Search Results for: manufacturing

November 9, 2015

Business success is progressively less related to employment levels ⁰

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

If you want to understand exactly how the economy has changed over the last few decades, one of the most important statistics is also one of the least remarked upon. It is the growing disconnect between a firm’s earnings and the number of people it employs, a statistic that puts paid to the lie that people are an organisation’s greatest asset. Once upon a time, of course, there was a direct correlation of one sort or another between the a firm’s revenue and the number of people it employed and consequently the amount of space that it took up. This was especially true for the world’s great manufacturers and other industries engaged in what was once proper work; moving, creating, destroying and maintaining things. Growth and success meant more employment and more space. There were economies of scale but the upshot was more or less an arithmetic progression in employment based on earnings.

November 1, 2015

Firms use workplace improvements to invest in their human capital ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace, Workplace design

A survey by CoreNet Global and Cushman & Wakefield claims that 88 percent of EMEA corporate real estate professionals are actively investing in workplace improvements, and 95 percent are addressing workplace technology as part of those upgrades. The results emphasise the importance of human capital, suggesting that factors such as office environment, flexible working and company culture continue to be seen as critical to attracting and retaining talent. The global Talent Agenda Survey, completed by 250 respondents, addresses how occupiers are managing their talent pool against an ever-changing and unpredictable business environment. The survey focused on categories such as the cost of human capital and its value; the key challenges relating to talent access, assembly and retention and the critical role that real estate plays in workplace innovation, efficiency and talent retention.

October 22, 2015

UK’s digital leaders set to deliver £92 billion boost to economy ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Company news, News, Technology

A new report from Virgin Media Business and Oxford Economics claims that the UK’s ‘Digital Leaders’ are set to use digital technology deliver a massive boost to the UK economy in the very near future. The study of 1,000 companies employing 470,000 people claims that the UK economy could see an increase of 2.5 percent in GDP (£92 billion) and create more than a million new jobs over the next two years. According to the respondents, they had already increased their revenues by 4.4 per cent and reduced costs by 4.3 per cent over the past year by making better use of digital technology, generating an estimated £123 billion contribution to the UK’s economy, equivalent to 3.4 per cent of GDP. In terms of jobs, 44 per cent of executives don’t expect any jobs to become obsolete and, across the economy, companies anticipate hiring 1.1 million employees as a result of digital investments.

September 28, 2015

A review of the CIFF office design show 2015 in Shanghai ⁰

by John Sacks • Comment, Events, Furniture, Workplace design

Shanghai’s population is reported to be in the region of twenty six million, more than double that of London, and the city continues to creep outwards inexorably, attracting even greater numbers. For the casual visitor however, its vast size does somehow seem to be manageable, just. The traffic is very heavy of course, but it does move, albeit slowly. There are few commercial vehicles on the city’s roads during the day and, in an effort to control the rampant pollution, almost all of the private cars and scooters are either electric or hybrids. This means that there is an eerie near-silence from the massive volume of traffic, interrupted only by the occasional police siren or outbreak of hooting from an impatient motorist. After dark, on poorly-lit streets, pedestrians are at real risk of getting run over by the silent cars or scooters that rarely use their lights – an economy measure?

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.

August 13, 2015

Take-up of sit-stand desks still lagging in UK, but change is coming fast ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Furniture, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The number of UK employers offering staff sit-stand workstations remains sluggish, despite rapidly growing awareness of their benefits, according to a new study from office furniture firm Kinnarps. Compared to the near universal provision of sit-stand desks in Scandinavia, and in spite of the fact that UK buyers now universally acknowledge what they can do to improve employee wellbeing, the UK market has yet to fully adopt workstations that encourage more active working. Based on a study of 132 senior decision makers, facilities managers, designers and HR managers, 98 percent of respondents say they can see the attraction of introducing sit-stand working, citing improved health (73 percent), increased productivity (11 percent) and attracting and retaining talent (5 percent), among the principal benefits. Yet only 8 percent say that such workstations are ‘widely available’ in their workplaces.

August 11, 2015

The key to the productivity puzzle may be to give people better jobs ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

Ever since the UK started to emerge from the economic downturn there has been a great deal of brow beating about the so-called productivity puzzle. Although the UK economy grew between 2012 and 2014, productivity fell by 1.15 percent. In addition, the UK has a productivity gap of between 23 and 32 per cent between it and comparable economies such as Germany, France and the Netherlands. When considering the reasons for this, most of the time a finger has been pointed at some old favourites such as working practices, a lack of engagement or – according to this feature published in HR Magazine this week – individual behaviour. Now a new report from the Institute for Public Policy research (IPPR) claims that the problems are far more complex than people typically assume and that one of the major factors is the jobs people are offered.

July 20, 2015

Government urged to reinstate zero carbon buildings pledge

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

More than 200 businesses from the construction, property and renewable energy industries have written to the Chancellor to reconsider the Government’s decision last week to abandon plans to introduce zero carbon buildings. In an open letter to the Chancellor, senior leaders from 246 organisations warn that the policy U-turn has “undermined industry confidence in Government” and will “curtail investment in British innovation and manufacturing”. In the Chancellor’s productivity plan “Fixing the foundations”, George Osborne unexpectedly axed the policy designed to ensure that all new homes built from 2016 meet zero carbon standards – together with a sister policy that applied to all new non-residential buildings such as offices, schools and hospitals from 2019.

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.

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

Beyond agile working: the six factors of knowledge worker productivity

by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

Whilst the world has focussed heavily on the asset productivity of offices over the last 30 years, reducing the cost of offices per head, often using agile working as a tool for achieving this, it’s becoming clear that the mobility afforded by the latest technology products can be used to aid Knowledge Worker productivity. Knowledge work plays an increasingly large part in the economic fortunes of developing countries. Indeed the vast majority of people working in AWA’s client organisations are Knowledge Workers. Over the last 30 years we’ve seen a gradual shift from manufacturing to service and now to knowledge based industries. Knowledge Workers are broadly speaking ‘people who think for a living’. Whilst the concept of ‘productivity’ in manufacturing and service industries is well understood it is barely understood at all for knowledge based sectors.

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.