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June 10, 2013

NeoCon and ThinkFM offer two different views of the facilities management elephant

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

This week sees two events taking place on opposite sides of the pond that should hold a mirror up to the way we currently design and manage workplaces. In Chicago, it’s time for NeoCon, the annual office furniture behemoth held in the vast Merchandise Mart and attracting some 40,000 visitors, while in London it’s the distinctly low-key Think FM conference from the BIFM held at the Royal College of Physicians – for today only, as they say. While these are two very different events in terms of scale, content and format and both are nakedly commercial, only one strikes me as particularly meaningful. And even that is only about the meaning of one part of the facilities management elephant.

June 5, 2013

The future of retail – High Street Bladerunners and Apple in Wonderland

by Simon Heath • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

AT&T’s flagship Chicago store

I was going to write this week on the manifesto from MANTOWNHUMAN – subtitled “TOWARDS A NEW HUMANISM IN ARCHITECTURE” but frankly the dystopian visions it conjured up drove such a bulldozer through any human sensibility as to prove thoroughly depressing. You can find it here if you’re that way inclined. I’d be interested in your views. Instead I’m following up on a faintly hagiographic article in Adweek which recently hailed a new frontier in physical retail spaces, building on the success of Apple’s uber-cool high street playgrounds for bored teenagers and husbands. The store in question and an example of what many are hailing as the future of retail is AT&T’s new flagship on the self-styled Magnificent Mile in Chicago.

June 4, 2013

Facebook shares details of New York office design by Frank Gehry

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

Facebook has announced details of its new headquarters in New York. The social media giant has signed a ten year lease on a 100,00 sq. ft. space over two floors of a building on Broadway. The office design will be carried out by no less a figure than Frank Gehry who is already masterminding the development of the company’s global HQ in California. From next year, the new building will be home to Facebook’s regional engineering, design, sales and marketing functions who will move from the current office on Madison Avenue to the new site which is reportedly on the fringes of Manhattan’s ‘Silicon Alley’. The new building dates from 1906 when it was designed as a department store. It is already home to AOL and the Huffington Post.

June 3, 2013

Infographic: how work related social media use varies by country, gender and sector

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, Technology, Workplace

A new survey from Microsoft has highlighted a widespread mismatch in the use of social media in a business context across regions and between gender and age groups. It also claims that firms should be more open to social media use and that their unwillingness to adopt them more openly is hampering personal productivity. In the survey conducted in conjunction with Ipsos, nearly half of employees report that social tools at work help increase their productivity, but more than 30 percent of companies underestimate the value of these tools and often restrict their use. An infographic of the survey’s main results can be found here.

May 31, 2013

BIFM workplace debate focuses on links between FM and design

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Workplace design

Clerkenwell Design Week was the appropriate setting for the inaugural event staged by the newly formed Workplace Special Interest Group (SIG) of the British Institute of Facilities Management. The event was staged at the showroom of office furniture giant Haworth on the 22 May, during Europe’s largest exhibition of workplace products and services. It saw a panel of industry experts debate in lively fashion the deliberately provocative proposition : Form or Function? Do you need office designers to create a great workplace environment?

May 30, 2013

UK public sector leading the way in procurement and sustainable building

by Paul Statham • Comment, Facilities management, Public Sector, Technology

Nottingham City Council’s Loxley Building

Over the last few years, the UK Government has grown increasingly interested in finding ways of making its £30 billion property portfolio more efficient. Both the last Labour government and the current Coalition administration have been driven by the opportunities offered them with the advent of new technology, new ways of working and new procurement models. They’ve pursued these issues to cut costs by reducing and changing the way property is designed and managed but have also found how that can also help to establish best practice in sustainable building. What is increasingly apparent, especially given recent news from the Major Projects Authority about cost savings in procurement is that the public sector is now leading the way as models of good practice.

May 28, 2013

Wellness programmes largely a waste of time, claims US report

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

According to press agency Reuters, a long-awaited report on workplace wellness programmes, which has yet to be published, delivers a blow to the increasingly popular efforts by employers to address the waistline of employees as well as the bottom line of their businesses. According to a report by researchers at RAND Corp in the US, the now commonplace corporate sanctioned wellness programmes that encourage employees to become healthier and reduce absenteeism and medical costs only have a modest effect. RAND delivered the analysis to the U.S. Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services last Autumn as part of a Government review ahead of new legislation.

May 25, 2013

Why facilities managers deserve a seat at the design table

by Tony Cole • Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Workplace design

For a long time there has been a distant relationship between facilities management (FM) and design, with FM treated as a post occupancy issue rather than a valuable consideration during the design process. The truth is that effective collaboration between facilities managers and designers can yield innovation and even better product design, be that in relation to a new head office building, or the systems and furniture that are housed within it. The compartmentalised view that design occurs and then facilities managers come along to operate and maintain is inaccurate and outdated.

May 23, 2013

Guidance on designing in accessibility for disabled workers

by Pam Loch • Comment, Facilities management, Knowledge, Legal news, Workplace design

The government launches a campaign today using TV celebrities and disabled groups to help promote positive role models for disabled people. It’s aimed at building on the latest stats that show 81 per cent of people thought the Paralympics had a positive impact on the way disabled people are perceived. Currently they’re not well represented in the workplace, as according to DTI figures half of all disabled people are unable to find work. This is why the Equality Act 2010 plays such a vital role in promoting diversity in the workplace. Put into practice, understanding and adhering to the Equality Act 2010 requires employers to take positive action to remove certain disadvantages to disabled people posed by working practices and the physical features of premises. More →

May 23, 2013

New report offers latest evidence of link between office design and productivity

by Mark Eltringham • Briefing, Knowledge, Workplace, Workplace design

So, does workplace design have any impact on productivity and business performance? Well duh. So why are we still trying to convince managers when there is so much evidence and experience to prove it. The latest study to demonstrate the link builds on decades of research and adds further compelling evidence in a debate that should have been over a long time ago. In this report, workplace strategist Nigel Oseland and the Atomic Weapons Establishment’s estate masterplanner Adrian Burton describe their research quantifying the effect on worker performance of improvements to the office environment. The question these reports always beg is why the argument still has to be made.

May 22, 2013

Fearful UK employees benefit from engagement policies finds survey

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Public Sector, Workplace

A new study provides some proof that the employee engagement lobby has some validity. According to a new national survey, job stress has gone up and job-related well-being has gone down since the start of the recession, with Britain’s employees feeling more insecure and pressured at work than at any time in the past 20 years. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) report the biggest concern was about pay reductions, followed by loss of say over their job. However, the survey found that where employers pursued employee engagement practices, giving employees more involvement in decision making at work, staff were less anxious about their jobs. More →

May 22, 2013

Flexible working going into reverse in parts of UK public sector

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace

A briefing from the Society of IT Management claims that while nearly all UK public sector organisations have adopted some form of flexible working, the practice remains far from universal and is going into reverse in some departments. The report found that around 97 percent of UK public sector organisations have now adopted the practice in the form of home working, desk sharing and mobile working in four of the public sector functions surveyed. While while there have been large increases in adoption the adoption of flexible working in the revenues and benefits functions and some in education, four other services show a significant decline with others appearing to be static.