Search Results for: economic

February 13, 2014

Why do we bother going to work? Good question.

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace

While the UK Government continues to explore new ways of getting people back to work more quickly following (or even during) illness, there are a number of counterpart questions that they continue to fastidiously ignore, one of which is ‘why bother?’. We might all ask ourselves that from time to time, whether petulantly or as a pressure-relieving alternative to ramming a co-worker’s head through a window or a laptop in a dumpster. But there are also reasons to raise the question coldly, rationally and with full awareness of all the facts, not least when it comes to assessing the increasing cost of going to work in the first place. Put simply, for many people it makes little or no financial sense to go to work.

February 11, 2014

Mental illness costs the UK economy £70 billion each year, claims OECD

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

According to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), issues related to mental health cost the UK around £70bn every year in lost productivity, benefit payments and spending on healthcare. The OECD’s Mental Health and Work report is an international initiative which has already produced reports over the last year exploring related issues in Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and now the UK. Forthcoming reports are due later this year for Australia, Austria and the Netherlands. The new UK report calls for employers to adopt better policies and practices to help people cope with mental health issues.

February 6, 2014

London office rents are set to reach historic high by 2018

by Sara Bean • News, Property

London office rents are set to reach an historic high by 2018, fuelled by demand from the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector. Demand for office space by technology and media firms across central London was more than double of the finance sector in 2013, with major deals signed by Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, News Corp, and Ogilvy & Mather. According to data from Knight Frank, record levels of overseas investment are helping London build its reputation as a global hub. Geographically, it is not just the City and the West End that are seeing a massive surge in demand; take-up in Docklands increased by nearly 20 per cent last year, while completely new districts are emerging which include London Bridge, Battersea and Nine Elms. More →

February 4, 2014

Strongest growth in commercial construction activity since 2007

by Sara Bean • News, Property

The construction industry has had its best month for almost six-and-a-half years; including the largest increase in commercial activity since August 2007. Although the upturn was led by house building, which increased for the twelfth successive month; surging growth was also recorded for commercial construction and civil engineering, due to increased spending by business on infrastructure, office space, industrial units and retail outlets. The Markit/CIPS Construction PMI™ rose from 62.1 in December to 64.6, its highest since August 2007 – one of the strongest growth rates seen since survey data were first collected in 1997. The index shows that while house building has been rising for a full year, commercial building and civil engineering only started recovering in earnest last summer. However, growth of both has now accelerated sharply. More →

January 30, 2014

RICS global research charts ways for FMs to prove strategic worth

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

Facilities managers across the globe need to prove the value of FM to board level directors and establish their role as a strategic and essential business function. A new global RICS Research report Raising the Bar: City Roundtables (Phase II), launched in Washington DC this week, calls for innovative new dimensions of measurement to prove FM’s effectiveness and its impact on productivity and profitability. Authored by Occupiers Journal Ltd, the report builds on findings from RICS’ 2012 research Raising the Bar: Enhancing the Strategic Role of Facilities Management (Phase I), which provided robust evidence for high-performing organisations to introduce FM as a strategic management discipline. The research also provided recommendations to support leading FM practitioners in becoming more strategic. More →

January 29, 2014

Green Building Council slams PM’s plans to slash environmental guidance

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, Legal news, Property

The UK Green Building Council has condemned Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge to scrap realms of environmental guidance. In a speech to the Federation of Small Businesses earlier this week, the Prime Minister said that by March 2015 Defra will have slashed 80,000 pages of environmental guidance, saving businesses around £100 million per year; “to make it vastly easier and cheaper for businesses to meet environmental obligations.” However Paul King, Chief Executive at the UK Green Building Council, branded the move utterly reprehensible. He said: “The Prime Minister’s boasts of ‘slashing 80,000 pages’ of environmental guidance is. It is the same poisonous political rhetoric from Number 10, devaluing environmental regulation in a slash and burn manner. These words are not only damaging and irresponsible, but misrepresent the wishes of so many modern businesses, both large and small.” More →

January 23, 2014

UK commercial property investment in 2013 hits a six year high

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Last year marked a six year high in commercial property investment across the UK according to a new report from property information providers CoStar, driven by increases in regional markets and a sharp upturn of interest in Central London from overseas investors. A total of £52.7 billion of transactions was completed across the UK in 2013, albeit that two-thirds of investments were made in London and the South East of England. It was also a year for record breaking deals, notably the Broadgate office development in the City (above) and More London on the South Bank, each of which were valued at £1.7 billion. London was particularly attractive for Asian investors who CoStar claim see it as a safe haven and invested £9.2bn, up 80.6 percent on 2012.

