British workers suffer in silence in noisy office environments

by • News, Workplace design

Hanging onNew research from Avanta Serviced Office Group claims that noise in the office environment is severely damaging the productivity of British businesses. The study of more than 1,000 UK office workers found that although over 80 percent of employees claim to being regularly distracted by noise in the workplace, fewer than half complain about it. Instead around a third admit they simply take themselves somewhere quieter such as their homes or a cafe or library. The study also identifies the distractions that bother people the most, most deriving directly from their colleagues including overheard conversations, ringtones, loud eating habits, whistling, music and even people talking to themselves. Compared to these human sources, the racket generated by inanimate objects features low down the list of irritants.

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Wellness programmes may be causing more problems than they solve

by • Knowledge, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

wellness backfiresFar from making employees healthier, a corporate focus on their wellness may actually be making them unhappier and more prone to illnesses. That is the conclusion of a new book published by two researchers at Cass Business School and Stockholm University. In the book, The Wellness Syndrome, the authors Andre Spicer and Carl Cederström claim that the fixation with monitoring wellbeing and initiating wellness programmes may be having the obverse effect to that intended. The book argues that an obsession with wellness obliges some people to pretend to be happy at work, even when they are not and that the pressure to fit with a corporate notion of what constitutes a ‘well’ person makes them depressed and anxious that they will be labelled by their employer and colleagues if they don’t fit an ideal.

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Latest commercial buildings listings illuminate changing world of work

by • Architecture, News, Property, Workplace design

30 Cannon StreetThe latest fourteen buildings to be listed as part of the Post-War Commercial Buildings Project have been announced by the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The project was initiated by English Heritage in 2011 as a way of recognising the significance and diversity of commercial buildings and acknowledging their unique proneness to change. According to English Heritage the latest fourteen Grade II listed entries (as well as a number of others assessed but deemed of lesser significance) also highlight how the design of commercial buildings reflected the changing world of work up to the cut off point of 1984. Although the projects are predominantly in the South East, there are listings for commercial buildings in Leeds, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Birmingham.

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Collaborative workspace concept is being embraced in the City

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property

Collaborative workspace concept moves into the City of LondonIt looks like the collaborative workspace concept is gaining credence beyond the tech start-up fraternity. British Land has announced it is to partner with Central Working, a members’ club which provides growing businesses with infrastructure, support and tools, to open a new club, Central Working City, at 4 Crown Place, next to Liverpool Street station. The move reflects a growing demand from start-ups and entrepreneurs for more collaborative workspaces in the area.The new club will occupy 11,000 sq ft across three floors of the five storey building. Following an extensive fit out the new club will offer members a mixture of shared working space, break out rooms, permanent offices and outdoor space. Profits from the club will be shared between British Land and Central Working.

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New report aims to demystify successful workplace design strategies

New report aims to demystify successful workplace design strategies

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Workplace design

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.

Employers over-estimate levels of staff happiness and engagement

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employers over-estimate levels of staff happiness and engagementNearly 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.

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

by • News, Workplace

Hiring older workersEmployers 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.

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Latest figures show record last quarter for UK commercial property investment

by • Facilities management, News, Property

Latest figures show a record quarter for UK commercial property investmentInvestment 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.

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

by • Comment, Facilities management, News

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

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Flexible working improves the quality and quantity of sleep

Flexible working improves the quality and quantity of sleep

by • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Wellbeing

Flexible working

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.

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

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

sedentary workAnybody 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.

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

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

workplace insightIn 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.

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