Search Results for: engineering

March 4, 2016

Fewer than ten percent of business processes will rely on paper by 2018 ⁰

A new report from Xerox suggests that the use of paper in business processes continues to fall away. The Digitisation at Work report claims that the move from paper to digital processes is nearly upon us although many of the 600 survey respondents admit they may not be ready for it. The report found concerns remain over paper-based processes, with cost (42 percent) and security (42 percent) cited as primary issues. Survey respondents predicted an average of nine percent of key business operation processes will run on paper in two years time. However, over half (55 percent) of the respondents admit their organisation’s processes are still largely or entirely paper-based and about a third (29 percent) are still communicating with customers via paper.This is despite the fact that 41 percent agree moving to digital workflows will cut organisational costs and 87 percent appear to have the skill sets available to make this happen.

February 12, 2016

Unpredictability and office environment are key causes of workplace stress ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The two most common factors influencing work related stress levels are unpredictability (26 percent) and workplace environment (21 percent) according to a poll by US jobs site CareerCast.com. The results, based on 834 respondents found that most of the respondents (62 percent) rated their jobs as highly stressful, while just 11 percent felt the amount of stress on the job was low. Other key stressors were deadlines (20 percent) and safety of others (16 percent). Interestingly, few people felt that length of work day/week (7 percent), personal well-being in danger (5 percent), potential for promotion (3 percent) and travel (1 percent) were major job stressors. Any number of factors can contribute to an unpredictable workplace; either the flow of responsibility changes from day-to-day with new tasks added or changed at random intervals or expectations may change. Running a close second is the workplace environment and culture, which includes interactions with bosses, co-workers and clients/customers.

January 28, 2016

The future of next generation TMT workplaces explored in new report ⁰

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

A new report from property adviser Cushman & Wakefield claims to outline the key future property trends for TMT workplaces based on the views of decision makers from global Fortune 500 organisations, architects, designers, founders of start-ups and high-growth businesses. The Future of the TMT Workplace report produced in association with Unwork, identifies the key forces ‘driving change and necessitating TMT players to fundamentally rethink their workplace strategies’. These include frictionless growth, engineered serendipity, the ‘gig’ economy, the pace of technological change, demand for top technological talent far outstripping supply and where to locate in order to succeed.At this week’s launch event for the report, a panel of expert speakers agreed that workplaces have a critical for TMT firms to respond to challenges such as the need to attract the most talented tech workers.

January 19, 2016

Skilled migrants attracted to regional and city work hubs, not countries ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, News, Property, Workplace

Highly-skilled migrants are increasingly attracted to cities and regions rather than countries, the latest Global Talent Competitiveness Index has revealed. Silicon Valley, Dublin, Helsinki-Espoo, Dubai [pictured] and London are the real hubs, rather than the United States, Ireland, Finland, the United Arab Emirates or the United Kingdom. The index, produced by Adecco Group, INSEAD and the Human Capital Leadership Institute, ranks the factors driving the international movement of skilled migrants of 109 countries, covering 87 percent of the global population and 97 percent of global GDP. Switzerland is in top place, followed by Singapore and Luxembourg in second and third place. At seventh place, the UK is ahead of Germany and France, but behind top performers such as the United States and Canada. It also trails behind in terms of gender diversity; ranking 56th for female graduates and 71st for the gender earnings gap.

December 22, 2015

How to compile your own Top Ten list of the World’s Coolest Offices

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

The year draws to an end and making a list of what you claim are the world’s coolest offices or making claims about what makes an office cool is a great way of generating some much needed fin de siecle PR. That’s presumably why there are so many features about what constitutes a cool office. You can find them everywhere including in the Telegraph, Fortune, Esquire, Inc and Forbes. Or, like search engine Adzuna, you can openly boast about how much PR you’ve generated with your list and then do it again every year. If you want to tap into this meme, the great thing about it is that you don’t even have to know anything about or even visit the offices you deem cool enough to make your top ten. You can even choose offices from other people’s lists. All you have to do is follow a number of simple and interrelated criteria to come up with a list that is pretty much the same as all the others and say the same things about them.

December 9, 2015

Glassdoor announces lists of the best places to work for 2016 ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Case studies, News, Workplace, Workplace design

Job site Glassdoor has announced the winners of its annual Employees’ Choice Awards, honouring the best places to work across Europe and North America. The Awards are based on the input of employees who provide anonymous feedback by completing a company review about their job, work environment and employer. This year, Glassdoor has expanded the awards programme to include six categories, highlighting the Best Places to Work across the UK, France, Germany, US and Canada. This is the second time Glassdoor has identified the best places to work in the UK and the first time in both France and Germany. Winners are ranked based on their overall rating achieved during the past year based on a five point scale. According to Glassdoor, the top five UK Best Places to Work in 2016 are, in order: Expedia (average 4.4 rating), Hays Plc (4.4 rating), AKQA (4.2 rating), GE (4.2 rating), Schuh (4.1 rating).

