Search Results for: Gen Z

June 1, 2016

Surprising number of people fear they will soon be replaced by a robot ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

A surprisingly large proportion of the British working population believes it could find its job taken by a robot within the next 10 to 50 years, according to a study from software firm Opentext. The survey of 2,000 people found that 42 percent of them overall believe their jobs will be automated within half a century and around a quarter feel it could happen within the next decade. A surprisingly large number – 7 percent- feel they could be ousted by a robot within the next two years. The results display a strong generational bias with19 per cent of 18-24 year olds claiming that they sometimes or frequently worry about this issue. The older generation on the other hand rarely, if ever, worries about robots taking its jobs with 73 per cent of 45-54 year olds saying that they never worry about being replaced by automation. Even so, 25 percent of those in this age group believe that robots might replace them over the course of the next decade.

June 1, 2016

Coworking continuing to drive workplace change around the world ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Property, Workplace design

Coworking continues to be one of the main drivers of workplace change globally and is now becoming mainstream, according to new research from serviced office provider The Instant Group. According to the firm’s Flexible Workspace Review – US 2016 report, coworking grew more than 10 percent across the US over the last year and ‘combination centres’ which offer both executive suites and coworking spaces expanded by 12.9 percent as existing operators sought to take advantage of the growing demand for collaborative and agile workspace. The study claims that the occupation of flexible workspace by corporations has significantly expanded the US flexible office market over the past year, largely driven by the rise of the contingent workforce and changing workplace demands of Millennials. The total market grew by 4.3 percent and now includes 3,596 centres, the largest markets of its kind in the world with the UK following at 3,290 centres.

June 1, 2016

Financial sector is rationalising real estate to remain in London ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, Property

A relentless drive to cut costs is forcing financial services occupiers to focus on reducing real estate costs and adopting strategies to use their space more efficiently in Central London. According to research from CBRE there has been an ongoing move by big banks to relocate non-core functions outside of Central London, as seen in HSBC’s decision to move 1,000 head office staff from London to Birmingham. However despite the inherent challenges, banks continue to cite client needs, recruitment, profile and presence as key reasons to keep office space in the Capital. This is reflected in last year’s leasing figures with banking and finance occupiers leasing 3.2m sq ft, 4.9 percent above the 10-year average. There are a variety of compromises companies may make as part of rationalisation strategies to maintain their position in London. Consolidation is an ongoing trend. But it is not a one size fits all approach.

May 31, 2016

Large scale study finds link between mental health and workaholism ⁰

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

A new large scale study from Norwegian researchers finds that workaholism is closely associated with a range of mental diseases and psychiatric disorders. Although the link has been the subject of speculation and study, the authors claim that the new research is one of the few large scale, academic studies into the subject and so comes up with unequivocal results. The study of 16,426 Norwegian subjects in The Relationships between Workaholism and Symptoms of Psychiatric Disorders found that workaholism is significantly related to psychiatric conditions such as adult ADHD, OCD, clinical anxiety and depression. The web-based survey assessed the mental health and workaholic characteristics of subjects and used statistical analysis to establish a correlation. It concludes that while disorders can be put in part down to demographic and other factors, the ‘correlations between workaholism and all psychiatric disorder symptoms were positive and significant’.

May 27, 2016

Canary Wharf bucks London’s Brexit office market slow down ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

Canary Wharf has outperformed the Central London office market during the past 12 months, with rental growth reaching 26.7 percent, ahead of Mayfair and St James’. It seems Canary Wharf’s high quality purpose built space, coupled with its relative affordability when compared to the rest of London, has helped attract significant deals in recent months. The most notable deal during Q1 was Thomson Reuters take up of 300,000sq ft in St Martin’s 5 Canada Square. Faisal Durrani, Cluttons head of research, explained, “It was only a matter of time before the area began to draw in occupiers, particularly from the City and City fringes. It’s a market that has undersold itself and its full potential is yet to be realised but we may be approaching a significant turning point in its attractiveness. In recent months, the Central London market has experienced Brexit nervousness and general settling of the market but Canary Wharf has bucked this trend.”

May 26, 2016

Digital mobility to work anytime, anywhere is key to job satisfaction ⁰

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

In a further nod to the growing relevance of flexible working, the ability to work anytime, anywhere is now key to job satisfaction with well over a third (38 percent) of employees in a global survey rating this as the number one factor, with the UK (43 percent) scoring this the highest. According to the “Mobility, Performance and Engagement” report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Aruba, employees in Western countries report themselves to be happier in their jobs, more loyal to their employers and more productive in their work compared to their counterparts in Eastern markets. When it comes to securing loyalty, the ability to hot desk was seen as paramount by many employees, notably in Singapore (37 percent), UAE (31 percent) and the US (34 percent), while the ability to collaborate with other employees was the number one choice for employees in Germany (43 percent), France (37 percent) and Japan (35 percent).

