Search Results for: flex

October 17, 2014

Firms downsizing property dramatically as agile working takes hold, claims new report

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, Property, Workplace design

The sharp reduction in the amount of office space used by corporate occupiers as they adopt more agile working practices has been confirmed in a new study from facilities management services provider MITIE. The survey, as reported in the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) magazine FM World, found that between the years of 2008 and 2014 firms reduced their floorspace by an average of 45 percent. The results of the report, based on interviews with property directors, mirror those of the Occupier Density Survey published last year by the British Council for Offices (BCO) which also found a marked (if smaller) reduction. The authors of the MITIE report conclude, similarly, that the economic downturn has been the main catalyst for the reduction in property used by occupiers and that the main way firms have accommodated the fall is with the uptake of flexible working practices.

October 15, 2014

UK Government agency offers employers new guidance on BYOD

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news, Technology, Workplace

The UK Government’s National Technical Authority for Information Assurance (CESG) has updated its official guidance on BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), one of the most widely discussed workplace technology phenomena. While it’s tough enough for everybody else to keep up with the personal and cultural implications of technology, the slow but exceedingly fine grinding mills of Government can find it almost impossible to keep up. In an accompanying statement the CESG claims the update is essential because of the rapid uptake in flexible working in the UK and the associated increase in the use of personal mobile devices in a work context. The new guidance suggests that employers should consider the development of a formal BYOD policy, understand relevant legal issues and their potential consequences, manage information and the way it is shared and plan for inevitable security breaches.

October 10, 2014

Case study: A public sector building that lights the way ahead for others

by Mark Eltringham • Case studies, Facilities management, Public Sector, Workplace design

The new offices of Wiltshire County Council, Trowbridge

Last year, I had the pleasure of producing a case study of the new offices of Wiltshire County Council for Mix Interiors magazine. Given that the building was this week shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Better Public Buildings Award and had already won an award from the BCO, we thought this seemed a good time to retread its corridors of power…. The recession has led the UK government to develop a number of new approaches to public sector buildings. But some of the UK’s local authorities are way ahead of the new thinking. Even so, there was a time, not so long ago, when nobody worried too much about the shape of the rooms that led off the corridors of power. But the pressure on UK public finances has politicised the design of the UK’s public buildings, with the government launching a wide range of initiatives to improve the efficiency of the way public sector acquires, designs and runs the places it calls home.

October 8, 2014

New property programme supports co-working between tech businesses

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

Over the next decade, London’s digital tech sector is expected to grow at a rate of 5.1 per cent per annum, creating an additional £12 billion of economic activity and 46,000 new jobs, which in turn is driving change in the commercial property market. Now the rapid rise of the UK property tech market is to get a boost with the announcement of a programme which provides tech companies with access to investment, mentoring and co-working business space. In a strategic partnership with Cushman & Wakefield and Spire Ventures; Pi Labs, Europe’s first property-focused technology accelerator company, will invite start-ups to apply to join the Pi Labs accelerator programme. This will be located within ‘Second Home’, a new iconic 20,000 sq. ft. co-working space in Shoreditch, designed to set new global standards in the provision of stimulating private and social workplace environments supporting collaboration and co-working amongst creative and technology businesses.
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October 7, 2014

Workers struggling to balance home and work, according to CIPD report

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Workplace

The UK’s workforce is struggling to find the right balance between their work and domestic responsibilities according to the latest Absence Management report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. The report also suggests that, although overall absence levels are falling, much of this is down to people going into work when they perhaps shouldn’t with a third of employers reporting presenteeism. Stress and mental health problems in the workplace also remain high, with more than 40 percent of employers citing an increase, despite signs of economic recovery. One area in which absenteeism is rising is workers taking time off to care for children and elderly or disabled relatives and friends. More than a third of those employers surveyed reported an increase in absence levels amongst staff who are struggling to cope with their caring responsibilities outside of work. However only a sixth of employers have policies in place to provide a better level of support.

October 6, 2014

A feeling of togetherness is essential and motivating, so why would we kill off the office?

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Knowledge, Workplace design

It is still depressingly commonplace to read proclamations of the death of the office. These are usually appended to some survey or other about the rise of flexible working or a case study of a workplace devoid of desks (or, more likely, one in which none are pictured). Of course, the actual conclusion we can draw from such things is that the office as we once knew it is now dead or mutating into something else, but that’s true for every aspect of modern life. The constant factor that ensures offices will always exist, in some form or other is the human they serve. We know that because, as Tom Allen proved at MIT in the 1980s, people communicate less well the greater the physical distance between them. Now new research from Stanford University shows how the very idea of ‘togetherness’ can have a significant impact on the way people perform. The study, by researchers Priyanka Carr and Gregory Walton was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and concluded that ‘social cues that signal an invitation to work with others can fuel intrinsic motivation’.

