August 22, 2016

Managers and staff in creative sector disagree on what makes a creative office ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

According to a survey by recruitment firm The Creative Group, managers and employees in US based ad agencies don’t see eye to eye on the essential characteristics of a creative office. When asked what the ideal work environment is for on-the-job innovation, the top response among advertising and marketing executives was an open plan workplace. Employees, however, seem to prefer more private, concentrated time, with a private office being the most popular option. According to the study of 1,400 US based ad agency managers, executives and employees, over a third of managers favour open plan environments compared to just a quarter of employees. Twice as many employees as managers would also rather have a private office. Around a fifth of both groups opt for a cubicle. Perhaps the most interesting finding of the report is that just 4 percent of both groups think the best option is remote working.

August 19, 2016

Over a third of office workers complain about poor air quality ¹

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Almost 70 percent of office workers believe poor air quality in their place of work is having a negative effect on their day-to-day productivity and wellbeing, claims a survey commissioned by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA); and a third of workers are concerned that poor air quality could be having a negative effect on their health. Opening windows is the most commonly used form of ventilation with 60 percent of workers saying it is the first thing they do if they need fresh air. However, although this is seen as a natural response, opening windows runs the risk of further polluting the working environment by letting in outdoor toxins, the survey claims. Given that we spend 90 percent of our time indoors and on average, 212 days a year at work, BESA has called on firms, managers and employees to ensure proper, effective, well maintained ventilation systems are operating in all offices across the UK.

August 17, 2016

Do people really matter when we design workplaces? ⁰

by Steve Maslin • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Workplace design

Some may think this is a daft question. They’ll argue that of course people matter when we design workplaces. Granted, there are those for whom the human experience of the built environment is really important. They demonstrate this it in their attitudes and actions. However, based on some of the attitudes and actions I have observed over the years, I would suggest that the belief that people really matter when some designers design workplaces for them is quite frankly all too often skin deep. How do we know this? And if we accept that it is true, it then begs the secondary question of why this should be the case. Is it entirely our fault? What might we do to address the issues? In part, we know that people haven’t really mattered enough in design because of mistakes of the past. Meanwhile, society is facing many pressing challenges, ranging from health to housing, work to economy and climate change to resource depletion.

August 17, 2016

Intelligent lighting can enhance workplace wellbeing and productivity ⁰

by Andy Gallacher • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Lighting, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The main driver of the growing interest in wellbeing in recent years has undoubtedly been absenteeism. But workers don’t have to be ‘absent’ from the workplace to hamper productivity. Presenteeism, where employees are present but not productive can also influence the long-term success of an organisation. The interaction between the worker and their work environment has a huge influence on an individual’s wellbeing and overall productivity, with employees’ performance more likely to be enhanced when they are immersed in a comfortable and stimulating environment. This can include all the usual stipulations, such as a well-designed workstation, a comfortable office temperature and carefully considered and appropriate lighting. In fact, improved lighting is an essential element in the overall mix, not only because of the cost savings that their energy efficiency brings but also in the way lighting contributes to workplace wellbeing and people’s performance.

August 15, 2016

The traditional office is still very much alive, but it is changing ⁰

by Alex Gifford • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

A skim through workplace features in the media and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the traditional office is no longer with us. According to the narrative, we’re all now 20-somethings, working in open-plan warehouses, with table football, bean bags and comfy sofas to lounge on, while drinking our custom-made soya lattes. When in actual fact, while more relaxed, fun and funky offices tend to make the headlines, the majority of people still work in a relatively traditional way, with their PC or laptop, a desk and an ergonomic task chair. What’s more, with an ageing workforce, we certainly aren’t all 20-somethings, with DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) figures revealing that the employment rate for people aged 50 to 64 has risen by 14 per cent in the last 30 years, and doubled for over 65s. So designing with just the youngsters in mind simply doesn’t add up. Recent research by the Senator Group, backs up this view.

August 5, 2016

Corporate real estate sector needs to step up to meet new challenges ⁰

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

The corporate real estate profession will be influenced, disrupted and transformed in the years ahead by a powerful combination of forces that are re-shaping business strategy and operations, consumer preferences, and how and where people want to live and work, according to a new report from CoreNet Global. The Bigger Picture: The Future of Corporate Real Estate draws on the expertise of more than 30 thought leaders to provide insights from multiple perspectives beyond CRE: technology and the internet of things; risk mitigation; cyber security; environment, energy and sustainability; corporate social responsibility; the global economy; people, talent, wellbeing; and the future of cities. The report argues that CRE must deliver greater value in this dynamic business environment and a world that is changing rapidly, is more interconnected than ever before, is constantly disrupted by technological innovation, and is replete with both risks and opportunities.