January 20, 2014

Blue Monday hype obscures the real debate about workplace happiness

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

So here it is. Blue Monday. Officially the most depressing day of the year. We say ‘officially’, but like the idea of ‘Body Odour’ its common usage hides the fact that it was originally created as part of a 2005 PR campaign. For Sky’s travel channel. The whole idea of Blue Monday is couched in a pseudo-mathematical equation which includes factors like the weather, levels of debt, time since Christmas, low levels of motivation and, apparently, an unspecified variable known simply as ‘D’. Now, of course, none of this is either easy to define or measure and while we mock the idea, it’s not so far removed from Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempts to measure ‘happiness’ as an alternative to GDP.

January 15, 2014

Legal update – Employment Law changes ahead in 2014

by Pam Loch • Facilities management, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

Some of the most hotly debated employment law issues from last year; including flexible working, workplace wellbeing and the contractual rights of employees look set to make more headlines this year, because 2014 is shaping up to be another year of significant change in UK employment law. While the timetable is subject to amendment, currently the Government is intending to introduce a number of revisions. The key employment law events and cases to watch out for in 2014 will include changes to TUPE, flexible working, flexible parental leave, employment tribunal procedures, redundancy consultation, Acas conciliation, calculation of holiday pay and post-employment victimisation; which we list below in the date order in which they are proposed. More →

January 13, 2014

Retaining valuable employees is top global priority for CEOS this year

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

The number one priority of business leaders worldwide this year is how best to develop, engage, manage, and retain existing talent. This worker-centric approach means that employee engagement and better management will take centre stage as the way to improve competitiveness, win new customers and raise productivity. According to new research from The Conference Board and UK partner CMI (Chartered Management Institute), CEOs will concentrate on creating a strong internal talent pipeline rather than seeking to recruit externally, with nine out of the top 10 global Human Capital strategies focused on current employees, including providing training and development, raising employee engagement and increasing efforts to retain critical talent. Other closely linked priorities identified in the CEO Challenge 2014 are customer relationships, innovation, operational excellence, and corporate brand and reputation. More →

January 9, 2014

Firms and individuals can now offer to buy swathes of Government property

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Public Sector

The UK Government’s ongoing attempt to divest itself of large parts of the public sector estate or at least find other ways of using them took a new turn yesterday with the announcement that members of the public and businesses can now challenge central Government to release land for alternative uses. Originally announced in last year’s Spending Review and since developed by the Cabinet Office, it will now be possible to bid to buy up a part of Whitehall’s vast and sometimes underutilised £330bn land and property portfolio under the Treasury-backed Right to Contest scheme – if it can be demonstrated that there is a potentially better use for it. The programme is an extension of the Right to Challenge programme that already operates in local government giving communities, organisations and individuals the power to contest the use of vacant or surplus property owned by local authorities.

December 18, 2013

Workforce to grow across the regions next year, bolstered by flexible working

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The management issues which dominated 2013 centred on the rise of flexible working; if pay scales would remain below inflation; and whether jobs recovery would continue and if so, could expand beyond the fringes of London. As today’s ONS figures show unemployment at the lowest rate since 2009, the latest CBI/Accenture Employment Trends Survey reveals that more than half of UK companies expect to create jobs over the next 12 months for the first time in over five years. It says private sector workforces are anticipated to grow across all regions, Yorkshire and Humberside and the east midlands being the most buoyant. Bosses will continue to take a cautious approach to pay however, with flexible contracts used to bolster economic growth and job creation. More →