Search Results for: wellness

November 9, 2018

Is leadership the missing variable in the productivity equation?

Quality of leadership is reported to be the single most important factor to impact the level of productivity in an organisation according to a new international research study. The report, The Puzzle of Productivity: What enhances workplace performance? was compiled by the Fourfront Group, The United Workplace (TUW) and WORKTECH Academy. It found that more than half of respondents surveyed (53 percent) named leadership as the most important factor in raising organisational performance. Less than a fifth of respondents named environment, technology or wellness as being the most important factor. Environment came second to leadership, but a long way behind on 18 per cent of the survey. More than half of the organisations surveyed worldwide (54 percent) said that ‘inspiring leadership’ is the best way to motivate staff to improve performance, whereas a ‘well designed workplace’ scored much lower on 19 percent with ‘a focus on wellness’ (14 percent) and ‘seamless tech’ (13 percent) even further down the field.

November 5, 2018

An intersectional approach to trends in workplace design at Orgatec 2018

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace design

There are perhaps three characteristics that ensure the European office furniture and workplace design fair Orgatec continues to attract so many exhibitors and visitors to Cologne. Firstly, it takes place every two years, so offers a snapshot of a sector, framing the most important workplace developments in a particular time and place. For those of us who’ve been attending the shows for any length of time (in my case 26 years), we can track the evolution of workplace thought in a measured way, noting key developments like the launch of the Aeron chair (1994), Vitra’s Alcove (2006) and in 2018 – what?

October 26, 2018

We need to move on from the stigma of mental health to finding solutions

by Gary Helm • Comment, Wellbeing

Just as in physical health, everybody has a level of mental health. And while companies have begun to offer corporate gym membership discounts, bowls of fruit around the office, monthly massage and investment in huge amounts of ergonomically supportive furniture to try to assist their colleagues in maintaining a good level of physical health, few seem to be getting to grips with their colleagues’ mental wellbeing, despite the reality that they are dealing with huge numbers of employees who struggle.

October 15, 2018

Wearables and apps to help you stay organised and keep track of your time

by Neil Franklin • Company news, Products, Technology

Technology in the workplace is both a blessing and a curse. Workplace Insight recently published an article about tech multi-tasking and how switching through different platforms takes away ones focus. Employees need to stay updated through digital means all the time but staying connected to the cloud also means being susceptible to various distractions. However, technology usage just takes a little bit of refinement to increase productivity and various wearables, devices and mobile apps are the way to do that.

October 11, 2018

How the media oversold standing desks as a fix for inactivity at work

by Catriona Bonfiglioli and Josephine Chau • Features, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Sitting is so culturally ingrained at work, at the wheel, in front of the TV and at the movies, it takes a great effort to imagine doing these things standing up, let alone pedalling as you work at a bike desk. So, when the world’s first specific guidelines on sitting and moving at work were published, they generated headlines such as: Abandon your chair for four hours to stay healthy, office workers are told and: Stand up at your desk for two hours a day, new guidelines say. But what many media reports did not mention was the guidelines were based on limited evidence. They were also co-authored by someone with commercial links to standing desks (desks you raise and lower to work at standing or sitting), a link not declared when the guidelines were first published in a journal. Media reports also overplayed the dangers of sitting at work, incorrectly saying it wiped out the benefits of exercise. Our new study reveals the nature of this media coverage and its role in overselling standing desks as a solution to inactivity at work.

October 5, 2018

Developing a resilient mindset to cope with stress

by Portia Hickey • Comment, Wellbeing

Earlier this year, The New York times reported on a company in New Zealand that reduced its employee’s work time to four days a week whilst paying them for five. The idea came to the CEO after he read research that showed that employees generally only spend three hours a day on actual productive work. The change was highly successful, employees were as productive over the four days as they were over the five but the wellbeing of employees improved dramatically.

September 17, 2018

Crown Estate HQ becomes first office in Europe to achieve WELL Platinum Certification

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector, Wellbeing

The Crown Estate has announced that it has been awarded WELL Certification at the Platinum Level for its head office at No 1 St James’s Market, London by the International WELL Building Institute. The Crown Estate earned the distinction based on seven categories of building performance—air, water, light, nourishment, fitness, comfort and mind—and achieved a Platinum level rating.

September 7, 2018

How Thomas Jefferson came to invent the swivel chair and laptop ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Technology, Workplace design

In 1775, Thomas Jefferson was a busy man. As part of the Committee of Five men and at the tender age of 33, he had been charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence that was to be presented to Congress the following Summer. By all accounts, Jefferson was a self-contained and self-sufficient man and, like many great people, a mass of contradictions.

September 6, 2018

Creating a productive workplace for people is all about context

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

The quest for a proper understanding of the links between the places we work, the things with which we fill them and our wellbeing and productivity has been ongoing for a very long time. It predates our current thinking on productive workplace design and the facilities management discipline as we now know it by decades and has its roots in the design of early landmark offices such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin building and research such as that carried out at the Hawthorne Works in Chicago in the late 1920s. Yet the constantly evolving nature of work means that we are forever tantalised by an idea that we can never fully grasp and makes established ideas seem like revelations.

August 22, 2018

SMEs more likely to offer flexible working than larger businesses

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

More SMEs than larger businesses offer flexible working as a way of reducing absences, research from industry body Group Risk Development (GRiD), suggests. The research showed that 35 percent of SMEs with up to 249 employees are actively using flexible working strategies to combat absence compared to just 23 percent of organisations with over 250 employees. Drilling down further into the detail, 38 percent of micro businesses with between 1 and 9 employees use flexible working as a means to reduce absence. Flexible working now means a lot more than allowing an employee to work from home when they are feeling under the weather, and following changes in the law in 2014, it is now an option for everyone with at least 26 weeks continuous employment to request it – not just those with children or carer responsibilities. It also includes part-time working, term-time working, job sharing, compressed hours and flexitime. A greater degree of flexibility can increase productivity and reduce burn out, particularly in stressful occupations.

August 15, 2018

Facilities managers are smarter and more data driven than ever

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Facilities managers are responding to a range of macro influences such as changing demographics, the uptake of flexible working, new technology and social change by adopting a new way of looking at the workplace, claims a new report from CBRE. The report claims to identify the major trends in facilities management, most important that people increasingly want to choose where and when they work and the effect this has on the physical workplace and its features, services and technology.

August 7, 2018

HR offers the key to enhanced employee financial wellbeing, claims report

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

With poor financial wellbeing impacting on productivity, a new paper claims that, despite growing interest, there remains a lag in employers taking action in this area – and that Human Resources departments are key to building a business case for support. Published by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), the paper, Building the business case for employee financial wellbeing, draws on findings from a Money Advice Service-funded study trialling financial wellbeing guidance from IES and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).