August 2, 2016

What Anaïs Nin can teach us about the way we design and use workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Although the author and feminist icon Anaïs Nin was born and raised in France by Cuban parents, she is most commonly seen as an American literary figure. Like many of the mid 20th Century’s most pioneering writers and thinkers on social and gender issues, her fame appears to have slowly eroded, perhaps because much of what she wrote about at the time was for the time. She documented much of her life in diaries and letters and so we know a great deal about her as a person, including how much she loved New York while remaining open minded about its deficiencies. In a 1934 letter to her then lover Henry Miller, she laid out her thoughts on the city, and especially its physicality. One of the most eternally resonant aspects of her description is the idea that it is what a person brings to a place that makes it come alive. Culture eats design for breakfast. The stage setting is meaningless without the play and the players.

August 2, 2016

Seven workplace stories we like and think you should read this week ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Comment, News, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

1 The next big thing in office design is not what you think but is certainly a sign of the times, according to a story in Inc; it is bullet proof office screens. 2 An exhibition in London offers up spectral images of abandoned buildings from the Soviet era. 3 We’ve been saying for a while that Millennials don’t exist as a separate species, but perhaps not as powerfully as Adam Conover does in this talk delivered, ironically, at a conference focused on marketing to Millennials 4 Maybe the UK Government has finally discovered that an awful lot of people live outside London as it announces the creation of three large civil service ‘hubs’ in Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester. 5 Philip Tidd of Gensler powerfully offers up an inconvenient truth for the UK workplace. 6 More evidence that the Brexit vote was largely a general protest vote rather than a specifically anti-EU vote from the What Works Centre for Wellbeing. 7 A letter to the FT from construction industry leaders urges the UK to maintain its role as a leader in tackling climate change.

July 30, 2016

Office work not as bad as smoking + New age of reason + Productivity gap ⁰

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Facilities management, Newsletter, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s Newsletter; Mark Eltringham suggests reading the source material behind the latest sitting is the new smoking guff; and celebrates a new age of reason in workplace design. New evidence that giving employees more control over workplace design is the most important contributing factor to their wellbeing; businesses ready to embrace the workplace robot; and the UK economy still to address productivity and digital skills gaps. Third of parents struggle to find childcare across the summer holidays; retaining ‘passporting’ rights to the single market vital for the City during Brexit negotiations; rising over 50s population of workers suffer discrimination; and researchers confirm the imminent demise of the ‘nearly useless’ desk phone. Download our new Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design on the link between culture and workplace strategy and design; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

July 28, 2016

Working in an office is NOT as bad as smoking, whatever you might read ⁰

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

There is a lurid headline in today’s Telegraph proclaiming that ‘Working in an office is as bad as smoking’. It’s been picked up by a number of other news outlets, has been splashed all over search engines and will no doubt join the stream of misleading narrative that distorts the subject and encourages designers to come up with nonsense like this. So, in an almost certainly vain attempt to close the sluice gates, we would encourage people to read the source material. In this case that is a piece of research in The Lancet medical journal published yesterday. What the report actually concludes is that ‘in addition to morbidity and premature mortality, physical inactivity is responsible for a substantial economic burden. This paper provides further justification to prioritise promotion of regular physical activity worldwide as part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce non-communicable diseases’. In other words, it supports an existing, well understood conclusion.

July 26, 2016

Workplace design that hands people control is the key to their wellbeing ⁰

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

Giving employees more control over workplace design is the single most important contributing factor to their wellbeing, according to a new study. The Workplace & Wellbeing report examines the workplace design factors that influence wellbeing. The research team discovered that an invitation to participate in the design of the work environment raised levels of wellbeing, although increasing the level of participation did not necessarily increase the level of wellbeing. The research was led by the Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design in partnership with architects Gensler and supported by a consortium of leading industry names: Milliken, Bupa, Royal Bank of Scotland, Kinnarps and Shell. The context for this project lies with a current ‘wellbeing deficit’ in the workplace which means absence from work costs the UK economy more than £14 billion a year according to the Confederation of British Industry.

July 25, 2016

Outmoded desk phone will disappear within next couple of years ⁰

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

A new survey has confirmed the imminent death of the ‘nearly useless’ desk phone, which while still in evidence within many organisations, is believed by one third of workers will disappear in two to three years. With both corporate and remote workers increasingly away from their desks, 65 percent already have a ‘desk phone optional’ work environment and over half (59 percent) believe the desk phone is outdated. The 2016 Report on Business Communications in the Era of the Anywhere Worker, by Dialpad, among end users to executives, on cloud communications adoption rates and expectations, also found that businesses of all sizes are adapting to the “anywhere worker” movement and as employees increasingly rely exclusively on mobile technologies, the organisations they work for are quickly evolving to meet their mobility demands and prepare for more anywhere workers in the future. In fact, 84 percent of responding companies already have remote workers.