Columnists
May 10, 2017
The new normal arrives for the commercial property sector 0
by Gary Chandler • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design
Traditionally, the two principle vectors for change in the commercial property market have been lease lengths and space standards. Both have shrunk markedly over recent years, subject to the miniaturising effects of technological and cultural change. Even so, the effects of this contraction have taken place within an existing paradigm so have been easily understood, […]
May 3, 2017
Wiring your brain to the Internet? What could possibly go wrong? 0
by Christopher Markou • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing
Neuralink – which is “developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers” – is probably a bad idea. If you understand the science behind it, and that’s what you wanted to hear, you can stop reading. But this is an absurdly simple narrative to spin about Neuralink and an unhelpful attitude to […]
May 1, 2017
Fresh concerns raised about council investments in commercial property market 0
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Property, Public Sector
As we reported last month, the level of investment in commercial property undertaken by UK local authorities is raising serious concerns within both central government and the real estate sector. Now, a fresh warning has been issued by the former business secretary Sir Vince Cable that councils face potential bankruptcy if the property bubble bursts. […]
April 12, 2017
Research shows how the gender pay gap can be directly related to motherhood 0
by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, News, Workplace
A new piece of academic research provides more evidence that the underlying reason for the gender pay gap is the discrepancy between the way women with children are treated compared to men, and other women without children. According to new research from Université Paris-Saclay, mothers are paid 3 percent less for every child they have compared […]
April 7, 2017
Flexible working is not a magic bullet for workplace ills 0
by Charles Marks • Comment, Flexible working
According to Oxford Dictionaries the word of the year for 2016 is post-truth. This is a slippery little adjective because while some things are pretty much objectively true, the use of post-truth in many contexts is merely a way of shutting down opinion. It’s especially pernicious when it comes to ideas and philosophy because it […]
April 3, 2017
Brexit should be a chance for the UK to enshrine employment rights 0
by Chris Rowley • Comment, Legal news, Workplace
Exploitative employment contracts continue to receive widespread media attention – from shaming the businesses who use them, to prompting questions regarding workers’ rights in Parliament. In light of the Prime Minister officially signing Article 50, to trigger the formal start of the Brexit negotiation period, now is a good time to consider how this will […]
April 3, 2017
The point everybody is missing about the backtrack on remote working by IBM 0
by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working
IBM recently announced that it was going to consolidate its 2,600 marketing department in six locations around the US. Nothing wrong with that you may say, but as part of the consolidation it has to told people to relocate so they can attend the office every day and workers that had been part of IBM’s […]
March 30, 2017
Social technology has the power to make the workplace more humane
by Amanda Sterling • Comment, Technology, Workplace
Social technology can, and should, make the workplace more humane. That’s because it has the potential and ability to shift the power dynamic from the few to the many. It gives more people a voice: one that they’re not afraid to use. You’ve only got to look at the uprisings, and the overthrowing of governments, in Egypt […]
March 15, 2017
Mobile and internet connectivity should be a priority for commerical real estate 0
by Sara Bean • Comment, Facilities management, News, Property, Technology
Cluttons has proposed that a mobile coverage rating should be added to lettable workspace criteria, because despite mobile and internet connections being the fifth essential utility for the modern environment they are often overlooked when leasing space. With the rise of dependence on SIM-based equipment, the property firm argues that workplaces should be let with […]
March 8, 2017
In a crowd of truths, we can discern and reclaim what it means to be human 0
by Neil Usher • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design
This is the second of two responses to an excellent article by Antony Slumbers, the first being this perspective from my mirrored room, in this instance offering that his views offer a far too presumptive picture of how technology will shape our work future. The paragraph headlines are from Antony’s original article. One person’s optimism is another’s pessimism. […]
February 28, 2017
A report into facilities management that is hard to swallow 0
May 17, 2017
A nuanced approach to the design of the coworking office 0
by Ajay Chopra • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design
The coworking segment of the real estate business is poised for exponential growth in the coming years, as the number of market players around the world today continues to increase. With humble beginnings in an economic recession, the shared workspace trend has captivated both the start-up entrepreneur and the remote corporate worker, alike. This success […]