January 23, 2019
Film series sets out to solve the workplace wellbeing puzzle
Recent research by the British Safety Council identified significant levels of uncertainty in the UK about workplace wellbeing. Its report Not just free fruit: wellbeing at work, found that employee wellbeing is often ignored or misunderstood, with employers unsure how to define it or how to improve staff wellbeing, what priority to give it and how to measure the effectiveness of wellbeing interventions and programmes.
There was a record-breaking rate of take-up within the regional office occupier markets outside of London and the South East in 2018, with few signs of Brexit-related uncertainty, according to an analysis by CBRE. Across the ten regional cities monitored by CBRE, provisional analysis shows that overall take-up reached nearly 7.3m sq ft. This level was 16 percent above the five-year average and 6 percent higher than 2017, the previous record-breaking year. The majority of regional office demand has again been driven by the business and professional services sectors. 2018 saw record take-up from flexible office operators across the UK, representing the leading portion of business services take-up. This was the year the co-working revolution surged into regional cities. Birmingham, Bristol and Glasgow were all stand out expansion locations. With more demand from flexible workspace operators – both from established and new entrants, further expansion is anticipated in 2019 albeit at a further pace as markets become more saturated.
Half of employees say that their working environment has a negative effect on their mental health (51 percent) and wellbeing (49 percent) and two-thirds (67 percent) say that they only ‘sometimes, rarely or never’ feel valued at work. The research by Peldon Rose shows that two-thirds of employees (64 percent) currently have poor or below average mental wellbeing and that the majority (56 percent) claim increasing workloads, followed by a lack of time to focus on wellbeing and exercise (46 percent) are the leading causes of their stress. While half of employees think introducing exercise facilities will help them to better tackle their workplace stress (50 percent) – less than a fifth of workplaces (16 percent) currently provide these facilities, something employers should consider when looking to boost the morale of their workforce.
