January 31, 2018

Creators of the Edge in Amsterdam to develop new generation of Smart buildings

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The creative team behind the development of the world’s most sustainable building – The Edge in Amsterdam – has announced the launch of a real estate technology company. EDGE Technologies, launched by OVG Real Estate CEO Coen van Oostrom will focus on creating a new generation of buildings which feature the latest innovations in sustainability and wellbeing. Whereas parent company OVG is focussed exclusively on the development of its existing portfolio, EDGE Technologies will focus on both the development and the long-term operations of this new generation of buildings, aiming for a cohesive experience across cities. Each EDGE building will be built and operated on the same technology platform and offer consistent user-centred design, created to serve the needs of today’s fast-changing and demanding workforce. To help achieve this the new company is launching a product that will capture and aggregate data across its properties in order to optimize, measure and inform both the user experience and the building’s environmental performance. (more…)

January 30, 2018

Public sector procurement must foster digital innovation and growth says report

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Public Sector, Technology

If the Government is to deliver its plans of driving digital transformation to improve the UK’s public services it must make a step change in procurement within central government and the wider public sector. That is one of the main findings of Procuring the Smarter State: key steps to promote innovation and growth in the public sector, published today by techUK. The Government spent more than £12.2bn with SMEs in 2015/16 and thousands more tech SMEs have signed up to sell their services to Government in the last year through agreements like G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Services. But the Government needs to do more if it is to reach its aspiration of spending one pound in every three with SMEs by 2022. This new report sets out how procurement can act as a tool for Government to deliver its vision for the future of public services and use public sector procurement to help foster innovation in the supplier community.

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January 30, 2018

The patchy outcomes of automation could compound Britain’s North/South divide

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Technology

The patchy effects of automation and artificial intelligence could compound the economic differences between the UK’s cities, according to a new report from the Centre for Cities. It concludes that while automation will boost jobs in British cities over the coming decades, it will also deepen economic and political divisions across the country, with Northern and Midlands cities more exposed to job losses than cities in the South. The report claims that 1 in 5 existing jobs in British cities are likely to be displaced by 2030 as a result of automation and globalisation – amounting to 3.6 million jobs in total – with retail occupations, customer service roles and warehouse jobs among those most at threat. Significantly, however, this risk is not spread evenly across the country, with struggling cities in the North and Midlands more exposed to job losses than wealthier cities in the South. Around 18 percent of jobs are under threat in Southern cities, compared to 23 percent in cities elsewhere in the country.

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January 30, 2018

Harnessing serendipity in the workplace is about more than facilitating the unexpected

by Ilkka Kakko • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

What if your company had a great and more frequent ability to discover more valuable things than those for which it were usually looking? How would you then begin to describe your company’s overall level of awareness and sagacity? Does it make your company ’feel lucky’? Inspiring questions and understanding serendipity might give some answers to these and other questions. One of the challenges in answering them lies in the nebulous idea of serendipity in the first place. In many respects the idea of serendipity carries with it a mystical undercurrent and even researchers do not agree about a precise definition. However, serendipity is never a ’happy accident’, it’s much, much more than that. The key elements in the process of serendipity include: 1) a prepared mind 2) an unexpected event, encounter, result or contradiction 3) insight and 4) value creation. Not only is serendipity a process, but it is also a quality of mind.

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January 29, 2018

New RSA report highlights increasingly precarious and diverse nature of work

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Britain is dividing into seven new classes of worker as the gig economy grows, according to think-tank the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). Striving, Thriving or Just About Surviving has been published to coincide with the launch of the RSA’s Future Work Centre, following RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor’s employment review for Theresa May last year. The report warns of a 30:40:30 society: while around 30 percent live comfortably, economic insecurity is “the new normal” with 40 percent just managing and a bottom 30 percent not managing to get by.

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January 26, 2018

Only half of organisations are committed to ensuring employees thrive at work

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Growth and development matter most to employees, followed closely by fair access to opportunities and equity in pay, yet only half (52 percent) of organisations worldwide have committed to help meet these aims claims new research. As advances in technology, like AI and robotics, disrupt industries and redefine value chains, organisations need to distinguish themselves from others in order to prevail. Thriving organisations – those that transform their work environment into a compelling experience – will be first in building the workforce for the future finds Mercer’s newest research, Thriving in an Age of Disruption. It suggests that exceptional organisations transform work into a compelling experience that meets all employees’ needs, unlocks their full potential and enables them to successfully transition into the future workforce. Employees who are energised and bring their authentic selves to work are 45 percent more invested in their role, while a trusting work environment, a feeling of personal accomplishment, faith in senior leadership, clarity around career paths and a strategy that is responsive to external market shifts and societal needs explain 79 percent of employee confidence in the company they work for.
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January 25, 2018

