Columnists

Buying green products should involve a closer look at the supply chain

by • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Last year’s unrest in the Chinese factory that is a principal manufacturer of the iPhone5 shone a light into one of the usually dark corners of modern life. Namely that beneath the sleek facades of the products we buy lies the story of their production, transportation, marketing and eventual demise. Look further back than the […]

Video: another prediction from the 60s gets it a bit right and a bit wrong

by • Comment, Technology

  [embedplusvideo height=”196″ width=”225″ standard=”https://www.youtube.com/v/rpq5ZmANp0k?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=rpq5ZmANp0k&width=225&height=196&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep4975″ /]   The latest in our series of videos looking at how the world in which we now live was predicted a generation or so ago. This time a clip from a 1967 documentary called 1999 AD. Although accurate in many respects including the use of online shopping […]

Challenge for Ecobuild is reducing greenwash and white noise

by • Architecture, Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Today is the first day of Ecobuild, which claims to be the world’s largest exhibition dedicated to sustainable construction and fit-out. Some 1,500 organisations are taking part in the event in East London which last year attracted 58,000 visitors from around the world. While undoubtedly successful, influential, with great intellectual content and a showcase for […]

Using the office treadmill to fight the flab

by • Comment, Furniture, Knowledge, Workplace

While shopping recently for a new arm chair, I noticed the prevalence of “snuggle chairs”, marketed as wider than average chairs in which two people can sit cosily together. However, judging by some of the customers checking them out, they appeared much more suitable for use by individuals with a wider girth. You don’t have […]

Google and Yahoo office strategies teach us the value of the velvet glove

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

It’s a week now since the whole Yahoo-ha kicked off and since that time everybody has had their say on the matter including – refreshingly – those in the mainstream media. The story has followed its own narrative arc, from the initial gasps of horror at Yahoo’s audacious challenge to a cherished piece of contemporary […]

Working ‘proper hours’ may no longer be possible

by • Comment, Knowledge, Workplace

Today is the Trades Union Congress’s self-styled ‘Work Your Proper Hours Day’. Last week the TUC announced that it had used Government statistics to calculate that more than 5 million UK employees put in an average of over 7 hours of unpaid overtime a week, adding around £28 billion a year to the economy. Like […]

Yahoo case doesn’t tell the whole story of teleworking

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Yahoo! made headlines across the US and the rest of the world this week by announcing they are terminating the company’s telework program.  Does this signal, broadly, the pending demise of telework?  Here’s my take: this story is actually deeper than just about telework. Yahoo! has been wandering around aimlessly for a number of years, and […]

Workplace Anachronisms: No. 1 – the BCO Specification Guide

by • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

The British Council for Offices claims that it is ‘Britain’s leading forum for the discussion and debate of issues affecting the office sector. Its members are organisations involved in creating, acquiring or occupying office space, whether architects, lawyers, surveyors, financial institutions or public agencies.’ If true, this makes its Specification Guide all the more remarkable […]

Building designers should pay more heed to what users need

by • Architecture, Comment, Facilities management

These past two weeks have seen me playing and working in what I believe is fondly referred to as “That London” by those who live and work in the rest of the United Kingdom. Whilst resisting the temptations of the capital’s fleshpots, I’ve had the time to reflect on the design of public spaces and […]

Video: ‘We are not as endlessly predictable as you would think’

by • Comment, Workplace

  [embedplusvideo height=”157″ width=”230″ standard=”https://www.youtube.com/v/u6XAPnuFjJc?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=u6XAPnuFjJc&width=230&height=157&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep2086″ /] An old one, but still my favourite from the RSA Animate series. It’s always worth reminding ourselves that the issue of motivation is very complex. People are not machines and function within the context of a whirl of emotions, relationships, influences, events, crises, stimuli, personal characteristics and […]

Are you working or shirking from home?

by • Comment, Legal news, Technology, Workplace

During recent weather-related travel disruption, I was inundated with various pieces of information on software that spies on home based employees to check that they really are working, not shirking from home. As Acas opens a consultation on a draft Code of Practice regarding the extended right to request flexible working; and figures from the […]

Yahoo is not the only firm that doesn’t like flexible working

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

As news emerged over the weekend from Silicon Valley that Yahoo had introduced a new policy that insisted employees work from the company’s HQ, a survey from O2 in the UK highlighted just how many firms are not as keen on the practice of flexible working as they might claim in theory. The question we […]

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