Search Results for: population

May 13, 2015

Millennials now account for largest percentage of American workforce

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The publication this week of a survey by EY revealed the uncomfortable fact for US employers that 38 percent of millennials would consider moving to another country for better parental leave benefits. Now, another piece of research illustrates why US employers may need to work harder to keep their millennials (adults ages 18 to 34) happy. They now make up more than one-in-three of workers, surpassing Generation X to become the largest group in the US workforce, according to new Pew Research Center analysis of US Census Bureau data. This milestone was reached in the first quarter of 2015, as the millennial workforce hit over 53 million. With its large proportion of immigrants, and at an age of transition from college to working world, the millennial workforce is likely to grow even further.

May 8, 2015

The world’s enduring addiction to the joy and misery of commuting

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Work&Place, Workplace

Commuting is one of the most complained about yet least explored facets of our working lives. This is in spite of the fact that it consumes so much of people’s time, energy and money, is presented as one of the main arguments for more flexible working practices and is so closely linked to our wellbeing. Yet the half a billion – and growing – commuters worldwide could be forgiven for assuming nobody is really that much interested in the effects of their daily grind into work, especially when you consider the attention given to other workplace issues. Douglas Langmead in his feature on page 32 of the new issue of Work&Place does his bit to redress this imbalance with a fascinating look at commuting in the rapidly developing and endlessly fascinating economies of the United Arab Emirates.

April 24, 2015

New long term standing desks study announced at Virgin Media ⁰

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

A new 12 month study into the application and effects of working with standing desks has been announced by the University of Chester in conjunction with Virgin Media. However it’s a pretty small scale model – at just one site and presumably with a limited cross section of the general population. It will involve the participation of two groups of 12 agents at Virgin Media’s contact centre in Sheffield. The research will be led by John Buckley, Professor of Applied Exercise Science at the University of Chester, with the aim ‘to uncover the impact of a less sedentary working environment on health, wellbeing and productivity.’ The two groups of agents involved will take it in turns to spend six months each using adjustable sit-stand desks and staying on their feet for a minimum of two hours daily.

April 23, 2015

How local approaches to ergonomics redefine worldwide standards

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

We live in the Global Village, Marshall McLuhan’s construct of an electronically contracted world in which attitudes, cultures and our political, business and legislative framework begin to pull together. And yet still each nation is characterised by the little differences that set it apart from its neighbours and even nations on the other side of the globe. So while there are many common threads that bind workplace design in different countries many of the core issues that shape the way we design and manage offices, such as demographics, status, organisational culture, technology, legislation and corporate identity can vary from country to country. The way these are viewed and the emphasis each country places on each of them shape how they manifest themselves in the local market.

April 22, 2015

UK’s health and social systems failing to improve workforce wellbeing ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new report published this week by The Work Foundation, Healthy, Working Economies sets out the challenges facing the next UK government to improve the health and wellbeing of the country’s workforce. The report calls on the government to review how it is using local organisations, such as Health and Wellbeing Boards and Local Enterprise Partnerships to encourage improvements in workforce wellbeing and health. The Work Foundation recommends that a standardised set of measures be included in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessments performed by Health and Wellbeing Boards, including measures of employment outcomes for individuals with health issues. The report also suggests that employer leadership is needed to drive the step-change needed to improve the health of the workforce.

April 10, 2015

Workplace wellness programmes can reduce obesity levels of staff ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Workplace wellness programmes can help people lose weight, but are more effective when staff are actively involved in the process, a new study has found. The results of a two-year project published in the American Journal of Public Health show that providing healthier food choices and increasing opportunities for physical activity, successfully reduced the number of people considered overweight or obese by almost 9 percent. Results were particularly good when these efforts were designed with the input and active participation of employees. An estimated 68 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. As they spend on average a third of their lives at work; researchers based at the University of Rochester’s Department of Public Health Sciences worked with a local company to see how effective workplace intervention could be in addressing the obesity problem.

