April 15, 2024

Open competition launched to find design team for new museum of architecture and design in Helsinki

by Neil Franklin • Architecture, News, Workplace design

The Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design, Real Estate Company ADM, the City of Helsinki and SAFA the Finnish Association of Architects have launched an international, open design competition to find a design team for a new 10,050 sq m (GFA) museum building in Helsinki’s South Harbour. The new museum of architecture and design in Helsinki, Finland, is planned to open in 2030 and will combine the Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum Helsinki. These institutions were successfully merged in January 2024, and the new museum will retain and grow the staff of both its predecessors. More →

April 9, 2024

Microsoft announces new London AI research hub

by Jayne Smith • AI, News, Property, Technology

Microsoft AI is opening a new AI hub in Central London. The firm claims that the new Paddington based centre, dubbed Microsoft AI London will ‘drive pioneering work to advance state-of-the-art language models and their supporting infrastructure, and to create world-class tooling for foundation models’, collaborating closely with AI teams across Microsoft and with its partners, including OpenAI. More →

April 9, 2024

The significance of women’s health is increasingly acknowledged in the modern workplace

by Olga Kokshagina • Comment, Wellbeing

Women, on average, outlive men but, as reported by the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2024), spend approximately 25 percent of their lives in poor health. According to the WEF, addressing the disparities in women’s health could dramatically reduce this statistic, enhancing the lives of billions globally. Notably, strategic improvements in women’s healthcare could add an average of seven days of healthy living per year for each woman, cumulatively offering more than 500 additional healthy days over a lifetime. This progression not only promises to elevate the quality of life for women but also holds the potential to boost the global economy by at least $1 trillion annually by 2040. More →

April 5, 2024

Microsoft is world’s most valuable B2B brand, NVIDIA the fastest growing

by Neil Franklin • Business, News

Microsoft remains the world’s most valuable B2B brand, achieving a substantial 60 percent increase in B2B brand value to USD220.4 billion, according to the latest report by Brand Finance, the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. The B2B brand value of Microsoft accounts for the majority of Microsoft’s total brand value of USD340.4 billion, which includes both B2B and B2C components. More →

April 3, 2024

London Mayor sets out ambitious plans for Capital’s growth and reinvention

by Marvin Gort • Cities, News, Property

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is today launching an ambitious plan aimed at creating 150,000 high-quality, well-paid jobs by 2028. This initiative will be unveiled alongside the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Reeves will say that a Labour administration intends to reset the relationship between the national government and London, while Khan thinks what is good for London is good for the UK. More →

April 2, 2024

What do people really want from an office design? Some peace and quiet

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace design

New research from a survey of 2,000 UK office workers by BW: Workplace Experts suggests that poor quality office design is now thoroughly out of favour, as one in three people (33 percent) have an issue with a lack of privacy in the workplace. In fact, over a third (34 percent) ranked the most valuable spaces in the office as available meeting rooms, adequate amounts of breakout spaces, and social spaces, reflecting a desire to have more varied private and collaborative spaces. 27 percent said that they also value wellness spaces (e.g., exercise room, meditation room) and roughly one in 10 (11 percent) said access to outdoor space would influence them to go into the office more often. More →

April 1, 2024

British workers now entirely unproductive, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The overwhelming majority of UK workers don’t do anything productive at all, according to a new report published today. The study of available research into the illnesses, injuries, distractions, wastes of time, procrastinations, productivity drains and paralyses that afflict British workers found that the annual cost to the British economy is around £1.8 trillion, equivalent to 98.9 percent of GDP.

March 28, 2024

Sick pay reform should encourage people back into work, government claims

by Marvin Gort • News, Workplace

A parliamentary committee of MPs has called for a ‘long-overdue’ boost to statutory sick pay (SSP), emphasising the need to strike a delicate balance between workers’ wellbeing and employers’ financial constraints. The Work and Pensions Committee has recommended aligning the SSP rate with the flat rate of Statutory Maternity Pay, a move that they say could significantly improve the financial safety net for workers. More →

March 27, 2024

Up to 8 million UK jobs already at risk from AI without intervention

by Jayne Smith • AI, News, Technology

An analysis of the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on the UK labour market uncovers a ‘distinct sliding doors moment’, with possibilities for huge job disruption in future or significant GDP gains, depending on government policy. The report from think tank the IPPR claims to identify two key stages of generative AI adoption: the first wave, which is here and now, and a second wave in which companies will integrate existing AI technologies further and more deeply into their processes. More →

March 25, 2024

Republic of Korea to join Horizon Europe programme

by Neil Franklin • Environment, News, Technology

Korea will join the growing group of countries associated with Horizon Europe, the EU research and innovation programme. Horizon Europe is the biggest EU research and innovation programme ever with a budget of €95.5 billion for the period 2021-27, complemented by the financial contributions from associated countries. It is open to the world, which means that participants from all over the world can participate in nearly all calls. Entities from associated countries have additional opportunities in collaborative projects and are treated on par with the entities of EU Member States regarding the access to funds. More →

March 25, 2024

AI will leave a lot of people with nowhere to go in the job market

by Jayne Smith • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

Non-graduates, ‘silver surfers’ and those in lower socio-economic brackets will be left behind as the rise of AI creates a ‘skills glass ceiling’. That’s according to the latest Robert Half Jobs Confidence Index (JCI) – an economic confidence tracker produced in partnership with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). The latest iteration of the Robert Half JCI revealed that almost half (45 percent) of the UK workforce is concerned that AI will disrupt their career in the next six to ten years. More →

March 25, 2024

UK Space Agency announces new headquarters and regional offices

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

The UK Space Agency is opening new headquarters in Harwell, Oxfordshire and regional offices in Scotland, Wales and the Midlands as it works to support the space sector across the UK. According to the government, the expansion will enable the Agency to collaborate more closely with the UK’s space sector, while promoting regional skills and job opportunities to deliver ‘increasingly ambitious missions and capabilities’. As set out in the Space Industrial Plan, the government says it is committed to continuing its support for space clusters across the UK and ‘providing the tools needed to drive collaboration between them and catalyse further investment’. More →