Search Results for: recession

December 15, 2015

Seven essential workplace design trends to keep an eye on during 2016 ⁰

by Dan Callegari • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

What has become increasingly apparent over recent years is that the office isn’t just a place to work, but also a driver of competitive advantage. We’ve always known this to a greater or lesser extent, but the dynamic and ever shifting nature of the modern world is presenting organisations with new and evolving challenges that they must address with all of the tools at their disposal. At the heart of this complexity is the physical workspace. Its design touches on every aspect of the changing workplace and the objectives organisations set for themselves and their employees. Although it has lots its primacy as the main place of work, you could also argue that the focus on the office’s key strengths makes it more important than ever within the context of overall working cultures. So, with that in mind, here are ten of the most important current trends in workplace design and management we foresee for 2016.

December 10, 2015

Boardroom now more likely to view offices as strategic asset, claims report ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Property

A new research paper claims to reveal changes in the way that UK companies now perceive and evaluate their commercial property portfolios – both as a physical workplace and as a strategic asset that can help them to meet corporate goals. The report, entitled Redefining Commercial Property Performance – The alignment of property and workplace with corporate objectives was written by Insight’s own Sara Bean and was commissioned by managed office solutions provider Portal. As part of the research, interviews were conducted with property professionals, workplace consultants and occupiers including RICS, Leesman UK, TD Wealth International, TSK Group, Cushman & Wakefield and Sheffield Hallam University. The findings of the paper claim to reveal the growing importance of measuring the performance and return from commercial office space and the necessity to more closely align property with corporate goals.

December 3, 2015

Dog-friendly offices more appealing to Millennials than play rooms ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace, Workplace design

Only a third of US workers believe that promotion offers the potential to advance their career with more than a third of all workers and 44 percent of Millennials preferring to jump ship if the right opportunity arises. Addison Group’s second annual generational workplace survey found that regardless of generation, healthcare benefits was most important benefit (70 percent), followed by a high salary (59 percent). However, Millennials would choose one company over another that paid a higher salary if free meals, beverages and snacks (40 percent) and tuition reimbursement (36 percent) were provided. Millennials also rank a dog-friendly office (14 percent) higher than a napping room, concierge services and a play room with ping pong, billiards and video games. They also value the social aspect of the workplace highly, with nearly twice as many (15 percent) marking work-sponsored happy hours as important compared to Baby Boomers (8 percent).

November 5, 2015

Lacklustre recruitment processes can lead workers to turn down jobs ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

A third (34 percent) of UK workers have changed their mind in the last two years after accepting a job offer, choosing not to go ahead with the new role. Research from Office Angels, analysing the effectiveness of recruitment processes in the post-recession economy, found that nearly half (48 percent) of workers have received multiple job offers at the same time in the last 24 months. At the point of resignation, half (50 percent) received a counter offer from their existing employer. The research asked both hiring managers and job seekers their views on what makes an effective recruitment process. Almost all (96 percent) of workers view the speed of a job offer as a decisive factor when choosing between job opportunities at competing companies, two-fifths (41 percent) stated the most important part of being successfully recruited was a clearly defined recruitment process and 28 percent of workers consider cultural fit in making a decision.

October 15, 2015

M25 office sector has fastest rate of rental growth in fifteen years ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

The Outer London/M25 Office sector, known as the ‘doughnut’ has recorded the highest rental growth since 2000 according to the latest CBRE Monthly index. Rental values for offices in the ‘doughnut’ grew by 1.0 percent in the last month, the fastest monthly rate since July 2000 (1.4 percent) and growth of 4.2 percent since January. Central London offices also recorded rental value growth of 1.0 percent however, which is the fourth time growth in the capital has reached this mark in this calendar year. Central London rental values have risen by 7.1 percent in 2015 with offices in the West End and City having the biggest impact. The rest of UK slowed marginally from 0.5 percent in August to 0.4% in September, but due to London’s strength, UK wide office rents are now growing at a 7.4 percent, their fastest annual rate since March 2008, and a post recessionary high for the sector.

October 15, 2015

SMEs appreciate flexibility and freedom of running their own business ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The latest ONS employment figures indicate that the boom in self-employment appears to have ended, as the number of self-employed people has fallen for the first time since before the recession. Yet those who’ve successfully started their own businesses have something to celebrate. According to a report from AXA PPP, SME owners appreciate the greater flexibility (58 percent) and the greater freedom (37 percent) that owning a business gives them. Seventy per cent of owners also said they are proud, inspired, content or fortunate to own their own business, highlighting the positive effects that having control over your working life can bring. More than a third (35 percent) admitted they could delegate more to improve the way they manage their business – with nearly half (47 percent) of business owners reporting that the pressure of work spills over into their home life.

