July 8, 2013
Flexible working can come with a career catch for chances of future promotion
Half of all people now work out of the office at least once a week, and more than one in four (27 per cent) every day according to data from software supplier Sage, but a new report by social business the Timewise Foundation warns that this flexibility might come at a price. It found part time and flexible workers face key barriers in terms of career agility, with nearly three in four part time workers saying they haven’t been promoted once since working part time (73 per cent), and over a fifth (22 per cent) saying they wouldn’t even expect to be. Nearly two thirds (63 per cent) believe that promotion with their current employer might be possible, but only by increasing their hours – something that’s not an option for more than a third of respondents (36 per cent) who rate part time hours as ‘crucial’ in their lives, nor a straightforward choice for the 52 per cent who state they are ‘important’ to them. More →
July 12, 2013
The challenge in Silicon Alley is providing the right quantity and quality of office space
by Charles Marks • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design
News emerges from BNP Paribas that the most dynamic occupiers in Western European property markets belong to the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector and that the most important market in the region is London. This comes as no surprise given the plans of Google to move to its new home in King’s Cross and the focus on developments in Tech City. But the same hothousing of TMT businesses is also evident in the area Prime Minister David Cameron has referred to as Silicon Alley, a cluster of businesses running alongside the M4 originally clustered between Reading and Swindon but now extending as far as Bristol. Companies that have found a home in the area include the likes of Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Ericsson, Vodafone, O2, Citrix, Dell, Huawei, Lexmark, LG, Novell, Nvidia, Panasonic, SAP and Symantec not to mention the countless other smaller businesses, consultants and freelancers that share this hothouse.
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