Search Results for: colleagues

April 2, 2015

London workers take longer lunch breaks than staff in other regions

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

London’s workers take 25 percent longer for lunch break than their contemporaries elsewhere in the UK, according to Avanta’s London Worker Index. The report, based on a survey of 1,500 people in the capital, also found that some 24 percent of male workers report using their lunch break to take a nap, compared to just 14 percent of their female colleagues. In addition to napping, the survey found that 54 percent of London workers use their lunch break to go shopping, whilst a similar number (52 percent) run errands. More than a quarter (27 percent) visit the gym and over a third (28 percent) meet up with friends. However, not every Londoner is quite so lucky. Almost a quarter (23 percent) of Londoners skip lunch three or more times per week, and one in ten don’t take lunch breaks at all.

March 19, 2015

Office workers report difficulties with remote communications technology

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

Just as the adoption of digital communications technology is making the one-person per desk workstation model look outmoded, the design and layout of the typical conference room is no longer suitable for remote communications. That is one of the findings of a new survey by Steelcase which found that despite, or rather because of advances in technology, office workers are having difficulties when trying to communicate with work colleagues based elsewhere. The problem, which Steelcase has coined presence disparity can lead to an overall collaboration experience which is best described as unpleasant and taxing, with participants feeling strained physically, cognitively and emotionally. This isn’t helped by the fact that conference rooms, the most used spaces for videoconferencing, usually feature long rectangular tables designed for face to face meetings, not those to camera.

March 13, 2015

A third of Britons claim their employers still don’t offer flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

More than a third (37 percent) of British employees claim their employers are not yet offering flexible working arrangements, according to a report from unified communications firm Unify. This is in spite of the fact that nearly all UK employees now have the right to request flexible working following the introduction of revised legislation last Summer. The survey of staff at more than 1,500 businesses in the UK also claims that 39 percent of respondents said they would be more loyal to the business if it offered more flexible working options. According to the report, Humanising the Enterprise, a further 28 percent said they have no preference about where they get work done and 40 percent said they would find it liberating if they were able to work entirely outside of the office. Over half (51 percent) said their colleagues and other interruptions distract them from doing their jobs.

March 9, 2015

Men and women have differing views on equal pay and opportunities

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Workplace

Men and women have differing views on the pay and career opportunities available to female employees in the workplace, according to a report published today by recruitment firm Hays. The report is based on a study of 6,000 employees which found that just under half (45 percent) of women think that equally qualified and capable male and female colleagues are not paid the same compared to around 20 percent of men. The survey also produced an almost identical result when respondents were asked whether the same career opportunities were available to both sexes, with 21 percent of men and 48 percent of women claiming that both genders enjoyed the same opportunities. Overall both sexes agree that quotas are not the best solution to any mismatch with just 9 percent agreeing that they would have a major impact.

February 27, 2015

Report exposes myths and uncomfortable truths about Generation Y

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

A new report from IBM proves what we at Insight have been arguing for some time; Millennials have some differences to previous generations of employees, but ultimately they have more in common than most commentators acknowledge and their impact on a multi-generational workplace has been completely misrepresented. While the report, Myths, Exaggerations and Uncomfortable Truths, acknowledges Gen Y’s different experience of the digital world, it also demonstrates what we would suggest has been obvious all along; that unless Generation Y has arrived from another planet, it will share many of the strengths, weaknesses, drives, fears and abilities common to other demographic groupings. The study of 1,784 employees from organisations in 12 countries challenges many of the key myths about Generation Y and also lays out a number of ‘uncomfortable truths’ for employers.

February 27, 2015

Employers embrace mobile workforces but retain traditional workspaces

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

Nearly three quarters of employers that offer staff the opportunity to work flexibly are failing to reorganise their workplaces to reflect the new ways of working. Research commissioned by US based AV company Barco, found that while 86 percent of organisations indicated a remote working approach was being used within their business; rather than using this policy to reduce desk space, 73 percent of organisations admitted they still had allocated desks. This is despite the fact that the top three drivers for unifying communications are to increase productivity (51%), reduce costs (44%), and increase collaboration (27%). And though the BYOD trend is continuing, with half (50%) saying personal laptops and personal tablets (45.2 %) are being used in the workplace; 82 percent of those surveyed said that laptops are still company issued.

