Search Results for: media

August 5, 2015

Using office relocation as a vehicle for positive organisational change ⁰

by Lee Parsons • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

The impact of office relocation can no longer be solely measured in immediately tangible terms. This doesn’t mean market factors can be dismissed, especially given CBRE’s recent announcement that office vacancies are at an all-time low while rents skyrocket and favourable terms for tenants erode. However, in an era where 67 percent of workplaces cite employee attraction and retention as the most important driver of their workplace design, and 46 percent cite productivity, the human factor also can’t be ignored. If such CBRE statistics aren’t challenging enough, there are also the realities of the modern workspace to contend with, such as creating an environment that suits generations of employees. It’s these human impacts that drive the importance of workplace design and urge top-flight businesses to use office relocation as a vehicle for positive change. Here are some of the latest findings.

August 1, 2015

Insight Weekly on GenY, digital workplaces, productivity and more

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Newsletter, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace

In this week’s issue; three new studies have joined the already extensive body of work linking workplace design and productivity; how business practices and the way people use technology vary across sectors; and over half of US workers say the 9 to 5 day is an outmoded concept. Amanda Sterling argues social media at work can help shift the power dynamic from the few to the many; Gary Chandler explains how workplace design can express a firm’s culture and Mark Eltringham explores what the Midwich Cuckoos can tell us about Generation Y. The Government challenges businesses to consider the boost untapped disabled talent could bring to their workforce and CoWorking giant WeWork looks to acquire over 1 million sq. ft. of space in London. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and weekly news here, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

July 30, 2015

Far from dying out, the office is becoming more essential than ever

by Luke Finch • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

Samsung recently released a new report which explores how our offices might look in the year 2025. The death of the office has been predicted over and over again, however the Samsung Smarter Futures Report goes against the grain and predicts that the office could actually become more important than ever. Driven by the adoption of smart technology the report claims that offices will become hubs for productivity and collaboration and what Samsung calls ‘Creative Villages’. Smart technology will create devices and systems that take notes, automate admin tasks, organise meetings and deliver information as you need it. This will mean employees have more time for face to face communication and collaborative work. As a consequence, current trends such as flexible working and agile workspace could actually become less of an issue than they are currently.

July 22, 2015

Workers of all ages want employers that commit to digital progress

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Employees across all age groups want to work for businesses committed to digital progress, and companies that are slow to embrace digital technology will not thrive and are more likely to lose talent, according to a new global report. Strategy, Not Technology, Drives Digital Transformation from MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte Digital is based on findings from the fourth annual global survey of more than 4,800 business executives across 27 industries and 129 countries. It suggests the ability to digitally transform and reimagine a business is determined in large part by establishing a clear digital strategy, supported by leaders who foster a culture that can change and reinvent their organizations. People want to work for digitally maturing organizations, with nearly 80 percent of respondents preferring to work for a digitally enabled company or digital leader. This sentiment crossed all age groups nearly equally, from 22 to 60.

July 17, 2015

Do we really think the future of work involves our replacement by robots?

by Simon Heath • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

A report published recently by my former colleagues at CBRE called “Fast Forward 2030: The Future of Work and the Workplace” claims that by 2025 so many people will be more interested in being happy and having creative roles that up to 50 percent of current occupations will be defunct. 35 years elapsed between the release of Orwell’s 1984 and the eponymous year and very little of Orwell’s dystopian vision came to pass. 2030 is a scant 16 years away so, even if one takes the exponential pace of change into account, it’s perhaps a bit of a stretch to think robots will have taken their seat at the table in quite the way we appear to think they will. Also unchanged one assumes are the attitudes of those who have a vested interest in the status quo or in dictating where the benefits of change will fall.

July 15, 2015

The standard gender pay gap narrative is a myth, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Knowledge, Workplace

It is one of the great ironies of modern life that in a world drowning in data, a great deal of public discourse is driven by narratives that have little or no factual basis. If anything, the substitution of baseless and questionable stories. Sometimes these narratives are based on outdated realities. Sometimes on assumptions. Sometimes they are deliberately created and upheld by those with vested interests. Sometimes people lie, including to themselves. However they are formed, they can become pretty hard to dislodge, especially when they become so enshrined that the default response to inconvenient truths is a wall of cognitive dissonance and denial. I’m obviously building up to something here and it won’t necessarily be an easy thing to say or hear. And it’s this. The gender pay gap doesn’t exist. Or at least, it doesn’t exist in the way we normally assume so distracts from related issues that we may be able to address.

