely correct in his pronouncements on the changing nature of work. Take up of leased office space in London hits its highest level since 2000; the UK workforce sees an increasing pay divide; and with new flexi-rights just weeks away, Acas publishes a new free guide on Shared Parental Leave. The Government publishes the latest edition of its ‘Greening Government ICT Strategy’ report; and the House of Lords’ report, Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future, predicts that 35 percent of jobs over the next two decades will be automated. Sign up to the newsletter via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar and follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

February 17, 2015

Why would you want a Google office when you can create your own?

by Maciej Markowski • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace design

Google has dramatically shaken up the world of the Internet and also changed the face of the traditional office environment forever. Nothing has ever been the same, since the ubiquitous four-colour logo first appeared on the worldwide web. Everything that Google does creates a ripple in the business world. Whether it’s giving employees 20% of their time to focus on their own projects, allowing them to form teams to peruse the idea of their choice or installing slides instead of stairs many are asking “should we also be doing that?” And it’s not surprising. All companies want to be successful and there’s no better success story around than Google. So let’s try and model ourselves on or imitate Google, right? I have lost count of how many times I’ve heard “could we have an office a bit more like Google?”

February 17, 2015

The latest issue of Insight is now available to view online

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Newsletter, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Mark Eltringham observes the shattering of any fixed idea we may once have had of a time and a place to work, and highlights the remarkable growth in the number of one person businesses; Sara Bean welcomes the publication of Kinnarps’ Trend report which offers informed views of the shape of the future workplace; Jonathan Hindle examines the true value of workplace art and Paul Goodchild suggests there may be better ways of designing offices that balance the advantages of the open plan, while mitigating its drawbacks. In news; the latest initiative between the BIFM and the CIPD, Government plans to attract the US tech sector to the UK, and new evidence of the impact of stress on the workforce. Sign up to the newsletter via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar and follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

February 13, 2015

Our personal choices can tell us a lot about the state of the economy

by Alison Kitchingman • Comment, Products, Workplace design

The announcement by Pantone that its Colour of the Year for 2014 was a muted reddish brown called Marsala was met with the annual carping about the subjectivity of the whole thing. Yet there are two things we know for sure. One is that Pantone puts a lot of time and effort into making its decision and looks at a range of social and economic factors, fashions and tastes before making its decision. The other is that this idea that you can gauge trends by tracking changes in taste has some high profile adherents. One of them is Alan Greenspan, perhaps the world’s most famous living economist, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve and a great believer in the idea that you can get a good idea of the health of the economy by looking at the length of women’s hemlines and heels and the amount of money men invest in underwear and ties.