January 29, 2015

New report aims to demystify successful workplace design strategies

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

Still from Jacques Tati’s Playtime

A new report aims to demystify the debate about the factors that determine an effective workplace design strategy. The Workplace Evolutionaries group in partnership with the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) Workplace and IFMA Foundation have published what they claim is the definitive workplace guide: Applying What Scientists Know about WHERE and HOW people work best. The author is Dr. Sally Augustin who argues that the study offers a comprehensive repository of research that ‘organises the tremendous body of empirical study that has been conducted in the social and physical sciences which is applicable to workplace managers and designers.’ The result is a study that looks to do away with black and white choices and considers workplace design and management issues with the sophistication they merit.

January 28, 2015

Employers over-estimate levels of staff happiness and engagement

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Nearly half (46%) of employers believe their company is a great place to work compared with less than a third (31%) of staff, and UK staff have alarmingly low energy levels, a new survey has revealed. The data from MetLife’s UK Employee Benefits Trends Survey shows how highly employers rate recruitment and retention. Forty percent of UK companies say they will be affected by talent shortages over the next year and their key benefits challenges are retaining (41%) and hiring talent (37%). However, the greatest recruitment and retention challenge is the gap between employer and employee views. Although 32 percent of employees say they are loyal to their employer – just 22 percent believe their employer is loyal to them. In contrast 39 percent of employers’ believe their employees are loyal and 40 percent believe they are loyal to employees.

January 27, 2015

Employers need to do more to attract and train older workers says REC

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Employers need to provide more training opportunities for older workers and how they advertise jobs to attract recruits over 55, according to the results of a survey issued by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). Asked to identify the most important change businesses should make to encourage applications from jobseekers aged 55 and over, almost four in ten (37%) respondents highlighted issues around advertising, while a third (34%) indicated that they should be providing more opportunities for older workers to upskill or reskill. Twenty percent said that businesses need to be more careful with language used in job adverts while 17 percent said that hirers need to look beyond posting jobs exclusively online. Evidence for the business case for retaining, retraining and recruiting older workers will be published by the Department for Work and Pensions in March.

January 26, 2015

Latest figures show record last quarter for UK commercial property investment

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Investment in the UK commercial property sector totalled £20.5bn in the final quarter of 2014 – a 26 per cent increase on the previous quarter and the highest quarterly performance on record. The demand for Central London offices was a key driver for this as in the final quarter of the year, investment in this sector more than doubled from the previous quarter. The latest edition of Lambert Smith Hampton’s UK Investment Transactions report reveals that investment in the UK regions increased overall by 41 per cent to £21.1bn for the year as a whole – the second highest figure on record. Overseas investors continue to be the largest buyers of UK commercial property, with investment from the US more than doubling year on year and interest from the Far East also increasing significantly. Click here for more information.

January 26, 2015

Messy offices really are far less productive than those with clear desk policies

by Sara Bean • Comment, Facilities management, News

I used to have a boss whose solution to dealing with all his paper-based correspondence was to simply let the detritus build up. When he couldn’t see his desk any more, he would draw his hand across the desk and dump the whole lot into the bin. Invariably he’d miss something important and would often have to search the bin to find an important letter, invoice or memo. I had another boss who ate so much food over her keyboard that it had to be taken away and cleaned – a disgusting job, according to my colleagues in IT. So despite reading with some cynicism that a cleaning company has published new research which proves offices that cut corners on cleaning, or allow employees to work in messy, disorganised surroundings, are far less productive than clean, well-ordered offices; I must agree it shows the benefits of a clear desk policy .

January 26, 2015

Flexible working improves the quality and quantity of sleep

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Wellbeing

Morning Sun by Edward Hopper

Giving employees more control over their work schedules may help curb sleep deficiency, according to health researchers in the US. A team led by Orfeu M. Buxton, associate professor of bio-behavioural health at Penn State University set out to explore the question of whether family-friendly work practices and other forms of flexible working had any impact on the quantity and quality of sleep. They results are published this month in the journal Sleep Health. Of the nearly 500 employees from an IT company surveyed over a period of a year, the researchers found that employees who were able to enjoy more control over their working day also enjoyed an average of eight minutes more sleep per night than those with rigid working hours. The research also found that participants’ perceptions of their sleep quality also improved.