October 13, 2015

Third of employers admit rise in numbers of staff coming to work when ill ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Nearly a third of employers have reported an increase in people coming to work while they are ill, according to the annual CIPD / Simplyhealth Absence Management Survey. The survey of nearly 600 employers found that 31 percent have seen an increase in ‘presenteeism’ in the last year. It also claims that any increase is likely to be associated with a culture in which working long hours is seen to be the norm and where operational demands take precedence over wellbeing. Employers that have noticed an increase in presenteeism are nearly twice as likely as those that haven’t to report an increase in stress-related absence, and more than twice as likely to report an increase in mental health problems amongst its staff. However, despite this, nearly three-fifths (56 percent) of organisations that have reported an increase in presenteeism haven’t taken any steps in order to discourage it.

October 12, 2015

How workplace design is more closely reflecting how we actually work ⁰

by Adrian Campbell • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

In years gone by, a ‘one size fits all’ approach to office design might have been the norm, but as the decades have progressed, so too have the options available to businesses designing ‘homes from home’ for their office-based workforces. As new interpretations of the office environment proliferated, so the open plan model came to into being and eventually evolved into the default office design model. This initially brought greater variety than ever before but, ultimately, a one size fits all mentality in workplace design ultimately prevailed – every worker was expected to work in certain ways, utilising the equipment and furniture supplied and designed for them. From inception through to occupancy, the average new office involves a six-year period of design and construction involving varying teams of people discussing the best and most attractive solution for the actual end user.

October 2, 2015

For once and for all, please stop with this ‘death of the office’ stuff ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Property, Technology, Workplace design

I was involved in a meeting with an office fit-out company this week which involved a discussion of how their clients can develop misconceptions about the extent to which their contemporaries are introducing new office design and management models based on agile working, shared space, mobile technology and all that other good stuff. This presents a particular challenge for firms in the sector because their day to day experiences of what clients talk about and ask from them can be pretty removed from the things talked about in the media. If you were to judge the state of the office solely on the basis of what you read and hear and see at shows, it would be easy to conclude that the office is indeed dying and dragging down with it the markets for office furniture, commercial property and traditional technology. The problem is that the facts don’t support that notion at all.

October 1, 2015

US sees biggest jump in working from home since 2008, claims study ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Wellbeing

According to an analysis of the just-released 2014 American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com, approximately 3.7 million US employees (2.5 percent of the workforce) called home their primary place of work in 2014. This represents a 6.5 percent increase and the largest year over year growth in the number of people working from home since before the recession. The ACS data is based on a nationwide survey of answers to the question “What was your primary means of travel to work during the survey week—’Worked at Home’ is one of the choices. The count only includes those who work at home at least half of the time. According to Global Workplace Analytics far more people work at home on a less frequent basis and many work in “third places” such as coffee shops, co-working facilities, libraries, and just about anywhere there’s an internet connection.

September 29, 2015

Fifth of employers not productive enough to afford Living Wage warns CIPD ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Although the UK has experienced two years of solid economic growth, a fifth (21 percent) of organisations are still stuck in survival mode and aren’t making the necessary investments in equipment or people to boost their productivity a new report from the CIPD has revealed. A further 29 percent of employers are failing to get the right balance between investment in their workforce and investment in technology and equipment. Investing in Productivity found a clear link between an organisation’s mindset and its approach to investment, which could help to explain the UK’s poor productivity performance in recent years. The CIPD’s chief economist Mark Beatson warns that too many businesses are being held back by an ‘ambition ceiling’ which is preventing them from making the productivity gains needed to achieve business growth and implement the new National Living Wage without risk of job cuts.

September 10, 2015

Five ways in which your colleagues might be driving you completely nuts ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

It’s always worth reminding ourselves that while a well designed workplace and favourable working conditions are very desirable prerequisites of a good job, what really makes work enjoyable and what really makes a great culture are the people with whom we work. This simple fact is one reason why some people are happy in poorly designed offices full of all the things that supposedly make them unhappy and unwell, while other people can be miserable in airy, daylit, tastefully furnished corporate palaces. Just as Peter Drucker once said that culture eats strategy for breakfast, we also know that it washes it down with a piping hot mug of office design. Culture is defined in large measure by the people around us, it can be they who determine how much we enjoy work. Here are just five ways they can drive us nuts based on recent data.