November 30, 2015

BRE acquires rival green building scheme to create new accreditation ⁰

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

Those bewildered by the confusion of acronyms that surrounds building environmental standards will be pleased to hear that BRE has acquired a rival standard to merge with itsBREEAM accreditation. BRE claims that the acquisition of CEEQUAL, a sustainability scheme for civil engineering, allows it to ‘create a single, science based standard and certification tool for civil engineering and infrastructure projects’. As a result of the acquisition, CEEQUAL will transfer its operations to BRE Global after which CEEQUAL will then be delivered by the BREEAM certification team with support from a CEEQUAL management team. The move is supported by the Institution of Civil Engineers and has been prompted by ‘the industry’s desire for a single sustainability rating scheme that addresses the challenges that infrastructure clients, professions and contractors currently face in delivering more sustainable and resilient infrastructure.’

November 18, 2015

Women earn less than men because they make different choices, report confirms ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Workplace

In spite of its own attempts to link it to the gender pay gap a new report, Opportunities and outcomes in education and work: Gender effects, released yesterday by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), merely confirms that the key factors that determine how much people earn are the jobs they do and the hours they work. The report shows that male workers are paid on average 19 percent more than female workers. However, a report this year from the ONS confirmed that women now earn slightly more than men in like for like jobs up to the age of 35 and the UKCES report shows that it is career and personal choices that explain the gap in incomes across the whole economy. This confirms that the keys to closing the overall pay gap are for women to enter higher paying fields such as STEM and construction as well as employers offering flexible working arrangements and greater support for parents in their careers.

November 12, 2015

English regions outside the Capital lead construction growth ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

The construction industry has returned to growth after six months of contraction, according to figures released by industry analysts Glenigan. Its latest Index also found that the value of projects starting on site are higher than a year earlier for the first time since March, fueled by growth across the industry; with housing, civil engineering and non-residential building sectors all up on a year earlier. Non-residential starts as a whole were up 4 percent on a year earlier, as growth in private sector activity offset continued weakness across the public sector. Industrial, office, retail and hotel and leisure starts all registered growth. Although UK construction has moved back into growth, it is the English regions outside of the Capital which are seeing most activity. London, Wales and Scotland last saw growth in March this year and South West England hasn’t recorded a rise in starts since May 2014.

September 22, 2015

John Fogarty reflects on a career in office furniture spanning five decades ⁰

by John Fogarty • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

I was lucky to enter the office furniture industry in 1971, at the beginning of a decade shaped by the explosive advent of new office technology. What had gone before would not have looked that different to anyone who’d worked a corporate office in the 1890s: serried ranks of desks occupied by clerical staff bashing away on manual typewriters and comptometers (calculating machines). Although electric typewriters had been around for most of the century, decades of global conflict had constrained their development. The first major advance came with the launch of the IBM Selectric golf-ball in 1961. Although a beautiful object – I recall this being the first item associated in my mind with the term ‘product design’ by a named designer (Eliot Noyes) – it remained expensive and rare until the price reductions driven by the multi-licensing in 1972 of the Diablo daisy-wheel print head.

July 17, 2015

Quarter of workers want flexible contracts when they reach retirement age

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

A quarter (28 percent) of UK workers expect their employer to create a part-time or flexible role for them once they reach the state pension age, according to new research from Aegon. Workers in healthcare (40 percent) administrative (31 percent) and engineering and manufacturing sectors (32 percent) are most likely to expect their employer to create a flexible role for them, while those in the creative arts and design sector (32 percent) are more likely to become self-employed and start up their own business. Nearly two thirds (61 percent) are planning to carry on working if they haven’t saved enough by the time they hit their target retirement age; with more than one in three (36 percent) planning to continue working in their current role until they have enough saved; while one in ten (9 percent) expect to become self-employed.

July 9, 2015

Growing numbers of workers are ditching their laptops, claims study

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Technology

A growing number of European employees are shedding their laptops and instead using tablets as their sole device for work, according to a new study from technology research firm International Data Corporation. The report surveyed 2,000 UK, French and German workers and found that tablets are the only business device used by 40 percent of staff. Not everybody is ditching their keyboard so readily, however, as more and more people are using hybrids as their sole device because they need the functionality of the keyboard. The study found that just under a third of users rely solely on hybrids and the study expects this to rise to over half within a couple of years. This not only reflects the changing way we work but also has profound implications for the way we design and manage the places we work and the tools and systems we use to communicate with each other.