January 26, 2015

Regular exercise doesn’t reduce the risks of prolonged sedentary work

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Anybody who thinks that regular gym visits mitigate the ill effects of prolonged sitting at work is likely to be dead wrong. That is the key finding of a new study published in The Annals of Internal Medicine. The meta-analysis of 47 studies set out to explore the possible correlation between physical activity and the conditions most commonly associated with sedentary lifestyles including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. The results of the analysis showed that the crucial factor was not the level of physical activity away from the workplace but rather the length of time spent sitting while at work. The Canadian academics behind the study are calling for more research to establish just how much sedentary work is too much as a way of reducing the risks which they identify as a 15 to 20 percent higher risk of heart disease and cancer and up to a 90 percent increased risk of developing diabetes.

January 23, 2015

The new weekly issue of Insight is now available to view online

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Newsletter, Workplace design

In this week’s issue: Colin Watson looks back on yet another year of dramatic workplace change and predicts we ain’t seen nothin’ yet; Mark Eltringham explores the complex nature of happiness and motivation; the BBC gets a shoeing from MPs for the running costs of its estate; the world’s taste for skyscrapers shows no signs of abating; bullying at work remains a blind spot for many managers; Paul Goodchild calls for more human centred design in office receptions; London’s thriving property market means available space comes at a premium and Sara Bean finds how flexible working is increasingly important for an aging 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.

January 23, 2015

Study reveals grassroots appeal of flexible working and BYOD

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

The grassroots nature of flexible working and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) practices is revealed in a new study from Intel Security which found that over three quarters (78 percent) of employees use their own electronic devices to work while a similar proportion (79 percent) use their company-issued devices for their personal activities. The survey of 2,500 professionals worldwide also found that 40 percent of people are happy to work ‘wherever’. While firms continue to have concerns about the security implications of BYOD and an itinerant workforce, their employees are rather more confident with the overwhelming majority (77 percent) confident that their employers have taken all appropriate security measures to protect data, even though a third (35 percent) admit that they log onto unsecured public wireless networks.

January 22, 2015

Firms are wary of BYOD but confident they can deliver flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

Despite greater awareness of the potential benefits of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), especially as a way of supporting flexible workers, a large number of European firms remain concerned about the security implications of the practice, according to a new study by HP of their attitudes to workplace technology. The study of 1,130 organisations in eight European countries found half believe that BYOD was likely to compromise their organisation and of those firms who had already implemented the practice, a fifth had experienced at least one security breach in the preceding year. In addition, fewer than half (43 percent) are confident that personal devices are properly secure, with a third (36 percent) expressing specific concerns about the contamination of networks with malware and viruses.

January 22, 2015

MPs call on BBC to cut ‘staggering’ running costs of its estate

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Public Sector

The body which oversees UK public spending has criticised the way the BBC is running its estate following the publication of a National Audit Office (NAO) report. While the report praises certain aspects of the way the estate is managed, especially its strategy of rationalising space, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is heavily critical of the BBC’s failure to meet its target of costs capped at 6 percent of licence fee income and the way the costs of some buildings are unacceptably high, including at the revamped Broadcasting House in London (above). According to the PAC, the running cost of the building is significantly more than others in the same area and around three times higher than a UK average. The BBC defended itself, highlighting progress in many parts of its estate and claiming that such comparisons did not stand up to scrutiny.

January 21, 2015

Reports highlight the UK economy’s geographical and digital divides

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

The divides in the UK economy are not only geographical, but also technological. That is the conclusion of two new reports into the country’s economic makeup and the differences that mark out the North and South of the UK as well as its rural and urban economies. While the Centre for Cities 2015 Outlook report has focused attention on the North South divide with widespread media coverage, the Federation of Small Business (FSB) has also identified a second split between the digital economies of urban and rural areas. The former report paints a picture of a two-speed economy and a widening gap between South-East England and the rest of the UK while the latter highlights the damage done to businesses in rural areas as they struggle to cope with sub-par broadband.