Search Results for: workplace

August 3, 2015

More evidence of people’s growing inability to simply go on holiday ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Public Sector, Technology, Wellbeing

If you’re reading this on holiday this week, don’t. Life’s too short. Go jump in the pool or something…. For everybody else, a slew of surveys have been published over the last few weeks that confirm something that we may already know; we are finding it increasingly hard to forget about work, even during our supposed time off and many people are forgoing holidays altogether, although not necessarily because they’ve forgotten about the off switch on their smartphone. We reported recently on one of these, from the Institute for Leadership and Management, but three more have passed over our desks over recent days. With the usual caveat about vested interests, the studies, from the TUC, alldayPA and public sector members club CSMA all confirm not only how prevalent this form of presenteeism is, but also how harmful it can be to ourselves and employers.

August 2, 2015

Female bosses enhance workforce engagement and motivation

by Gill Buchanan • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace

As businesses begin to ease out of recession they are starting to feel more confident in the economy and look at how they can increase spend. But while companies adjust to their new found growth they must ensure that their employees are reassured that they have a voice and, more importantly, are listened to. At Pure, we’ve recently taken a look at the wider impact which employee engagement can have on businesses big and small using an analysis of some key research. This included some illuminating data on gender roles, which included the fact that employees who work for a female manager are 6 percent more engaged, on average, than those who work for a male manager; female employees who work for a female manager are the most engaged, at 35 percent and male employees who work for a male manager are the least engaged, at 25 percent.

July 30, 2015

Over half of employees believe 9 to 5 work is an outmoded concept

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

We’ve heard a lot lately about the plight of workers to take their work home, but according to new research by CareerBuilder.com, for a majority of workers, checking emails from home is their own choice. Well over half (63 percent) believe that working 9 to 5 is an outdated concept, with nearly 1 in 4 (24 percent) checking work emails during activities with family and friends. Half of these workers (50 percent) check or respond to work emails outside of work, and nearly 2 in 5 (38 percent) say they continue to work outside of office hours. Though staying connected to the office outside of required office hours may seem like a burden, most of these workers (62 percent) perceive it as a choice rather than an obligation. Interestingly, 50 percent of those aged 45 – 54 compared to 31 percent of 18- to 24-year-old are willing to work outside of office hours.

July 30, 2015

Far from dying out, the office is becoming more essential than ever

by Luke Finch • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

Samsung recently released a new report which explores how our offices might look in the year 2025. The death of the office has been predicted over and over again, however the Samsung Smarter Futures Report goes against the grain and predicts that the office could actually become more important than ever. Driven by the adoption of smart technology the report claims that offices will become hubs for productivity and collaboration and what Samsung calls ‘Creative Villages’. Smart technology will create devices and systems that take notes, automate admin tasks, organise meetings and deliver information as you need it. This will mean employees have more time for face to face communication and collaborative work. As a consequence, current trends such as flexible working and agile workspace could actually become less of an issue than they are currently.

July 29, 2015

Public sector lagging behind in use of technology and flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Public Sector, Technology

As we reported last week, the UK public sector is embracing some interesting new ideas in the way it uses real estate, especially its commitment to get rid of some of it by adopting flexible working and shared space. However, it’s one thing looking to use space in more flexible ways but without the technological infrastructure, it’s hard to see how they will be able to achieve as much as they could. It is in this regard that they are lagging behind their contemporaries in the private sector, according to a new report from O2 and YouGov. While the report, Redefining selling, serving and working, offers up the usual appeals for us all to make more use of the sorts of things O2 wants us to buy, there is plenty of interesting detail to tease out once the pinch of salt has been applied, not least how business practices and the way people use technology vary across sectors.

July 29, 2015

City firms adopt more flexible working, but it starts from the top

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Flexible working, News

Employers in the City of London are increasingly open to the idea of flexible working, claims a study of 1,000 workers by recruitment firm Astbury Marsden. According to the study, a third of men working in the City (34 percent) say they now have some flexibility over the hours they work, whether through flexi-time, working a certain number of hours annually or compressed hours. This is up from 28 percent last year. Meanwhile a smaller proportion of female City workers (30 percent) claim they now have the option of flexible working, up from 23 percent in 2014. The research indicates that although women in the City are more likely than men to work part-time or term-time hours or job-share, with over a quarter being able to do so (26 percent), almost one in five men (18 percent) say they also have this option available to them.