October 3, 2014

Vital role of FM in success of an organisation illustrated in latest RICS case studies

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

The utilisation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to innovate FM within a business, and the way in which strategic FM can help boost the wellbeing of employees are two of the latest case studies launched by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) aimed at illustrating the vital role played by FM in the success of an organisation. The case studies, produced by International Workplace, and available to download here, outline how businesses, large and small, can utilise strategic FM to enhance their business’ output. Through organisations as varied as The Royal BAM Group and the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the theme of professionalising FM is brought to life and explained using tangible, real life examples. Speaking at the launch of the case studies, held at KPMG, featured for its living wage initiative, Neil Murray, Managing Director at Sodexo UK talked about the contribution FMs can make to an organisation by making it a better place to work. More →

October 3, 2014

Julian Assange escapes incarceration to take part in conference as a hologram

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

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We have grown accustomed to the way technology distorts time and space. This, after all, is the underlying tension that defines each of the major debates about the workplace, including flexible working, office design, facilities management and the acquisition of commercial property. But, as they say, we ain’t seen nothing yet as the next generation of technologies starts to scale the upslope of the diffusion of innovation curve. People have been talking about telepresence for a little while, but it is about to achieve mainstream awareness thanks to events such as the appearance of Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange at a conference in the USA last week. Assange is famously holed up in London in the Ecuadorian Embassy, challenging his extradition to Sweden to face trial and can’t leave the building without being arrested. So the way he appeared at the conference in Nantucket was as a hologram.

October 1, 2014

New London hotspots emerging as affordable office space runs dry

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Flexible working initiatives such as hot-desking and home working have done little to dampen demand for the right office space, finds Cluttons in its latest London property outlook guide, which reveals very few areas of central London are now able to offer good office space for less than £40/sq ft. Echoing research by JLL earlier this week Cluttons reports that for the third quarter of this year current office letting activity was 17 per cent above the long-term average with more than almost 9m sq ft already acquired this year. Occupiers are showing a taste for larger offices, with a total of 21 transactions so far this year measuring upwards of 50,000 sq ft, accounting for a quarter of the space acquired. This is further eroding the supply pipeline, and is leading areas such as Aldgate and Whitechapel, Bethnal Green in the east, and Vauxhall in the south, to emerge as the next peripheral hotspots for those requiring offices on a more affordable basis.

September 29, 2014

The weekly Insight newsletter is now available to view online

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Work&Place, Workplace design

In the latest edition of the weekly Insight newsletter, now available to view online; Mark Eltringham describes some of the most readily identifiable themes at this year’s 100% design, while Sara Bean hails Richard Branson’s adoption of a flexible working policy for his personal staff. The British Council for Offices (BCO) launches the much awaited new edition of its Specification Guide; a new report from the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) claims “overwhelming evidence” that office design significantly impacts the health, wellbeing and productivity of staff; and research by Steelcase discovers nearly a third (31%) of occupants now routinely leave the office to get work done in private. Justin Miller discusses the challenge of balancing sustainable building design with the need to ensure a comfortable workplace; and from the latest issue of Work&Place, the journal we publish in partnership with Occupiers Journal, Dr. Agustin Chevez lists the thirteen ways the physical environment shapes knowledge management .

September 26, 2014

HOK releases new workplace benchmarking report for financial services sector

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Briefing, News, Workplace design

Architectural practice HOK has released a new benchmarking report that examines design and work-style trends at leading financial services firms over the past three years, including the finding that space is underutilised across the sector by nearly a half, meaning that growth can easily be accommodated within the existing facilities of many firms. The HOK Benchmarking Report claims to provide information on recent trends affecting the industry, an analysis of how organisations are using office space and metrics for space standards based on recently completed workplace projects for financial services firms in New York, Toronto and London. The authors claim that because ‘companies are eager to understand the link between their work environments and organisational performance, the space standards and findings in this report can provide a baseline to help corporate real estate and facilities professionals identify and respond to opportunities for improvement.’

September 19, 2014

Sound, settings, serendipity and other lessons from 100% Design

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Events, Products, Workplace design

Workplace Hub by NBBJ

The trick with visits to exhibitions like 100% Design is to stay focussed on the wood as much as the trees. So as well as identifying the good, the bad and the meh, it pays to discern the themes pursued by the exhibitors and organisers. Leaving aside what was happening in the domestic halls, those related to the workplace invariably derive from a mixture of what the exhibitors’ customers are talking to them about and what the media says people are talking about. So at this year’s show (still ongoing till tomorrow at Earl’s Court) some of the most readily identifiable themes included the dissipation of the workplace, privacy, ergonomics 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 – and indeed must – be able to work from anywhere and what this means both functionally and aesthetically.