April 2, 2015

New study explores link between workplace design and productivity

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

The latest report linking specific workplace design elements with increases in productivity and wellbeing has been published by flooring manufacturer Interface and organisational psychologist Cary Cooper. The Human Spaces report into The Global Impact of Biophilic Design in the Workplace, claims that employees who work in environments with natural elements report a 15 percent higher level of well being, are 6 percent more productive and 15 percent more creative overall. The report is based on a study of 7,600 office workers from 16 countries. It concludes that office design is so important to workers that a third (33 percent) of global respondents believe it would ‘unequivocally’ affect their decision whether or not to work somewhere. Design is particularly important in India (67 percent), Indonesia (62 percent) and the Philippines (60 percent).

March 26, 2015

London remains world’s most expensive city in which to live and work

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

London has retained its place as the world’s most expensive city for businesses to accommodate their employees. But according to the latest analysis from Savills, Hong Kong and New York are closing the price gap. The three cities have dominated the Savills Live/Work Index since its launch in 2008 and form a tight group of world class cities where it now costs over US$110,000 per employee per year to rent typical office and living space. London is now 7.3 percent cheaper in dollar terms than in June 2014, while 4th placed Paris has slipped below the US$100,000 per employee threshold for the first time since mid-2012 as a result of rental falls, dollar appreciation and euro weakness. Meanwhile, fuelled by an improving US economy and tech industry expansion, San Francisco has outpaced all other cities in the live/work index, with growth in rent and other real estate costs of 55.1 percent since 2008.

March 25, 2015

Wellbeing continues to improve despite static pay levels, claims ONS

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The overall wellbeing of the UK population continues to improve despite ongoing concerns about pay levels and job security, according to a new report published today by the Office for National Statistics. The latest analysis includes an assessment of changes in national wellbeing for the first time and finds that year on year 33 percent of indicators had improved, 42 percent showed no overall change, 21 percent were not assessed and 5 percent deteriorated. The proportion of people in the UK giving the highest ratings for each aspect of personal wellbeing measured by the report increased significantly in the financial year ending 2014. The report defines wellbeing as a measure of “how we are doing as individuals, as communities and as a nation, and how sustainable this is for the future” based on 41 metrics.

March 24, 2015

Film: The Japanese workers who withdraw to live in Internet cafes

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

Japanese workers appear to manifest some of the most extreme reactions to the challenges of modern life. Often these are related to the uncertainties of work and the fracturing of time and space associated with contemporary working life. Two of the most common characteristics of the Japanese response appears to be isolation and exclusion. Recently, the Japanese Government investigated the phenomenon of banishment rooms which some firms are alleged to have used to exclude unwanted employees. There has also been a great deal of talk about hikikomori, those people who lock themselves away from the rest of the world, estimated to be up to 1 percent of the population. Now, a new film from Shiho Fukada tells the story of two Japanese men who have taken to living in Internet cafes as they seek to find their way in life.

March 24, 2015

Guidance published for SMEs on management and wellbeing of older workers

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

Since the the Default Retirement Age (DRA) was abolished in 2011, there’s been a growing awareness that the UK population is ageing at a rapid rate. One in six people in Britain are now over 65, with eight million workers aged 50 and over. But what is often overlooked is that the majority of older workers work for small and medium sized businesses. Of the 8 million workers who are 50 and over, 5.2 million work for businesses with less than 250 employees. Now in the first of its kind to specifically target smaller employers, new guidance published by Healthy Working Lives, part of NHS Health Scotland, aims to provide advice on hiring and managing older employees. Managing Healthy Ageing Workforces has been written by Dr Matt Flynn, Director of Newcastle University’s Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, and Kathleen Houston, Development Manager for Healthy Working Lives.

March 18, 2015

What the colonisation of new domains tells us about how we work

by Charles Marks • Architecture, Cities, Comment, Flexible working

Headlines about the world’s accelerating taste for skyscrapers tend to be dominated by the big numbers. This is a world in which size is important, but get behind the focus on height and you find some very interesting data about the rapid and significant changes in what these tall buildings are actually for and how this chimes with broader changes in the way we create and use workplace and shared spaces. According to the most recent annual report on the world’s skyscrapers from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, last year was a record breaker with 97 new skyscrapers completed globally. The devil here is in the detail. While the world’s tallest new building was One World Trade centre in New York, the overwhelming majority of new skyscrapers are to be found in Asia generally and China in particular.