Search Results for: office of the future

September 26, 2013

Planning permission granted for development at East London Crossrail site

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Property

Planning permission has been granted for a mixed use scheme including 58,000 sq. ft. of office space at the Poplar Business Park next to the new Crossrail station just North of Canary Wharf in East London. Crossrail is the South East’s most important infrastructure project linking commuters in the Home Counties and Essex with central London and will complete in 2018. Jamie Hopkins, the CEO of developers Workspace claimed, “It is a significant redevelopment in an area that will be experiencing a lot of change over the coming years with the arrival of Crossrail at Canary Wharf. Poplar Business Park will be a thriving residential and business location in the heart of one of London’s future hotspots.”

September 19, 2013

Government unveils BIM initiative for SMEs as survey reveals small business concerns

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Facilities management, Property

The Cabinet Office has unveiled a new initiative which aims to promote the practice of Business Information Modelling (BIM) amongst smaller businesses in the UK construction industry. At the launch of the Construction Industry Council’s dreadfully named BIM4SME forum, Cabinet Office Minister Chloe Smith reiterated the Government’s commitment to use BIM on all Government construction projects by 2016. However new research from the Institution of Structural Engineers has revealed the problems facing small businesses in using BIM, including the fact that two thirds think the Government stance on BIM makes it harder for them to win work and three quarters believe it presents them with major cost challenges.

August 28, 2013

BIFM pulls out of much publicised facilities management trade association merger

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News

The British Institute of Facilities Management has announced that it is to withdraw with immediate effect from the merger discussions it had entered into in May with its fellow trade associations, Asset Skills, CSSA and FMA. The decision to pull out was taken at a BIFM board meeting last week. According to a BIFM statement, the plans were not felt to be in the best interests of BIFM members. The decision comes as something of a surprise given that the week before the decision, BIFM was saying that it was delighted with progress, although some commentators including our own Simon Heath had already expressed their reservations about the whole thing.

August 27, 2013

Employee engagement, not fear, behind the fall in staff turnover

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Legal news, News, Workplace

Explanations for a marked fall in employee turnover have largely attributed it to the recession, which, it’s been suggested, has led cautious employees to prefer to stay put in a secure position, rather than risk losing their place in an uncertain job market. However new data published today from the CIPD’s Megatrends research project suggests a more positive picture. The proportion of workers leaving their employer at any given time fell by over two fifths between 1998 and 2012, long before the downturn took hold. And the good news for those concerned with improving the quality of the workplace environment is that increased job satisfaction and improved levels of employee engagement could play a significant role.. More →

August 19, 2013

New report urges UK’s large organisations to adopt more flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, Knowledge, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

The UK’s large organisations are missing out on some of the opportunities presented to them by mobile working methodologies according to a new survey from Deloitte and (what else?) telecoms provider EE. The Upwardly Mobile report questioned more than 1,000 employees of firms with more than 1,000 staff including Kier, Royal Mail, Oxfam and BP and found that this situation would change as Generation Y employees assumed the power needed to introduce a more flexible working culture. The report goes on to predict that by 2016, at least one FTSE 350 company will have a Gen Y CEO at the helm.

August 13, 2013

Unilever extends BT partnership to further more sustainable ways of working

by Sara Bean • Company news, Environment, Flexible working, Technology

Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, which includes Wall’s Ice Cream, Dove beauty products, Lipton and Knorr brands has announced a three year extension to its IT outsourcing contract with BT. It’s part of the firm’s Sustainable Living Plan to grow its business, while reducing its environmental footprint and increasing its social impact. BT, which first won its first contract with the Anglo-Dutch company in November 2002, delivers a fully integrated network providing voice, data, video and mobility services to the company’s 173,000 employees across nearly 100 countries. This includes the delivery of collaborative services such as audio-conferencing and video-conferencing, which is helping Unilever introduce more sustainable ways of working. More →

July 23, 2013

Government report highlights failings in UK public sector procurement

by Mark Eltringham • Furniture, Knowledge, News, Public Sector

In the wake of a number of recent procurement failures including the G4S and Serco overcharging fiasco, the UK Government has published a highly critical report of the way it buys some £227 billion of goods and services annually. The report from the Public Administration Committee (PASC) says that in spite of steps to improve procurement which include using better data, aggregating demand across departments and renegotiating with major suppliers, the number of failures remains conspicuously high. The G4S and Serco contracts with the Ministry of Justice, under which payments were made regardless of the service being delivered, are the most high profile examples but the report indicates that problems are widespread.

July 11, 2013

NAO confirms £1billion saving through better Government purchasing practices

by Mark Eltringham • News, Products, Public Sector

While it’s always wise to be wary of claims made by government departments, the National Audit Office has continued to display its ongoing love of the sterling work of the Efficiency and Reform Group set up by the Cabinet Office by confirming that the department’s claim that over £1 billion has been saved through better UK government purchasing practices is perfectly true. The ERG said that savings had been achieved primarily by centralising spend on common goods and services and introducing policies requiring departments to purchase less stuff in the first place. Savings were noted across the board including in civil service departments, local government, the emergency services and National Health Service. As ever the NAO added a caveat to its endorsement. Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: ‘While ERG has undoubtedly achieved significant savings for the taxpayer, in future it could spell out more clearly the different types of savings that are included in its claims. Our report makes detailed recommendations which will help ERG to strengthen its assurance of savings claims in future.’

July 4, 2013

UK workers mistrust more contented home-based colleagues

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

The debate which ensued following the Yahoo ban on home working earlier this year was as much as about the level of trust felt towards home workers as it was about the importance of collaboration within the workplace. The fact is that for the majority of home workers, day to day life is easier. No commuting, work where you please, no irritating colleagues and the freedom to nip out to the dentist, doctors or parents meeting without having to book a half day off. As a result, while home workers enjoy the best mental health and wellbeing of four groups in a survey of contact centre workers, office workers, home workers and mobile professional workers, their distance from the office-based working population breeds suspicion between them and everybody else. More →

June 13, 2013

Consultation opens on facilities management to ‘enhance organisational performance’

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property

Facilities and property managers worldwide are being asked to help shape a ‘Strategic Facilities Management Guidance Note’. Once established, the note – spearheaded by a RICS-led working group – aims to help drive professionalism and enable benchmarking across the sector by creating greater consistency in the delivery of FM services. The guidance forms a key part of RICS’ wider campaign to improve understanding and recognition from businesses for the performance efficiencies that strategic FM can deliver. The call for global feedback follows RICS’ initial UK consultation last year which has resulted in the publication of the draft guidance, ‘Managing facilities to enhance organisational performance’.

May 31, 2013

BIFM workplace debate focuses on links between FM and design

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Workplace design

Clerkenwell Design Week was the appropriate setting for the inaugural event staged by the newly formed Workplace Special Interest Group (SIG) of the British Institute of Facilities Management. The event was staged at the showroom of office furniture giant Haworth on the 22 May, during Europe’s largest exhibition of workplace products and services. It saw a panel of industry experts debate in lively fashion the deliberately provocative proposition : Form or Function? Do you need office designers to create a great workplace environment?

May 25, 2013

Why facilities managers deserve a seat at the design table

by Tony Cole • Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Workplace design

For a long time there has been a distant relationship between facilities management (FM) and design, with FM treated as a post occupancy issue rather than a valuable consideration during the design process. The truth is that effective collaboration between facilities managers and designers can yield innovation and even better product design, be that in relation to a new head office building, or the systems and furniture that are housed within it. The compartmentalised view that design occurs and then facilities managers come along to operate and maintain is inaccurate and outdated.