Search Results for: productivity

October 24, 2013

Yahoo and HP “seeing success” by taking a stand against flexible working

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property

Yahoo has had some successes since curtailing its work from home policies, global corporate real estate leaders were told at this week’s CoreNet Global Summit in Las Vegas. Continuing the industry conversation around balancing an organisation’s need to foster work and collaboration in person (aka: presenteeism) against the needs of employees to work off site, the discussion centred on how employees can “be present” in an increasingly virtual world, and where should leaders in corporate real estate place their focus? Julie Ford-Tempesta, Senior Director, Real Estate & Workplace at Yahoo said despite predictions of “epic policy failure” following the announcement that all employees must work in the office; employee engagement is up, product launches have increased significantly, and teams are thriving. (more…)

October 22, 2013

Just one in eight employees worldwide are engaged at work

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, Workplace

There are so many references these days to employee engagement it can be tempting to see it as management speak. However, according to Gallup’s 142-country study on the State of the Global Workplace, the 24 per cent of “actively disengaged,” employees worldwide who are not psychologically committed to their jobs are unhappy and unproductive at work and liable to spread negativity to co-workers. It found only 13 per cent of employees worldwide are engaged at work, with the majority of employees (63%) “not engaged,” meaning they lack motivation and are less likely to invest discretionary effort in organizational goals or outcomes. In rough numbers, this translates into 900 million not engaged and 340 million actively disengaged workers around the globe. (more…)

October 14, 2013

More employers than ever introduce some kind of flexible working pattern

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Disenchantment with flexible working appears to be ongoing in the tech sector, with a recent report revealing that computing giant HP is following Yahoo’s lead by quietly discouraging staff from working from home. However, more employers than ever are attaching growing importance to making at least some changes to working patterns as a means of managing rising long-term absence levels. In the annual CIPD / Simplyhealth Absence Management, the number of employers introducing small changes, such as later start times, has increased by 20 per cent in the last year alone. Over 70 per cent of organisations report a positive impact on employee motivation and employee engagement, while a further 46 per cent are using flexible working options to support employees with mental health problems. (more…)

October 10, 2013

European business leaders join forces to target depression in the workplace

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Mental health campaigners’ efforts to persuade employers to combat mental ill health at work took a significant step forward today when, for the first time, senior European executives from a group of major employers, including BT Group, Barclays, and Unilever, came together to assess and address depression in the workplace. One in 10 employees in Europe is estimated to take time off work due to depression, which equates to more than 34 million people. The “Target Depression in the Workplace” initiative recommends concrete tools and resources that will enable company executives to better identify and support employees with depression, as well as promote good mental health at work. (more…)

October 7, 2013

Full details of Workplace Week event are announced

by Mark Eltringham • Events, News

PwC More London Offices

More details have been announced about this year’s Workplace Week, which takes place on 5 November at PricewaterhouseCoopers More London building. Our support for the event means that Insight readers are offered discounted tickets. The event is organised by Advanced Workplace Associates in aid of Children in Need. The event includes a chance to visit some of the UK’s most innovative workplaces including RBS, Innocent Drinks and KPMG as well as convention and a series of Fringe events. Speakers include Johnny Dunford, global director of commercial property at RICS; Curtis McLean, founder of Innovation Places; Keith Saxton, director of financial services at IBM Research; Jessica Pryce-Jones, founder of the I-Opener Institute in Oxford; and Mark Sherfield, COO of global accountants BDO.

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October 7, 2013

Third of Europe’s large firms have already lost data through BYOD

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology

Bring Your Own Device remains the Gordian Knot of workplace technology. While firms have tried to label and co-opt the unstoppable propensity of employees to use their own devices for work as a way of cutting the business’s technology costs, they are paying in other ways. As we reported last week many remain unaware of the extent of the practice and of its potential to clash with company policy. Now, the full extent of the inevitable security breach inherent in either sanctioned or unsanctioned use of personal technology is becoming evident. According to a new report from Samsung, around a third of Europe’s largest companies have lost company and confidential data through the practice.

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October 4, 2013

Stress taboo is the elephant in the room in many workplaces

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Attitudes towards mental ill health are supposed to be more enlightened these days, but the fact that a large supermarket chain would sanction the sale of a “mental patient” Halloween outfit shows that in business, there is some way to go. The mental health charity Mind, which received an apology and a donation from Asda following the withdrawal of the offending outfit, has published new statistics today which reveals 42 per cent of employees believe that in their workplace, stress and mental ill health is regarded as a sign of weakness or that you can’t cope. 45 per cent of workers said that staff are expected to cope without mentioning stress at work and a third (31%) would not be able to talk openly to their line manager if they felt stressed. (more…)

October 1, 2013

Over half of UK and US workers still go into work when they are sick

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Over half of UK and US workers still go into work when they’re sick, according to separate surveys from either side of the Atlantic. The US study by Kimberly-Clark Professional found that 59 per cent of people go to work even when they feel ill; with three in 10 saying it was because they were too important to the business operation. In the UK, new YouGov research on behalf of Westfield Health found that exactly the same percentage (59%) of workers turned up despite being unwell because of work commitments; 82 per cent of employees had worked over their contractual hours in the last 12 months and 64 per cent admitted to feeling stressed at work. (more…)

September 16, 2013

World Green Building week launches with a breath of fresh air

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

Making sustainability sexy is a tall order. Look up the topic “green building” and you’ll invariably come across in depth descriptions of energy saving schemes and achieving a BREEAM rating. All these considerations are of course very important, but they make it difficult to engage building occupants. With the theme “Greener buildings, better places, healthier people”, World Green Building Week, which begins today (16-20 September), should do just that, by concentrating on the tangible benefits to building occupants of a green office. Paul King, Chief Executive of UK-GBC, said: “We often hear about the environmental and financial benefits of green buildings, but less attention is paid to the impact on those who live and work in them.” (more…)

September 13, 2013

100% Design: Holding a mirror up to the way we design and manage workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Furniture, Products, Workplace design

Hanging Room at 100% Design

If art holds a mirror up to nature, shouldn’t the design of workplace products hold a mirror up to the way we work? By definition, the things with which we surround ourselves should tell us something about the way we see ourselves and what we do. It should be possible to infer from the design of the products suppliers offer to the market what is changing in the workplace. This isn’t always the case, of course, especially for those firms who see design not so much in terms of putting lipstick on a gorilla as telling you that what you’re looking at isn’t in fact a gorilla at all. It’s Scarlett Johansson.

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September 11, 2013

Almost half of UK workers now work remotely for half the time, claims poll

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Knowledge, News

A new poll of 4,000 UK workers by Regus claims that 42 percent of respondents now work remotely from their main place of work for at least half the week. The proportion is up from 39 percent last year with employers citing improved productivity, increased staff retention and autonomy as well as lower operating costs as their main drivers for encouraging its uptake. However the research also suggests that many firms are slow to address the associated management challenges with half of those polled saying that managers do not trust them to remain focused on work. Only a quarter of firms have a system that allows managers to monitor remote teams while a third of managers now use video calls.