Search Results for: communications

June 18, 2013

The democratisation of the workplace is changing how we work

by Andrew Brown • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Furniture, Workplace

Work. We all, with some noticeable exceptions, are obliged to do some. If we are lucky we receive remuneration for our labour. This for me is at the heart of work. We are professionals. specialists, generalists, doers, thinkers, strategists or the people on the front line – but we all go to work. So, shouldn’t the people in charge – and just as importantly, the consultants they talk to about us workers – find out what makes us tick? Obviously, that is exactly the argument that many workplace consultants are making via Office Insight, via Twitter and in the property and FM media. Engaging with employees, via workshops forums or surveys such as Leesman or the more intelligently crafted employee surveys – I agree with all of it, but I think we might be missing something. We need to get back to what work is about.

June 6, 2013

UK employers are global leaders in flexible working and secure BYOD policies

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Technology, Workplace

The UK’s small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) lead the world in flexible working and ensuring staff work securely in the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) era, with 34 per cent saying they have policies, procedures and/or IT systems in place to manage the use of personal communications devices for business purposes. This compares to an average of 28 per cent in Europe and the rest of the world, and only 19 per cent in the US. This is not before time, as the global survey by YouGov of senior executives and managers in more than 1,250 small and medium businesses across Europe, North America and Australia on behalf of Citrix, found that nearly half of UK employees now routinely use personal devices at work.

May 14, 2013

How ingrained assumptions about the workplace are eroding

by Ros Pomeroy • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Ad agency RKCR © Jefferson Smith

The first day at a new job used to mean getting the answer to that all important question: “so which is my office?” In today’s mostly open plan environments, the same psychological attachment has been transferred to the desk – ‘my’ desk. However the current trend for flexible approaches to where people work means that even the concept of having one’s own desk is now under attack. So how much does having your own desk matter to the UK office workforce these days? We have been asking employees how they feel about having their own desk. The results seem to be that more than half, on average 56% (of a total of 2,653 employees surveyed at 5 recent client projects), think that it is ‘very important’ and a further 25% think it is ‘quite important’.

May 11, 2013

JSA launches latest league table of European office furniture companies

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Furniture

As the world gets smaller and the communications revolution continues apace, one relatively unnoticed casualty is the design individuality of offices. Time was when you could walk into an office and the furniture would tell you whether you were in Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Milan, Moscow or London. The colours, shapes, materials, construction and image of the furniture were all very local, almost parochial. Who could fail to be struck by the muddy oranges and greens of a French office? Or the inevitable mahogany or teak real wood veneers used in the UK? The panels, worksurfaces and storage units which made up US cubicles were rarely seen outside North America and the massive, dark wood desks and cabinets in Central European deliberately overawed visitors and staff alike.

April 10, 2013

Productivity challenges of modern office workers’ email deluge

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Technology, Workplace

Possibly the most perplexing picture of the modern office is whether technology has made it more, or less productive. New research by Warwick Business School has found that on average UK office workers deal with 40 emails a day and one in 12 with 100 messages a day, which can’t be good for productivity. Meanwhile another piece of research by psychologists at the University of Chester reveals the somewhat unsurprising fact that an over reliance on social media reduces the ability to maintain ‘meaningful’ relationships due to a lack of visual emotional cues – which could further cast doubts over the efficacy of remote working. More →

April 3, 2013

Green business initiatives worthwhile finds U.S. study

by Sara Bean • Environment, Knowledge, News

Despite persistent skepticism among U.S. employees about corporate America’s commitment to “going green” the majority of U.S. employees are interested in learning what companies are doing in terms of sustainability (74 per cent) and wish their own company or employer engaged in more sustainability business practices, including social responsibility initiatives (68 per cent). According to the fourth annual Gibbs & Soell Sense & Sustainability^® Study, while 80 per cent of sustainability-engaged employees encouraged others to make sustainable choices – the majority were unaware of who at their workplace is responsible for sustainability.

March 26, 2013

Survey: Raised levels of staff empowerment and engagement

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

There has been a positive change in employees’ levels of engagement according to new research from recruiter hyphen. Nearly three fifths (58.6 per cent) of UK workers are proud to work for their current organisation, and over three quarters (76.1 per cent) believe their manager gives them the support and autonomy needed to aide their performance. Zain Wadee, managing director at hyphen, said: “Engaging workers is now becoming an integral part of employment and retention strategies; not least to ensure workers are happy but also to help them perform to the best of their ability.”

March 23, 2013

The resistance to flexible working is entirely reasonable

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

In recent media coverage of the decision by Yahoo to ban homeworking as well as a recent survey from Microsoft, the resistance to the idea that people work better when they are allowed to work flexibly has typically been put down to cultural inertia. Sometimes those who have resisted the uptake of flexible working have been portrayed as dinosaurs. While there’s no question that culture and management attitudes do create barriers to the uptake of flexible working, there is a growing recognition that certain flexible working practices may not be appropriate for many people and organisations and even specific sectors. The barriers may be there for a good reason.

February 28, 2013

Yahoo case doesn’t tell the whole story of teleworking

by Clark Sept • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Yahoo! made headlines across the US and the rest of the world this week by announcing they are terminating the company’s telework program. Does this signal, broadly, the pending demise of telework? Here’s my take: this story is actually deeper than just about telework. Yahoo! has been wandering around aimlessly for a number of years, and it would appear that this particular measure is intended as some overdue shock therapy to jump-start a much needed culture shift and focus on what the company needs to survive in a world of rapid innovation and “big bang disruption” (see March 2013 HBR article by Larry Downes and Paul F. Nunes).

February 24, 2013

Yahoo is not the only firm that doesn’t like flexible working

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

As news emerged over the weekend from Silicon Valley that Yahoo had introduced a new policy that insisted employees work from the company’s HQ, a survey from O2 in the UK highlighted just how many firms are not as keen on the practice of flexible working as they might claim in theory. The question we need to ask is whether this represents a genuine shift away from the assumption that we are moving towards more agile working practices, or is this just the last knockings of the old guard?

February 14, 2013

Global corporates boosting social media engagement

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

The massive rise in prominence of social media has led many major global organisations to increase their so far limited investment into social channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook in order to attract and engage talent. Senior Resourcing and HR directors at a recent roundtable event facilitated by hyphen, the recruitment process outsourcer agreed that social media is fast becoming a critical part of the recruitment and employee engagement tool kit as major organisations adapt to the new digital age – and this investment is starting to drive internal change towards a focus on digital within organisations. More →

February 7, 2013

British Land named Carbon Champion at CIBSE awards

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

British Land

British Land has been named Carbon Champion of Year in the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Building Performance Awards 2013. The awards recognise building performance excellence in 12 categories, with other winners including Max Fordham, Norland, Atkins and London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The CIBSE awards recognise and celebrate the best performance, innovation and practice in design, commissioning, construction, installation and operation of sustainable buildings and the manufacturers whose technologies enable energy efficiency. More →