World Economic Forum announces expanded global network to shape policy for Fourth Industrial Revolution

by Mark Eltringham • AI, News, Technology

The World Economic Forum has announced an international expansion of its Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The announcement coincides with this week’s Forum at Davos, which you can follow live here. New affiliate Centers will open in India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, creating ‘an international network dedicated to maximising the benefits and minimising the risks of emerging technology’. In cooperation with host governments and private companies, affiliate Centers will aim to build on the work under way in San Francisco to close the perceived gap between emerging technology and policy. The Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution model is to bring together business leaders, governments, start-ups, civil society, academia and international organisations to co-design and pilot innovative approaches to governance for emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain.

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January 19, 2018

Apple announces plans for a new campus as part of huge investment programme

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Property, Technology

Apple has announced plans to create a new campus for its technical support staff and to hire an additional 20,000 employees over the next five years. The details of the new location will be announced later this year as part of a five year plan which the firm claims will make its direct contribution to the US economy hit more than $350 billion. Apple currently employs 84,000 people in the US, with the majority of in California, including at its much publicised new Apple Park campus building in Cupertino (pictured).

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January 19, 2018

Seven of the best workplace stories from the last week (or so)

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Features, Property, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

The radical idea of a world without jobs

What AI can and can’t do (yet) for your business

WeWork harms 40 percent of coworking spaces in its vicinity

No blind spots in leopards’ eyes: five hopes for Workplace in 2018

Women and men in STEM at odds over workplace equity

Economists grapple with the future of the labour market

Forget Blockchain and Bitcoin, AI is where you should be focussing

January 16, 2018

Businesses lost an estimated £20.2 bn from data breaches last year

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Hackers stole or compromised an estimated £20.2bn worth of records from businesses in 2017, new research claims. After news that Uber failed to disclose a massive hack in 2016, VPN (Virtual Private Network) comparison site BestVPN.com analysed more than 200 data breaches dating back to 2004, looking at the number of records compromised, the industries most likely to be affected and the value of those breaches. Late last year Equifax became the victim of one of the most high profile hacks in history, with 143m records stolen, equating to an estimated £15bn worth of data lost*. While there have previously been attacks where more records were compromised, such as Yahoo’s 1bn back in December 2016, the Equifax breach was notable because the data stolen included social Security numbers and personal identification. IBM revealed in its Cost of a Data Breach Study 2017 that the average cost of a stolen record was £104.25, or £2.7m per hack.

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January 12, 2018

The complex relationship between productivity, technology and working anywhere

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

A new report produced by Lancaster University’s Work Foundation and commissioned by Citrix, highlights the complex and often strained relationship between productivity, technology, work and the idea of working anywhere. Despite the march of digital transformation, one in four (24 percent) UK managers questioned for this report believe their organisation is not technologically ‘forward thinking’. With Britain’s productivity slowdown the largest of the G7 economies since the recession, over three in five (63 percent) of knowledge workers polled believe they are no more productive today than they were three years ago, with 17 percent even claiming to be less industrious. The paper – Productivity, technology & working anywhere – shows an undeniably positive link between correctly-implemented technology and workplace productivity. However this progress can soon by marred by poor business planning, a lack of innovation, outdated IT and low uptake of flexible working cultures. The research is supported with survey responses from 1,000 knowledge workers and 500 managerial level employees within medium and large organisations across the UK.

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January 12, 2018

Pointless meetings can result in disengagement and reduced productivity

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Three in 10 business professionals think most of their meetings are pointless and nearly half (48 percent) of UK business people admit to having dozed off in a meeting claims global research by Barco ClickShare. The study revealed the true extent of our shared dislike for business meetings, which many respondents believe are poorly run at best or, at worst, completely pointless. Nearly a third of respondents globally said they found less than half of their meetings to be useful, while 30 percent also said they had dozed off in a meeting before. The UK, in fact, led the way in the asleep-in-meeting stakes, with nearly half (48 percent) of all UK respondents saying they’d fallen asleep in meetings. Checking emails and social media during meetings was also extremely common and another indication of disengagement and distraction. Over 70 percent of people said they regularly checked emails during meetings, while 37 percent access social media.