Search Results for: office design

January 14, 2017

Sky Central + Dealing with noise at source + The detoxified workplace ⁰

by Sara Bean • Case studies, Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Wellbeing, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s Newsletter; Neil Usher describes the vision behind Sky Central’s new activity-based workplace in London; and Mark Eltringham argues the European Display Screen Equipment Regulations are no longer fit for purpose. CRE’s attempts to advance corporate strategic goals often take a back seat to cost savings targets; the Hushme voice masking device for mobile phones promises a quieter office; and organisations are encouraged to “detoxify” their work environments to improve employee wellbeing. Why employees are prepared to move jobs if employers fail to offer flexible work; a quarter of people with money problems say it undermines their work performance; and the World Economic Forum cites unregulated technological progress as one of the greatest threats to work. Download our Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design on the link between culture and workplace strategy and design; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

January 11, 2017

Detoxify the workplace to improve employee wellbeing and productivity ⁰

by Sara Bean • Case studies, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

While most organisations recognise the importance of keeping their employees safe, not enough focus is being given to wellness, and those organisations that do not prioritise employee wellness and design their workplaces accordingly will lose talent and potentially face bottom line repercussions. This is according to AECOM, which is urging organisations to “detoxify” their work environments to improve employee wellbeing. With 9.9 million working days lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in Great Britain in 2014/151, employees’ health and happiness can have a direct impact on business performance. Making improvements to the physical environment can help organisations create spaces and working cultures that encourage creativity, support wellbeing and increase job satisfaction. More →

January 10, 2017

A unity of opposites at Sky Central ⁰

by Neil Usher • Case studies, Facilities management, Features, Work&Place, Workplace design

It’s drummed into us from an early age that we can’t have it all, as a result we consider choices as being a binary either/or situation. The workplace design brief (where it’s actually undertaken, an entirely separate discussion) positions choices similarly – open or closed, focussed or collaborative, modern or traditional – the decision point existing along a sliding scale from one natural extreme to the other. Yet there is a way to consider workplace design as an attempt to achieve the “unity of opposites”, an idea proposed by the pre-Socratic aphoristic philosopher, Heraclitus, the original thinker on change. This holds that the existence of an idea is entirely dependent on the existence of its opposite, that one cannot exist without the other. The framework is considered here in its application to the recently completed Sky Central in Osterley (West London), a newly constructed 38,000m2 NIA activity-based workplace over three floors that is home to 3,500 of the total 7,500 people on the Campus. It may be considered as tool for aiding workplace brief development, or for understanding how a workplace has been conceived and functions.

December 26, 2016

The Winter 2016 issue of Work&Place is available now ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Facilities management, Flexible working, Premium Content, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

The Winter 2016 issue of Work&Place is now available to view online. In this edition… Neil Usher, Workplace Director at Sky offers a first hand account of the story behind the firm’s remarkable new offices at the Osterley campus in London; Kate Langan explores some of the implications of the growing digitisation of the workplace; Jim Ware looks at how the challenge of creating effective meeting spaces is now a strategic concern; John Blackwell tries to make sense of falling productivity levels when we have all the tools and know how to increase it; David Woolf makes the case for designing better collaborative spaces; Mark Eltringham looks forward to an almost entirely unpredictable future for workplaces in the 21st Century; and Karen Plum and Andrew Mawson set out the factors that drive knowledge worker productivity. The PDF edition is available to view and download here. Or view online here.

December 22, 2016

Green buildings help you to think and sleep better ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News

A new study from researchers at Harvard claims to establish a link between those standards for green buildings with an indoor environmental quality (IEQ) component and the wellbeing and productivity of employees. The study, The impact of working in a green certified building on cognitive function and health, has been published in the journal Building and Environment. Based on a study of 109 subjects in ten ‘high performing’ buildings compared to staff from the same firm in uncertified buildings, it found that respondents enjoyed a 26.4 percent uplift in cognitive performance, a 6.4 percent increase in sleep quality and 30 percent fewer symptoms. The accreditations used in the study were LEED New Construction 2009, Green Star Office v3, BREEAM New Construction 2012, BCA Green mark for new non-residential buildings v4.1 2013, and DGNB New Office v2012

December 8, 2016

Book review…. HQ:Nerve Centres of the World’s Leading Brands ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Case studies, Comment, Workplace design

Some people would have you believe that the office is dying out. But the absolute dead giveaway that it is not is the creation of tech enclaves and palaces around the world that exists solely to bring lots of people to work together in real space and real time. Some of these buildings are presented in a new book called HQ: Nerve Centres of the World’s Leading Brands from Irish publishers Roads (link is to Amazon but please try to order from a local bookshop if possible). The high tech homes of the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Vodafone are presented alongside similar examples from eight other business sectors: Finance, Retail, Motoring, Media, Drinks, Fashion, Sport and Design & Innovation.