May 25, 2016

Urban Millennials are worried about the same things as everybody else ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Comment

The acid test for any survey of the attitudes and experiences of Millennials is whether you could replace its findings with those for another generation and come up with broadly the same results. The answer is very often ‘yes’, which can generally be explained by pointing out that, contrary to what you may have heard, Millennials are people too and not the Midwich Cuckoos. So, here we have a survey from an organisation called YouthfulCities which claims that Millennials living in the world’s major cities are concerned about the high cost of housing, employment opportunities, inadequate infrastructure, crime and their personal happiness. Just like everybody else then. Except that the conclusion the survey draws is that cities need to become more ‘youthful’. Presumably in exactly the same way that office occupiers are routinely told that they need to create youthful workplaces, which is not only patronising to Millennials but also ignores the fact they’re not the only people there.

May 24, 2016

New standard for building wellbeing launched in US ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Legal news, Property

If you’re still confused about the proliferation of green building standards worldwide, then brace yourself. A new standard that seeks to measure the wellbeing inducing characteristics of a building has been launched as a counterpart to the WELL Building Standard developed by the Green Building Certification Institute and the International WELL Building Institute. The new standard is called Fitwel, was designed by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the General Services Administration and is overseen by the Centre for Active Design. The standard uses a scorecard that ranks buildings on over 60 criteria such as indoor air quality, fitness facilities and lobby and stairwell design. According to its proponents these criteria apply well-established scientific principles to address seven characteristics of a healthy working environment. The standard is very much a product of the US public sector at this stage and was piloted in 89 federal buildings during 2015. Its full launch is scheduled for next year. Image: Gensler / Hedrich Blessing

May 23, 2016

Many EU workers clinging to their fax machines and desktops, claims report ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Workplace design

If you think the way people work is probably not quite as glossily portrayed in the media, then you’d probably be right. A lot more European workers than is commonly supposed still believe that fax machines are essential business tools, according to a new report from unified communications business Fuze. In a study of the working habits of 5,000 EU employees, it found that the fax machine is considered ‘essential’ by 30 percent of workers in the UK, 39 percent in Germany and 42 percent in France. The report also found that many also think that desktop computers are still more important in their day-to-day working lives that laptops, tablets or smartphones. Anybody horrified by the report’s findings will be heartened by its claim that the machines will die off in time as a new generation of people who don’t know what the hell a fax machine is supplant those who still cling to their battered, old, paper-based devices.

May 20, 2016

Quarter of UK workers would choose home working over pay rise ⁰

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

We reported earlier this week that flexible working has gone mainstream, with over a third of organisations now offering some kind of flexible working arrangement. The question is whether these flexible workers are more productive, as some employers persist in perceiving a flexible working request as a means of ‘shirking from home.’ Now new research to mark National work from home day, shows that 48 percent of workers are happier when they can work from home and nearly a third (32 percent) of British workers ‘feel more productive’ when they do so. The study by the Institute of Inertia, a partnership between comparethemarket.com and the University of Sheffield, found that nearly a quarter (24 percent or 7.5 million) of British workers would rather work from home one day a week than receive a pay rise, while seven million admit they suffer from ‘procrastination or inertia issues’ when working in an office.

May 19, 2016

Where is the data for disability on boards – and do businesses care? ⁰

by Neil Barnfather • Comment, Legal news, Workplace

When it comes to diversity on boards, I would confidently say that disability comes in a poor fourth behind gender, age and ethnicity. It’s something I take a great interest in as a blind person, a senior executive who sits on boards and as a start-up champion. While acknowledging a limited perspective, over the years I have noted a lack of disabled representation at board level and when I joined the NonExecutiveDirectors.com recruitment platform, we had a conversation about this. The result was that the organisation and its partners decided to commission some research into the issue. The research involved the Office of National Statistics, EU Equality and Diversity Commission, Department of Business Innovation and Skills, leading academic experts in disability, in social policy and in work and employment, Trade Union Congress (TUC), business surveys, policy documents and more.

May 18, 2016

What the imminent arrival of driverless vehicles will mean for the way we work ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Comment, Flexible working, Technology

Game changing technology doesn’t come any more disruptive than driverless vehicles. The problem is that we may find the whole idea easy to dismiss based on our past experiences of this sort of thing. Autonomous vehicles carry the whiff of Tomorrow’s World about them, yet they are about to go mainstream far sooner than we might think and their advent will have a major impact on the way we work and live. Both Ford and BMW have announced they intend to have fully autonomous vehicles on the roads within five years. That doesn’t mean the test models that are already on the roads but commercially available vehicles; Volvo will have 100 customers in Sweden and the UK using the vehicles next year. Tesla claims its cars will be driverless in two years. And it’s not just car makers who are intent on grabbing a share of this new market but computer makers like Google and Apple as well as sharing economy pioneers like Uber.