Search Results for: sustainable

April 11, 2016

What our enduring love of wooden office furniture tells us about how we work

by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

As the office continues to evolve so too do the materials used within it. While many corporate headquarters make liberal use of brushed steel, aluminium and glass, an ancient, well loved and sustainable material is becoming increasingly popular all over again. Wood never went away, of course, but the latest ideas about office design seem to have given it a new lease of life as a material. In part this is down to an inherent love for wood, but it is also acknowledges the aesthetic and functional crossover between the office and other places where we work such as cafes, hotels and homes. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new generation of commercial office furniture designs. In many ways they hark back to the 1950s when the British were introduced to modernism in no uncertain terms. This design movement led the British to reject dark woods and embrace new forms and materials including lighter, arguably more natural woods.

April 5, 2016

Rise in number of virtual employers with remote teams of workers ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

When, where, and how people work has changed dramatically over the last ten years – telecommuting has grown 103 percent over in the US and an estimated that 50 percent of people will work remotely by 2020. While many companies have begun to integrate remote work, there is a growing trend for firms to fully embrace remote work as an integral part of their business. Virtual companies that operate with fully or heavily distributed workforces now come from many industries, including accounting, health, law, marketing, non-profit, news/media, sports, travel and others. However the best sectors to find a remote post are in Computer/IT, HR/Recruiting and Education; according to the third annual list of virtual companies compiled by FlexJobs. The diversity of companies represented in this year’s list, demonstrate that the remote work model can be applied regardless of company size and/or industry.

April 5, 2016

BIFM launches new guide to construction and design processes ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Technology

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) has launched its new ‘Operational Readiness Guide: A guide to ensuring long term effectiveness in the design and construction process’. The guide aims to ‘equip facilities management professionals with the skills, knowledge and guidance to effectively engage at each stage of the design and construction process to deliver greater value to the end user organisations that occupy the buildings.’ Its launch coincides with the first day that centrally procured public sector projects in the UK will require the implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) at Level 2. The authors claims that in order for FMs ‘to deliver long term effectiveness and relevance for the end user facilities management professionals need to be engaged from the start and learnings and insights from operators applied to close the gap between building design and performance’.

March 23, 2016

Is discrimination of women with children the root cause of gender pay gap? ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Two reports published this week support the argument that it is when women have children and require more flexible hours, that they really start to feel the sharp end of the gender pay gap. A report by a cross party group of MPs on the Women and Equalities Select Committee, reveals that supporting men and women to share childcare and other forms of unpaid caring more equally would be one of the most effective policy levers in reducing the gender pay gap. Without this support, many women are trapped in low paid, part-time work below their skill level. This contributes to pay disparities and the under-utilisation of women’s skills that costs the UK economy up to 2 percent GDP, around £36 billion. It also found that not enough is being done to support women returning to work if they have had time out of the labour market. Meanwhile a report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission says that three in four working mothers experience maternity discrimination.

March 19, 2016

The Insight newsletter for March 18 is available to view online ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

In this week’s Insight Newsletter; Mark Eltringham on the seven ways flexible working is chaining us more firmly to work and why there are more ways than one of providing recyclable office furniture. Google scales back its plans for its Californian campus; US businesses waste up to $1.8 trillion annually on mundane tasks; new guidance is published on delivering sustainable fit outs; and many organisations only hold on to paper-based document for their signature. Confirmation that companies that don’t offer their employees a convenient location and appealing workplace are more likely to lose them; Hong Kong and London are the world’s most expensive office locations and the unhealthy effects of commuting by car. Download our latest Insight Briefing, produced in partnership with Connection, on how the boundless office can be freed from the shackles of time and place and access the latest issue of Work&Place. Visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

March 18, 2016

Google submits revised plans for California headquarters ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Google’s ambitious plans for a new headquarters complex in California have been dramatically scaled back after the original plans were rejected by the City of Mountain View authorities. The original project came into question last year when it was revealed that Google’s plans were seen as overly ambitious given that they were competing for available space with LinkedIn’s plans for an office on adjacent land. The new plans, created by Heatherwick Studio and Bjarke Ingels Group share many of the same objectives however, including an open design, extensive landscaping, a focus on both work and leisure facilities and a flexible and sustainable design. The new schematics present it essentially as Centre Parcs populated by hipsters. As one Insight contributor convincingly argued recently, this sort of design is impressive and ideal for Google but should not be taken as a blueprint for anybody else.