December 8, 2016

Presenteeism culture in the US means sick staff spread colds and virus at work ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

In the United States where taking a sick day is frowned upon heavily and where the annual number of holiday days are around half of that of the UK, going to work when you’re ill is almost a mark of dedication. However, for the unfortunate colleagues of those who display such martyred behaviours, trying to avoid cold and flu in the workplace has reached desperate levels, as nearly half of people in a recent survey would give up a vacation day to a sick worker to ensure they don’t bring illness to the workplace. According to the seventh annual cold and flu season survey from Staples, while the workforce is keenly aware of the dangers as well as prevention tactics surrounding seasonal illness, personal accountability remains low, with nearly 80 percent of employees still going to work sick. This is despite the fact that employers increasingly appreciate that a sick employee at home is much preferable than one who has struggled into work.

December 7, 2016

Are these the best places to work in 2017? ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace, Workplace design

Recruitment site Glassdoor has announced the winners of its ninth annual Employees’ Choice Awards to find the best places to work in North America and parts of Europe. The Awards are based on the input of employees who voluntarily provide anonymous feedback, by completing a company review, about their job, work environment and employer over the past year. This year, the Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Awards feature six categories, honouring the Best Places to Work across the UK, US (both large and small companies), Canada, France and Germany. There is one category in the UK: 50 Best Places to Work (honouring employers with 1,000 or more employees). Winners are ranked based on their overall rating achieved during the past year. The top five UK Best Places to Work in 2017 are Expedia, ARM, HomeServeUK, Mott MacDonald and Hays plc

November 25, 2016

Workplace professionals should look to the consumer sector for boosting engagement ⁰

by Jeff Flanagan • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

More and more businesses are recognising the power of the workplace experience to drive employee performance and engagement. Global brand Airbnb, for example, has now renamed its head of human resources as “chief employee experience officer.” This is good news for workplace design and management professionals. We are well placed to capitalise on this shift in business opinion, but if we want to make a tangible impact, we need to bring practical solutions to the table. First and foremost, these need to be backed up by research. There have been few studies specifically into what makes a healthy and productive work environment. However, there are a number of research projects that examine how a human being’s surroundings impact their mood and behaviour, and in particular how consumer environments shape customers’ perception of and engagement with a brand. As workplace professionals, we can learn a great deal from this consumer research and this is why workplace design and management teams should look towards consumer-facing industries for inspiration.

November 18, 2016

HR directors struggle to devise long term digital workplace strategies ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

One of the effects of the UK’s falling unemployment levels is that HR Directors risk becoming so consumed with issues of talent retention and hiring that they are unable to plan effectively and build a long term strategy for their business, especially when it comes to key emerging issues such as the digital workplace. While the latest ONS statistics show that UK unemployment fell by 37,000 to 1.6 million in the three months to September, hitting an 11-year low, in an anonymous survey carried out by The Curve Group, 92 percent of HR Directors say re-designing their organisation in response to the emergence of the digital workplace, new entrants and a flat economy should be their main priority, but only 44 percent feel able to do so.

November 16, 2016

Google confirms it is to go ahead with massive new London HQ ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology, Workplace design

Following the announcement in September that Apple was to reaffirm its commitment to the UK with a major investment in the creation of a new headquarters building in London, the latest global tech giant to follow suit is Google. The firm has confirmed it is to open a new HQ in the capital which will see 3,000 jobs created by 2020. In an interview with the BBC, chief executive Sundar Pichai claimed that he is confident that the UK Government will not be throwing up barriers to the movement of skilled labour in the wake of the Brexit vote. Based on this he is moving ahead with the Bjarke Ingels Group and Thomas Heatherwick designed £1 billion Kings Cross development that will allow the firm to expand its UK workforce to 7,000 people. Heatherwick has previously worked with Google alongside Bjarke Ingels Group on the design of their Mountain View headquarters in California. He was drafted in to work on the London project after a previous design was rejected because it was ‘boring’.

November 10, 2016

The Room of Requirements: is a flexible workspace even possible? ⁰

by Kerstin Sailer • Case studies, Features, Flexible working, Workplace design

Many of us have ways of framing our ideas about the workplace with reference to the things we love. Because I am a Harry Potter fan that means developing notions of Hogwarts and what it says about how the school building influences teaching and learning practices. J K Rowling’s universe offers rich pickings for this sort of thing and in the case of this feature provides us with an example of how we might consider the current state of thinking about the flexible workspace. One of Rowling’s brilliant ideas is the Room of Requirements. More →