Search Results for: wellbeing

May 13, 2014

Workplace design, Facebook likes and the need of companies to be your friend

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

Companies put an awful lot of time and money into getting people to like them on social media these days. While it would be easy to see the like button on Facebook as the primary conduit for this corporate neediness, but it cuts across many aspects of the ways in which companies work, including their relationships with employees and the ways in which they develop new forms of workplace design and management. This is most evident in the tech palaces which are aimed at the same digital natives that firms habitually target with their online marketing, but the need to make customers and employees friends of the business cuts across a wide range of sectors. The workplace is yet another channel of communicating chumminess, and it offers many of the same challenges as social media.

May 12, 2014

Wellness counts. Third of staff would consider leaving if they didn’t feel cared for

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Measuring the impact of wellness initiatives at work is far from being an exact science. An examination of sickness absence figures for example, must take into account many variables; from the state of health of employees before the outset of a wellbeing programme, to the reasons behind each individual’s days off sick after a health programme has been put in place. There is though, a growing body of evidence that employers that bother to provide their workers with the tools to improve their level of health and wellbeing do benefit from a more engaged and more productive workforce. The latest bit of research by Unum and ICM finds that employees who feel that they have good workplace wellbeing are 27 per cent more likely to stay with their employer for over five years than those employees who feel they have only adequate or poor provision. More →

May 7, 2014

Green buildings may not enhance job satisfaction and performance, claims study

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Workplace, Workplace design

In March a report from the British Council for Offices appeared to show that people are happier and more productive when working in green buildings. But the idea that staff find greater job satisfaction when they work in environmentally friendly surroundings is challenged by a new study from researchers at the University of Nottingham and the Centre for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley. It found that, contrary to other research, people working in LEED certified buildings appear no more satisfied with the quality of their interior design and fit-out and may enjoy no more overall level of job satisfaction than those working in less green buildings. The research was carried out by Stefano Schiavon at Berkeley and Sergio Altomonte of the University of Nottingham and published in the April edition of Building and Environment.

May 1, 2014

Wearable technology will improve productivity and job satisfaction, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

It’s remains a cause of a great deal of rancour in workplaces and public spaces around the world but new research from Goldsmiths, University of London claims that wearable technology can boost employee productivity by over 8 percent and job satisfaction by around 3.5 percent. The study was carried out as part of the University’s Human Cloud at Work (HCAW) programme and was designed to explore the effects of wearable technologies such as Google Glass in the workplace and on employee wellbeing, productivity and job satisfaction. HCAW is a two-year collaborative project between the Institute of Management Studies and cloud specialist Rackspace to investigate how cloud-enabled wearable devices will impact on individuals and businesses.

April 29, 2014

Ska rating is shaping the future of sustainable office design

by Ben Murray • Company news, Environment, Insight promotion

We all know the ways in which we can ‘do our bit’ at home – turn off the lights when you leave a room, only boil as much water as you need, recycle as much as you can. At work however, it can be all too easy to forget and ignore the impact we have on our environment. Intelligent and inspired office design can not only increase productivity and employee wellbeing, but also be sustainable and provide financial benefits as a result. Although there were established tools for assessing the environmental impact of whole buildings, such as BREEAM and LEED, the certification of fit-outs, especially on existing buildings, had previously been unsatisfactory. To address this, the Ska Rating method was developed by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

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April 24, 2014

Employers that fail to act on engagement findings ‘demotivate staff’

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

When carrying out employee engagement surveys, employers are not asking the right questions that pinpoint exactly what actions need to be taken. This often results in a failure to act on their findings, which can then lead to higher levels of dissatisfaction amongst staff who have shared their thoughts without seeing any outcome. This is according to a review by software specialist Head Light, which has identified 12 factors which fundamentally impact on how people feel about their work and their employer. These are: wellbeing; motivation; reward and recognition; involvement; autonomy; teamwork and collaboration; purpose and meaning; relationships; trust; career/personal development; communication and performance management. It claims that engagement can be improved at each level of an organisation by asking employees about these 12 factors and then providing senior executives, line managers and individuals with a personalised list of manageable actions. More →

April 18, 2014

The latest issue of Insight is now available to view online

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Facilities management, Newsletter, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

In the latest Insight newsletter, available to view online; read (and watch) a list of some of the greatest songs to deal with the arcane subject of office furniture and discover the six dimensions of wellbeing that can be impacted by the design of the physical environment. Details of the first free and publicly available resource for building professionals to access detailed comparative data on carbon in buildings; and research that shows moderate stress levels can actually help a manager’s performance. Mark Eltringham suggests the real reasons why so many employers champion the open plan office layout and argues the design of trains [pictured] is almost as great an indicator of workplace thinking as the office itself. Finally, our regular contributor Simon Heath defends the much maligned HR function. To automatically receive our weekly newsletter, simply add your email address to the box on the home page.