July 28, 2015

Government urges employers to recruit untapped disabled talent

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

The number of disabled people in employment has experienced a growth equivalent to around 650 people every day, according to new figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). They’ve been published to mark the first two years of Disability Confident; launched in 2013 to work with employers to remove barriers, increase understanding and ensure that disabled people have the opportunities to fulfill their potential in the workplace. The campaign has been backed by 376 firms so far and seen the number of disabled people in work increase by 238,000. With research this week from the Centre for Economic and Business Research and Averline, revealing that small employers still had 520,000 vacancies that they were unable to fill because of a lack of relevant skills; Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson, challenged businesses to consider the boost untapped disabled talent could bring to their workforce.

July 28, 2015

Millennial ‘job hopping’ is the new normal according to US research

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Following a recent survey claiming that Millennials comprise more than one-in-three US workers, comes new evidence on the impact this could have on recruitment and retention. Over 1,000 US full-time Millennials who were questioned on their careers by RecruitiFi confirmed that ‘job hopping’ had become the norm. During the course of their careers, 53 percent have held three or more jobs. And while many have plans to stay in their current jobs for 3-5 years (33 percent), many respondents plan to leave after 1-2 years (20 percent). 34 percent acknowledged falling levels of employee morale in the office and 22 percent explained that their clients/customers have taken notice. While 83 percent of millennials acknowledge that job hopping on their CV could be negatively perceived by employers, 86 percent say that it would not prevent them from pursuing their professional or personal passions.

July 27, 2015

Coworking juggernaut WeWork announces plans to dominate London

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property, Workplace design

Earlier this month, US based coworking juggernaut WeWork announced that it had opened the UK’s largest space of its kind in Moorgate in East London. Now, according to a report in the journal CoStar, the firm is looking to become a major tenant in the commercial property market in London in the same way that it has come to dominate Manhattan. According to the report, WeWork is looking to acquire over 1 million sq. ft. of space in the capital over the next 18 months as it seeks to provide coworking space for its growing customer base of young creative and technology businesses and other start ups. If it succeeds in finding the space it wants, the firm will have quadrupled the commercial property it occupies in London to 1.5 million sq. ft. WeWork is already Manhattan’s largest tenant and is now valued at $10 billion, having started in 2010.

July 24, 2015

Groundbreaking public sector estate scheme rolled out nationwide

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

We’ve reported previously on the Government’s One Public Sector Estate scheme, which encourages local authorities to find ways to share office space and find other ways of divesting buildings as well as freeing up land for development. Over the past two years there has been a phased rollout of the scheme to 32 councils. Now the Cabinet Office and the Local Government Association claim they have gauged the success of the first two phases and are confident the scheme can be expanded nationwide. Their announcement suggests that the 32 councils who are currently on the programme own 28 percent of council land and property assets in England and have applied the ideas of the One Public Sector Estate Initiative to free up land for around 9,000 homes and create some 20,000 new jobs. The councils involved are also expected to raise £129 million in capital receipts from land sales and cut running costs by £77 million over 5 years.

July 24, 2015

Growth in demand for scarce office space will lead to rents rise

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Demand from business for commercial property rose for the eleventh consecutive quarter, while available space fell for the ninth successive period, according to the latest RICS Commercial Market Survey. As a result, rents are expected to rise at the fastest pace since the survey began in 1998 with 46 percent more respondents forecasting higher, rather than lower, rent rates going forward. Offices remain the segment of the market where rental expectations remain most buoyant, while retail continues to lag, although even in this area, momentum is picking up. Across the whole of the UK, but excluding the capital, 95 percent of respondents believe that current commercial market valuations are either at or below fair value (roughly unchanged since Q1 2015). However, in London 50 percent of contributors now feel that commercial office space valuations are ‘expensive’ – an increase from 45 percent in the first quarter of this year.

July 23, 2015

Business start-ups in London grew by nearly a quarter in a year

by Sara Bean • News, Property, Technology

The number of new business start-ups in London has increased by nearly a quarter over the past year, an analysis of Companies House data by Instant Offices’ has revealed. This is driven predominantly by growth in technology firms, but also by retail and creative services’ companies. Key growth sectors include technology services which went up 200 percent year on year, wireless and telecommunications were up by 79 percent and computer facilities companies by 51 percent. Tim Rodber, CEO of Instant Offices, said: “The diversity of the firms behind this increase in demand is interesting – but of particular note is the role technology and creative services industries are playing in driving growth in the Capital and producing space requirements outside traditional business locations. Areas such as Southwark and the City Fringe are benefiting from high demand as start-ups weigh up the need to not only reduce costs, but attract the best staff to great work spaces.”