Search Results for: health

July 1, 2015

Three ways in which the business case for green building design is moving on

by Dan Callegari • Architecture, Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The case for sustainable building design used to be based on two straightforward principles. The first was that buildings had to offer up some sustainable features to comply with the ethical standards of their occupiers. The second was that there was some financial benefit. Often these principles went hand in hand, especially when it came to issues such as energy efficiency. They remain the foundations of the idea of green building design and are applicable across a range of building accreditations such as BREEAM as well as standards relating to specific products and policies. Over the past couple of years, however, we have become increasingly aware of other drivers that might make us all re-evaluate how we approach sustainability. These drivers are based on a more sophisticated understanding of green building design and the benefits for all of those involved.

June 30, 2015

Settings, silence, serendipity, wellbeing and other lessons from Neocon

by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Events, Furniture, Workplace design

The trick with visits to exhibitions like Neocon, the huge office design event which has just wrapped up in Chicago, is to stay focussed on the wood as much as the trees. So as well as identifying new products, you can also work out the themes pursued by the exhibitors and organisers which are invariably based on the ideas they are currently discussing with their clients. The show becomes a microcosm of what is happening in the outside world. At this year’s Neocon, some of the most readily identifiable themes included the dissipation of the workplace, the creation of work settings, privacy, ergonomics, wellbeing and serendipity. With the possible exception of the age old problem of ergonomics, these all relate to our changing relationship with work and workplaces, not least how we can work from anywhere and what this means both functionally and aesthetically.

June 30, 2015

Number of mobile workers in US will exceed 105 million by 2020

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology

Mobile workers will account for nearly three quarters (72.3 percent) of the US workforce by 2020, thanks to the increasing affordability of smartphones and tablets and growing acceptance of corporate Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) schemes. According to a new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC), the US mobile worker population will grow at a steady rate over the next five years, increasing from 96.2 million in 2015 to 105.4 million in 2020. Innovations in technology such as biometric readers, wearables, voice control, near-field communications (NFC), and augmented reality are already increasing productivity and enabling workers to work in completely new ways. In a recent IDC survey, 69.1 percent of those responsible for managing mobility within their organisation had seen a reduction in costs as a result of implementing BYOD programmes.

June 29, 2015

Focus on wellbeing not productivity to improve company performance

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Wellbeing

New evidence has been published that claims workplaces that value employees’ safety and wellbeing as much as productivity yield the greatest rewards. A study from Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Public Health claims that when the organisation promotes productivity and wellbeing equally to workers, employees report having less work-related musculoskeletal pain. However, when workers perceived an emphasis on either performance or wellbeing unequally, regardless of which concept was felt to be more important, workers reported greater levels of musculoskeletal pain. The trend of emphasising workplace wellness and valuing employee health and wellbeing has been a focus in many organisations in recent years. This study adds new evidence to the argument that using principles such as ergonomics to increase wellbeing in the workplace benefits not only the employee, but the business too.

June 28, 2015

The latest issue of Insight weekly is now available for you online

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Furniture, Newsletter, Work&Place, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Mark Eltringham on the challenge for FMs in managing buildings not of their own making; and why Charles Eames came to tire of his association with his famous lounge chair. Douglas Langmead explains how the patterns of work and place in the Middle East evolved differently from the west and Lee Parsons warns that not enough thought is given to creating workspaces that support knowledge circulation. We provide a gallery of the winners of this year’s RIBA awards; the CIPD and BIFM identify ways the office environment influence workplace performance, construction begins on the UK’s “greenest commercial building” and new DOH guidelines on creating a productive and healthy workplace. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and for weekly news via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

June 26, 2015

Value older workers or sleep-walk towards a skills shortage, employers warned

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A demographic time bomb means employers must act to avoid a cliff-edge loss of skills and talents by 2035, a new study by the CIPD has revealed. There are currently 9.4 million workers in the UK today who are over the age of 50 and while the employment rate of older workers has increased significantly in recent years, there is still a 64 percent drop in the employment rate between the ages of 53 and 67. New research from the CIPD and the International Longevity Centre-UK (ILC-UK), the independent think tank on longevity, ageing, and population change, warns the UK could face serious skills shortages over the next 20 years. Unless organisations start improving how they recruit, develop and retain older workers it is estimated that the UK economy will struggle to fill one million jobs by 2035, even taking into account the mitigating effect of migrant workers.