February 9, 2015

The open plan remains an important office design element

by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

For half a century the default office design model in large parts of the world has been the open plan. Even though that continues to be the case, a growing number of voices are questioning this hegemony and suggesting there may be better ways of designing offices that balance the advantages of the open plan while eliminating or mitigating drawbacks. On the face of it, the case for working in open plan offices is clear cut. Not only are they believed to be more conducive to collaborative work, open plan workstations take up around half the space of cellular offices. As well as taking up less space, a crucial consideration is that fit-out costs are typically around 25 per cent lower, even in eye wateringly expensive commercial property hotspots such as London.

February 4, 2015

Flexible workers returning to the office to re-engage with employers

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

Research by office furniture maker Steelcase claims to show that the cost of disengaged employees is having a major impact on the performance of businesses. As a result many are now encouraging staff to spend more time in the office and working alongside colleagues as a way of re-engaging them. The report claims that in the UK only 83 percent of employees say they are disengaged at work with just 17 percent claiming to be actively engaged, compared to 30 percent in the US. This level of disengagement should be of serious concern for organisations, according to Catherine Gall, Director, Design Alliances for Steelcase.”Speaking at the HR Directors summit in Birmingham this week, she said: “The impact of employee engagement – or the lack of it – cannot be underestimated. It is a global issue and is affecting a wide range of companies.”

January 30, 2015

British workers suffer in silence in noisy office environments

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace design

New research from Avanta Serviced Office Group claims that noise in the office environment is severely damaging the productivity of British businesses. The study of more than 1,000 UK office workers found that although over 80 percent of employees claim to being regularly distracted by noise in the workplace, fewer than half complain about it. Instead around a third admit they simply take themselves somewhere quieter such as their homes or a cafe or library. The study also identifies the distractions that bother people the most, most deriving directly from their colleagues including overheard conversations, ringtones, loud eating habits, whistling, music and even people talking to themselves. Compared to these human sources, the racket generated by inanimate objects features low down the list of irritants.

January 29, 2015

Wellness programmes may be causing more problems than they solve

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Far from making employees healthier, a corporate focus on their wellness may actually be making them unhappier and more prone to illnesses. That is the conclusion of a new book published by two researchers at Cass Business School and Stockholm University. In the book, The Wellness Syndrome, the authors Andre Spicer and Carl Cederström claim that the fixation with monitoring wellbeing and initiating wellness programmes may be having the obverse effect to that intended. The book argues that an obsession with wellness obliges some people to pretend to be happy at work, even when they are not and that the pressure to fit with a corporate notion of what constitutes a ‘well’ person makes them depressed and anxious that they will be labelled by their employer and colleagues if they don’t fit an ideal.

January 26, 2015

Messy offices really are far less productive than those with clear desk policies

by Sara Bean • Comment, Facilities management, News

I used to have a boss whose solution to dealing with all his paper-based correspondence was to simply let the detritus build up. When he couldn’t see his desk any more, he would draw his hand across the desk and dump the whole lot into the bin. Invariably he’d miss something important and would often have to search the bin to find an important letter, invoice or memo. I had another boss who ate so much food over her keyboard that it had to be taken away and cleaned – a disgusting job, according to my colleagues in IT. So despite reading with some cynicism that a cleaning company has published new research which proves offices that cut corners on cleaning, or allow employees to work in messy, disorganised surroundings, are far less productive than clean, well-ordered offices; I must agree it shows the benefits of a clear desk policy .

January 26, 2015

Flexible working improves the quality and quantity of sleep

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Wellbeing

Morning Sun by Edward Hopper

Giving employees more control over their work schedules may help curb sleep deficiency, according to health researchers in the US. A team led by Orfeu M. Buxton, associate professor of bio-behavioural health at Penn State University set out to explore the question of whether family-friendly work practices and other forms of flexible working had any impact on the quantity and quality of sleep. They results are published this month in the journal Sleep Health. Of the nearly 500 employees from an IT company surveyed over a period of a year, the researchers found that employees who were able to enjoy more control over their working day also enjoyed an average of eight minutes more sleep per night than those with rigid working hours. The research also found that participants’ perceptions of their sleep quality also improved.