Search Results for: economic

November 4, 2013

We may not always feel it, but technology makes us far more productive

A new report has been published by O2 which suggests that technology has allowed us to become nearly five time more productive than we were in the 1970s. The Individual Productivity Report is a joint research project from O2 and the Centre for Economic and Business Research and used a metric called gross value added (GVA) per worker per hour to arrive at its results. The report concludes from this data that in terms of ICT the average British worker is now 480 percent more productive than they were in the 1972, that people get more done in less time, freeing them up to spend more time interacting with clients and colleagues, providing better service and driving business growth.

November 1, 2013

Employers need to ‘up their game’ as 1 in 4 employees admit to looking for a new job

by Sara Bean • News, Public Sector, Workplace

Job seeking intentions are at their highest since spring 2011, as fewer organisations implement recruitment freezes. According to the CIPD/Halogen Employee Outlook survey, 24 per cent of employees in the private and voluntary sectors, and 23 per cent in the public sector, are looking for a new job. The greatest motivator to move jobs is disengagement (71% compared with 9% who are engaged), followed by job dissatisfaction (62%, compared with 10%), and those facing pressure every day (45% compared with 19% who never feel under excessive pressure). More than 3 in 5 (61%) said that an opportunity to progress within their role is important to them, but a shocking one in four employees (27%) said that they had never had a performance review at work. More →

October 31, 2013

New report identifies the ten key trends set to transform US commercial property

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

According to a new report from Deloitte, the recent upturn in the US commercial real estate sector is set to continue unabated into next year. Which is great news but according to the property consultancy, the market that emerges from the ashes of the downturn will be very different to the one from which they were formed. Deloitte’s 15^th annual Commercial Real Estate Outlook report has identified what it considers the top ten trends that will reshape the emerging market based on a mixture of original research, subjective insights and the firm’s experience with clients. These trends are dominated by structural and financial issues and the only nods towards external socio-economic factors are mentions for the aging workforce within the market (so much for the transformational potential of GenY) and increases in single family households (can’t see the link with commercial property).

October 29, 2013

‘Beleaguered’ UK workforce is poorly motivated and unproductive

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

UK workers are lacking motivation and job satisfaction, with over half either feeling neutral or unhappy about going to work most days, only one in four very satisfied with their jobs and 20 per cent who dread going to work. According to a new report, ‘The Forgotten Workforce’ a series of blows to UK workers, including cuts to their working hours, increasingly inconsistent working patterns, pay freezes, and introduction of zero hours – coupled with little or no investment in technology to support employees – has led to a UK workforce lacking morale and disengaged from the business. An efficient business needs an efficient workforce. If this cycle continues, businesses will face increasingly poor productivity and the UK economic recovery will suffer warns the report. More →

October 28, 2013

Global urbanisation trends present UK cities with new opportunities

by Charles Marks • Comment, Environment, Property, Technology

There is a great deal of talk about the growing urbanisation of the world right now, and its effects on societies, economies and individuals. The numbers of people involved are daunting, especially in the developing world. As a result, many countries are currently experiencing the sort of upheaval we in Britain experienced nearly 300 years ago, and they are doing so in a very compressed time span compared to the 150 years it took in Britain. But the changing nature of cities is also apparent in the UK where it is having an effect not only in the country’s only megacity but in regional centres too. For places such as Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Glasgow the challenges presented by a new generation of initiatives focussed on urbanisation can be profound and mark an opportunity to shift at least some of the UK’s economic focus away from London.

October 25, 2013

The Great Gatsby and the rehabilitation of the office cubicle

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

The finest closing sentence of any novel in my opinion is that in The Great Gatsby. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” It is a reference to the futility of our attempts to escape the past, even as we look to the future, dreaming of how “tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther”. F Scott Fitzgerald was referring to people when he wrote it, and Jay Gatsby in particular, but it’s a passage that resonates in a number of ways, especially in those areas of our lives that deal most intimately with what it means to be human. And one of these is self-evidently the workplace, where any articular attempt to define the ideal office for a particular time, including the future, is complicated by the fact that we must always meet the needs of the beasts that inhabit it. Regardless of the tools we have at our disposal with which to work more effectively, or just plain ‘more’ we remain fundamentally the same animals we were thousands of years ago.

October 22, 2013

Germans prove that long hours and productivity are often two completely different things

by John Sacks • Comment, Workplace

Earlier this year, Insight published the results of a survey which showed that the World’s hardest workers, contrary to what Jeremy Clarkson might say, are Mexican. But that poll told half the story because it only measured the number of hours people work. When it comes to productivity measured by output against time spent working, it turns out that it’s the Germans who are the undisputed champions according to research from the PEW Trust. This won’t come as a surprise if you believe the Teutonic stereotype, as many people assuredly do. The survey also found that, when asked which nation had the most productive workers, respondents in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany itself all believe that Germans are Europe’s hardest workers.

October 17, 2013

Video: reimagining work to help people become happier and more productive

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Technology

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Most companies are engaged in an attempt to help employees become happier, more productive and – yes –fitter at work. Firms do this because they are nice people or in the commercial interest of the business, or both. The problem is they are not doing it with a fixed set of criteria. Not only do they have to cope with changing commercial and economic conditions and legislation, they have to do it while the very nature of work evolves rapidly and in very different ways for different organisations. This is not so much like somebody moving the goal posts as it is like one of those games on It’s A Knockout where a contestant tries to do something while other people are shaking the platform they are standing on, squirting them with water, running into them, hitting them with things and yanking them back with ropes.

October 16, 2013

Labour demand growing, but many employers prefer to increase hours not people

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

There was a fall in unemployment of 18,000 to 2.49 million from March to May of this year according to the latest figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Between June and August 2013 the unemployment rate dropped from 7.8 per cent to 7.7 per cent, with a slight rise in total pay of 0.7 per cent. Although the news was welcomed by employment experts, Nigel Meager, Director of the Institute for Employment Studies pointed out that while employment increased by 0.9 per cent in the last year, the number of hours worked in the economy grew faster; and CIPD Chief Economist Mark Beatson commented that there is no sign yet that increased demand for staff were leading to higher wages. More →

October 16, 2013

Leeds Council begins major office refurbishment and signs long term HQ lease

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

Merrion House, Leeds

Leeds City Council has signed a new 25 year lease on its headquarters building Merrion House as part of a programme aimed at consolidating its property portfolio and housing the majority of its staff under one roof. The council claims the long term deal will save it £15 million over the course of the lease following work on a complete office refurbishment and a consolidation of its estate in the city centre. The refurb includes the addition of a new 50,000 sq ft six-storey extension bringing the total space to around 170,000 sq ft. The revamped HQ will be home to around 1,900 staff including 700 who will move from 13 other buildings around the city. The new agreements is thought to be the largest office pre-let in Leeds for more than 20 years.

October 15, 2013

Task group launched to define zero carbon for non-domestic buildings

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

A policy for all new non domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2019 was introduced by the Labour government in 2008. Although the Coalition Government recommitted to this target, announcing in July it would strengthen energy efficiency standards for new non-domestic buildings from April 2014, they had yet to come up with a definition of zero carbon for non-domestic buildings. The UK Green Building Council, whose membership includes the architects, developers, contractors, product manufacturers and others who will be tasked with delivering zero carbon buildings from 2019, is therefore launching a new Task Group to help define and build support for a definition of zero carbon for non-domestic buildings that works for industry. More →