June 25, 2015

Long distance commuting, agile working and dinosaur extinction in the UAE

by Douglas Langmead • Cities, Comment, Flexible working, Property

In Dubai, there are no suburban dinosaurs; those large-scale, single purpose office buildings that ignore the agile realities of modern working life. In the western world, these giants evolved on business parks, driven by the perceived benefits of having office workers agglomerated in order to achieve efficiency of communication and dissemination. The business practices and technologies that underpinned these buildings have evolved and improved and many are in the process of being re-purposed. Things happen on a grander scale in the Middle East where the mantra is “if the land-use doesn’t fit the land, make more land.” Here, the patterns of work and place have evolved differently from the west, and at a much faster pace with creeping tides of development spreading rapidly out from the small centres of traditional trade and commerce to vast tracts of new development.

June 23, 2015

A gallery of the workplace winners of this year’s RIBA Awards

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, News, Workplace design

The full list of regional winners of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Awards for 2015 has been finalised. The list of 37 winners will now go on to compete for the Stirling Prize in October. This year’s list is dominated by London projects, as is often the case, but also by homes whereas last year they were dominated by large scale projects, especially The Shard. We’ve rounded up a gallery of the major workplace projects in the list for England and Wales with some notes extracted from RIBA’s own commentaries (so don’t blame us). Each entry is hyperlinked for you to discover more about the project. Unfortunately, the regional winners for Scotland and Northern Ireland are not well served by their respective websites, which is a particular shame given the success Scotland in particular has in terms of the number and apparent quality of its winning projects.

June 23, 2015

Fit note scheme is not reducing long term sickness absence, claims new study

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Wellbeing

The UK government’s fit note scheme, introduced five years ago to help people back to work from long term sickness absence, has failed to deliver its intended reductions, according to research from manufacturing and engineering trade association EEF and Jelf Employee Benefits. The study of 345 companies claims more than two-fifths (43 per cent) of employers believe the policy had not helped employees return to work, up from 35 per cent in 2010. Employers also told the survey that the quality of GP advice on fitness for work has deteriorated, which the report’s authors claim is largely down to the fact that only around one in eight GPs in the UK have been trained in specific health and work and the Government has shown no willingness to invest in more training to bring the numbers of those qualified up to the necessary levels necessary to meet its own goals.

June 22, 2015

Too much sitting down at work (or worrying about it) can increase anxiety

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

More evidence in the case against sitting down at work has been published this week by researchers from Australia’s Deakin University which shows prolonged sitting is linked to an increase in anxiety. In the first systematic review to examine the relationship between sedentary behaviour and anxiety, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, it was revealed that only nine studies have investigated the link between sitting time and anxiety risk, but that in five of the nine studies, an increase in sitting was found to be associated with an increased risk of anxiety. There appears however, to be no data available yet on a rise in anxiety amongst office workers who, in the last few months have been being bombarded with scare stories about how “sitting is the new smoking” and how they’re putting themselves in mortal danger if they don’t try and stand for several hours a day.

June 21, 2015

The latest issue of Insight Weekly is available to view online

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Furniture, Newsletter, Wellbeing, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Dan Callegari argues the importance of creating a working environment that is inherently flexible enough to meet the needs of everybody; and Mark Eltringham lists the award winning products from the recent Neocon workplace design convention in Chicago. A new US report finds Generation Y isn’t as tech savvy as it’s made out to be; Regus research discovers many workers are afraid that working from home will mean they grow lonely, overweight and stale; and muscular skeletal problems and mental ill health remain the main causes of workplace absence. In London, a new kind of workplace is unveiled as part of the London Festival of Architecture; an office built around a tree. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and for weekly news via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

June 19, 2015

RICS case studies focus on business impact of strategic facilities management

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

Six case studies, which outline how businesses can make the most of strategic facilities management to enhance their performance are being launched today (19 June), at the NEC in Birmingham. Developed by International Workplace for the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the latest set of case studies in the series, provides examples of best practice as outlined in RICS’ Strategic Facilities Management (FM) Guidance Note. The case studies, which can be downloaded from RICS’ website, cover a range of strategic FM issues including procurement, innovation, technology, sustainability, talent management and health and safety. Key themes include a professional understanding of the impact of FM to a company’s reputation, brand and performance, engagement with staff and the supply chain, the importance of measuring impact and outcomes and communication.