June 25, 2015

Long distance commuting, agile working and dinosaur extinction in the UAE

by Douglas Langmead • Cities, Comment, Flexible working, Property

In Dubai, there are no suburban dinosaurs; those large-scale, single purpose office buildings that ignore the agile realities of modern working life. In the western world, these giants evolved on business parks, driven by the perceived benefits of having office workers agglomerated in order to achieve efficiency of communication and dissemination. The business practices and technologies that underpinned these buildings have evolved and improved and many are in the process of being re-purposed. Things happen on a grander scale in the Middle East where the mantra is “if the land-use doesn’t fit the land, make more land.” Here, the patterns of work and place have evolved differently from the west, and at a much faster pace with creeping tides of development spreading rapidly out from the small centres of traditional trade and commerce to vast tracts of new development.

June 24, 2015

CTBUH announces winners of best tall buildings awards for 2015

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Cities, News, Property

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has announced the winners of the Best Tall Building Awards for 2015. The winners were selected from a pool of 123 entries based on an evaluation by a panel of industry experts. The organisers claim that not only do the winners exemplify best practice they also advocate ‘improvements in every aspect of performance, including those that have the greatest positive effect on the people who use these buildings and the cities they inhabit’. Many of this year’s winners demonstrate a commitment to sustainability, especially those that make use of greenery to enhance the looks and environmental credentials of the building. The organisers also note that buildings are better integrated into their surroundings which ‘has been a long-needed requirement’. The Best Tall Buildings have been named from 33 countries in four competing regions.

June 23, 2015

Design must support knowledge circulation in the next generation workplace

by Lee Parsons • Comment, Knowledge, Workplace design

Businesses thrive because of their workforces, and the ideas, work and creations they bring to an organisation. But despite the fact that sharing knowledge and thoughts is vitally important, most designers focus on providing individual space for workers, while little thought is given to creating spaces that support knowledge circulation. Separate offices for one or two people, cubicles and individual desks are just some of the factors included in what is perceived to be an average building, but very often is the reason why there is a lack of knowledge sharing and co-creation. New methodologies are emerging on how to get the most out of employees, by providing an environment that encourages them to work together. These new strategies, such as swarm intelligence, place focus on the entire workforce rather than the individual, encouraging them to work together and share their knowledge and ideas.

June 18, 2015

Gen Z workers will be far more conventional than commonly assumed

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Despite being the first generation of workers to boast ‘native’ digital skills, so-called ‘Gen Z’ is far more conventional than previously assumed. The coming generation of 16-19 years-olds who are fast approaching the jobs market will care far more about their workplace and their employer’s ethics than Gen Y, new research from recruiter Adecco claims. The research shows that long-term security is more appealing to Gen Z than short term perks; with gym memberships (12%), free technology (16%) and time off to travel (26%) rejected in favour of qualifications and job security; at 43 percent and 41 percent, respectively. However, the research does show they have strong personal ambition and high expectations from employers, with half of those surveyed expecting a promotion within their first year of employment and the same number expecting to move on from an employer within two years.

June 10, 2015

Time to get back a sense of proportion about sitting down

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The well of public discourse about office design is regularly fouled by the effluent of people who really should know better. Normally this is characterised by hyperbolic assertions about how flexible working will lead to The Death of the Office (it won’t) or how the decision by Yahoo and others to go into partial reverse on remote work would spell The Death of Flexible Working (it didn’t). All of this drivel can be forgiven when it comes from civilians, but the fact that it remains commonplace in the workplace media and emanates from the mouths of people who work in the sector is enough to make you despair. The latest example of this attention seeking behaviour, excretion of simplistic bullshit, market making or whatever you see it as, is the drive to demonise sitting, now normally expressed alongside some variant of the slogan ‘Sitting is the New Smoking’.

June 2, 2015

The bonds that link work with place are loosening day by day

by Paull Robathan • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Work&Place

Over the decades designing productive spaces for work has focused on redefining the corporate office and its surroundings. While there are examples of quality design in buildings around the world, there is a growing movement that challenges the presumption that work should always be done “at work”. If we aim to allow people to be at their best, develop and nurture creativity and maximise quality output then we must ensure the place where the work is done is outstanding. Sarah Kathleen Peck of ‘It starts with’ summed it up when she wrote “There are people, places and things that make me feel like I’m building my energy stores, that rejuvenate me, and help me to do my best work. Likewise, there are also people and places that zap my energy; that leave me exhausted; that make me feel as though I’ve waste my time and my energy – and my day – without getting anything useful done.”