March 31, 2014

BCO report claims to reveal link between green offices and business performance

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News

A new report from the British Council for Offices claims that building owners could enjoy significant savings in their operating costs of up to £50 per square metre as well as improved staff productivity and wellbeing by investing in environmentally friendly offices and work practices. The research, Improving the Environmental Performance of Offices claims to illustrate the benefits of energy efficient offices and highlight the positive impact they can have on employee productivity. The report calls on building occupiers to focus on key areas such as benchmarking and monitoring their energy usage. The BCO believes there is already a shift in attitudes towards a greater understanding of how offices actually perform environmentally rather than simply how they are designed and that more and more businesses are waking up to specific issues such as how much energy their buildings use outside of office hours. More →

March 26, 2014

UK workers are amongst least engaged in the world, claims new report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

The latest survey highlighting how disconnected the world’s workers feel from what they do comes courtesy of researchers ORC International. In its Global perspectives survey of over 7,000 employees in 20 countries, the researchers found that UK employees are amongst the most disengaged in the world. Engagement has declined sharply over the last year for UK based workers with under half (48 percent) claiming to be engaged with their jobs, down from 56 percent last year. This puts the country in 18^th position, with only Japan and Hong Kong coming out worse. Only 40 percent think their managers motivate and inspire them and only 37 percent feel encouraged by their employers to innovate. In fact the UK’s score fell according to every measure used in the report including the wellbeing index with a rating of 57 percent, down from 61 percent last year.

March 21, 2014

Why work should be a key focus in improving our happiness

by Jessica Pryce-Jones • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

The iOpener Institute for People & Performance is an official partner of the UN International Day of Happiness, which took place this week. Here, iOpener’s Joint CEOs Jessica Pryce-Jones & Julia Lindsay explain why work should be a key focus of improving happiness. The UN International Day of Happiness is designed to recognize that ‘progress’ is about increasing human happiness and wellbeing as well as growing the economy. The UN’s focus this year is on ‘reclaiming happiness’. The origins of the day lie in the July 2011 UN General Assembly resolution which recognized happiness as a fundamental human goal. In April 2012 the first ever UN conference on Happiness took place. On the back of this, they designated 20th March as an annual worldwide focus on celebrating and growing happiness. More →

March 11, 2014

Building Futures Group announced following merger of FM bodies

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

The name of the new organisation resulting from the merger of Asset Skills, the CSSA and the FMA is the Building Futures Group. Talks regarding the merger of the groups began last May, and despite the BIFM pulling out of the discussions in August the rest of the groups have gone ahead to form the new representative organisation for the Housing, Property, Planning, Cleaning, Parking and Facilities Management sectors. The new group has also announced Sarah Bentley of Asset Skills as its Chief Executive. She said: “The rationale for the merger was that the industry lacked a consolidated, unified voice. The Building Futures Group will coordinate the sector’s voice and provide a platform that has been so sadly missing. We are fully committed to raising the profile of the industry and transforming the sector”. More →

March 3, 2014

World Green Building Council to quantify productivity benefits of sustainability

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Property

In an attempt to broaden the business case for sustainable building, the World Green Building Council has launched a new initiative to define the productivity and wellbeing benefits associated with low carbon and sustainable property. The initiative, launched ahead of this week’s Ecobuild conference in London, will be steered by a group of experts who will produce a final report later in the year. The premise of the study is to show that, as well as cutting costs and improving environmental performance, green buildings have a beneficial effect on the health, wellness and productivity of occupants. According to the announcement, around 85 per cent of an average organisation’s costs are associated with salaries and other costs of employment so a modest improvement in productivity can have a huge impact.