March 16, 2016

The difference between ‘recyclable’ and ‘recycled’ is management not material

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Furniture

The Times (paywall) has uncovered some pretty remarkable statistics about the way the British consume coffee. It appears that we now buy some 2.5 billion paper cups of coffee each year, primarily from the main High Street chains. That’s about 7 million cups a day. The good news for the environmentally conscious public would appear to be that all the chains ensure that each cup is fully recyclable and so prominently displays its green cred where the consumer can’t miss it. The problem is that just 1 in 400 of the cups are actually recycled with the rest going to landfill. The firms involved may include recycling bins in-store, but that accounts for just a fraction of the disposal of the cups. As The Times points out, the companies understand that consumers are more impressed by the claim that a product is 100 percent recyclable than 0.25 percent recycled. They are swayed by the material and ignorant of the management.

March 9, 2016

Corporate real estate strategy shifts focus from cost to people ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

A new survey of corporate executives indicates a major shift in how companies make real estate decisions today, with more than half (50 percent) saying that talent is more important than cost (31 percent) as their foremost consideration. As a result, executives view the workplace as primarily a recruitment and retention tool that offers attributes such as a flexible workplace, high quality amenities and interiors. But while the people and workplace experience dominate the corporate real estate agenda, according to CBRE’s Americas Occupier Survey – escalating costs are a major concern. Of survey respondents, 85 percent cite space efficiency and restructuring as a top strategy for reducing occupancy costs. These two issues are driving real estate conversations; with the result that workplace strategy is increasingly being viewed as both a critical employee attraction and retention strategy (57 percent), and as a means to control costs.

March 2, 2016

Why WELL rather than green is the new black in building design ⁰

by Darren Bilsborough • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Businesses that seek to occupy premium or grade A office accommodation are traditionally seduced by the next big thing. What was once a bespoke architectural design, then became an icon, a taller building, one made of glass and finally the inevitable iconic, tall, glass tower. Now it seems a good number of those businesses have moved on to green buildings as a must have upgrade to the skyscrapers of glass and steel. Green, it appears, is the new black. But is that really the next big thing or is being green merely the last big thing? Even worse, does going green in terms of building design actually deliver the types of benefits that an occupier or landlord was anticipating, beyond the significance of branding and an alignment with grade A quality office space? The green building narrative is a particularly powerful one and the growth of LEED and BREEAM rated buildings over the last decade is proof of that power.

February 23, 2016

Belief in a corporate wellness narrative is more important than action ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The complexities of wellness at work are laid bare in a new report from the US based pressure group Global Wellness Institute. The most eye-catching conclusion from The Future of Wellness at Work study is that it’s not actual wellness programmes that do most to boost worker health and productivity, but whether employees identify that company as ‘caring’. The report claims that ‘unwellness’ now costs the US around $2.2 trillion each year, equivalent to 12 percent of GDP. The report is published alongside a white paper which lays out the findings from a survey of American employees. Unlocking the Power of Company Caring gauges how employees feel about their work culture and wellness programmes. The main finding of the two reports is that to understand what has the most powerful impact on employee wellness ‘you must look well beyond the wellness programme’ itself. Instead, the pivotal factor is whether an employee identifies their company as caring about their health and wellness.

January 26, 2016

Unethical employment practices drive ‘Gen S’ professionals away ⁰

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

Over half of ‘Gen S’ workers would refuse to work for employers who have a record of using slave labour, generating high levels of pollution, employing unsafe working conditions, poor environmental performance, questionable investments and unethical practices. According to the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment’s (IEMA) annual Practitioner Survey these people see environmental roles as the career change of choice, with 42 percent of professionals who now work in these roles considering themselves “career changers”. Those entering the profession come from a variety of backgrounds including finance, operations, marketing and communications and R&D. Gen S workers are typically people in their mid-thirties, above average in their qualifications with 45 percent having a Master’s degree or doctorate, looking for more than just a career and earning money, but actively seeking a career which is primarily “ethical” in nature.

December 21, 2015

Jobs growth predicted for next year, along with skills shortages ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

More than two fifths (43 percent) of firms will grow their workforce next year, with permanent jobs outstripping temporary roles according to the latest CBI/Accenture Employment Trends Survey. Firms identify skills shortages as the top threat, with over half (52 percent) of respondents citing the development and maintenance of digital skills as having a new urgency. More than half intend giving staff a pay award at or above the RPI rate of inflation, but nervousness remains about the impact of the National Living Wage (NLW). Half (51 percent) of service sector respondents indicate they will raise their prices, 27 percent will employ fewer people and 18 percent will make changes to their reward packages as a result. Multi-skilling employees to improve productivity and the capacity to adapt is now the leading form of flexibility, operated by nearly four in five respondents (79 percent), followed by flexibility over location for work (73 percent).