Search Results for: Gen Z

September 16, 2014

Younger workers less tolerant of flexible workers than you would think

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

One of the key drivers for bringing a flexible working culture into the workplace is to accommodate the needs of the younger generation of ‘millennial’ workers who are perceived to view the idea of the traditional 9 to 5 as archaic. But this open-mindedness appears to waver when applied to other workers. A recent survey by employment specialists Doyle Clayton has found Generation Y employees have the most negative attitudes towards older employees and part-time and flexible workers; seeing their colleagues’ flexibility as coming at their own expense. The Age Before Beauty? Report warns that there shouldn’t be an assumption that initiatives to support flexible working will be welcomed by staff in their twenties and thirties. And while younger workers tended to be most likely to perceive discrimination at their workplace, they were also the most likely to exhibit negative attitudes towards equality, for example seeing older workers as less valuable because of their age. More →

September 16, 2014

Exam board introduces workplace issues to psychology A Level syllabus

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, News, Workplace, Workplace design

One of the UK’s five main national examination boards is to introduce a range of workplace issues as part of its updated Psychology A Level syllabus from next year. Cambridge based OCR claims that Psychology is the UK’s fourth most popular subject at both A and AS level and is also one of the most popular subjects at degree level too. The issues will be introduced to the syllabus as part of an Environmental Psychology theme and will consider as issues such as the effects of allowing desk clutter on individual wellbeing (although it didn’t do much for Kanji Watanabe in Akira Kurosawa’s film Ikiru, above), gender roles in workstation personalisation and so on. Students will be expected to carry out their own research into the topics as well as draw on established sources of information. OCR also suggests that the subject may help to develop the emotional intelligence of those who take the subject.

September 10, 2014

Portfolio working could become the norm in ten years time says KPMG

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

At last year’s Worktech London, Charles Handy discussed the ascent of the portfolio worker. In a new survey by KPMG, 63 per cent of business leaders agree that portfolio workers will gain mainstream commercial acceptance within the next ten years. But some confusion remains as to just what constitutes a ‘portfolio worker’ as distinct from employees on flexible work schedules or freelancers. Just over a third (35%) of Generation Y respondents understood the term “portfolio workers” but they felt that they were simply freelancers by another name (78%), as did three quarters of the senior executives (76%) and the older respondents (74%). According to the survey portfolio workers differ from freelancers by having contracts in place with a number of different companies simultaneously, with a guaranteed number of hours of work from all during any given period of time. This approach, as Hardy has predicted, looks set to become the new way of work. More →

September 5, 2014

Workplace design is increasingly interwoven with the dynamics of the city

by Colin Watson • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The Workplace Strategy Summit, held near my adopted home town of Reading in June attracted some of the world’s most renowned experts on workplace design and management. As is the case these days, much of the talk focussed on urbanisation, both in its own right and in terms of its influence on the design of work and workplaces. One speaker, Andrew Laing of Aecom argued convincingly that the city is just as much a part of the modern workplace as the traditional office. ‘As we explore the future of work and place, we are beginning to see a shift towards an urban scale in how we frame the workplace problem,’ he said. ‘Our starting point is perhaps no longer the office but the city at large. And what we mean by the city may not be the bricks and mortar urbanism of the twentieth century, but a bricks and mortar urbanism imbued with digital information and connectivity: a powerful combination of the physical and digital.’

September 3, 2014

Increased use of mobile devices give office workers space to move

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

Office workers now spend up to six hours a day working on mobile devices rather than using desk computers; with men generally working with three or more mobile devices while women choose to work with a maximum of two. This is according to the intermediate results of a Global Posture Study carried out by Steelcase to identify which type of work environment fits different workers best. It reveals that the Millennial generation, born between 1979 and 2000, change posture during the course of the day more than any other age group. Female workers tend to choose postures where they can withdraw from the environment, while men prefer open seating postures where they can lean back. The results of the posture study underlines the fact that employers must take an increasingly innovative approach to creating working environment which supports the various ways of working of the employees to guarantee their wellbeing and productivity. More →

September 2, 2014

Office planting improves workers’ quality of life and productivity finds study

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

Claims by office designers and suppliers that office planting has wider health benefits for occupiers than just making the place look more attractive have been given a boost in a new academic study which provides some empirical evidence. In the first field study of its kind, researchers found enriching a ‘lean’ office with plants could increase productivity by as much as 15 per cent. The study, which involved academics from the University of Exeter; the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, and the University of Queensland, Australia examined the impact of ‘lean’ and ‘green’ offices on staff’s perceptions of air quality, concentration, and workplace satisfaction, and monitored productivity levels over subsequent months in two large commercial offices in the UK and The Netherlands. It concludes that ‘green’ offices with plants make staff happier and more productive than ‘lean’ designs stripped of greenery. More →

August 29, 2014

New issue of Work&Place is now available to download and read online

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Premium Content, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

The September issue of Work&Place has today been published and is available to download or view online. Amongst this month’s highlights are: Ian Ellison’s review of June’s Workplace Strategy Summit; Jim Ware offers up a case study of workplace transformation at NEF from the perspective of the firm’s CEO; Agustin Chavez and Laurie Aznavoorian consider how the workplace can help firms to manage knowledge; David Karpook meanwhile characterises the role of the facilities manager as akin to that of a stage manager; Wim Pullen explores the multi-generational workplace using empirical evidence; Erik Jaspers looks at how workers are colonising the world’s cities; Pawel Lenart and Dominika Kowalska report on how one specific country – Poland – has seen a transformation in the way it creates and uses workplaces over the past twenty years; and, on related themes Nancy Sanquist explains how IFMA is driving the agenda on urban FM and Charles Marks looks at how the UK’s regions are looking to capitalise on the Smart Cities movement

August 28, 2014

Business leaders seem powerless to stem tide of always on working, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

Amongst the reported findings in the latest edition of the annual Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey is a growing belief amongst business leaders that information overload and the always on working culture are significantly undermining personal wellbeing, engagement and productivity. This challenge has been identified before in the same report, but the latest edition perhaps signals that despite the high level of awareness of the issue at both a personal and general level, little is being achieved in terms of stemming the inexorable erosion of personal time. The report is based on a survey of more than 2,500 business leaders. It found that over a third think that constant access to work is undermining employee productivity and engagement and fewer than one in ten feel they are dealing with the problem adequately. More →

August 26, 2014

Mode of transport when commuting determines health and happiness

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Workplace

New research published in the British Medical Journal last week has confirmed the perhaps obvious fact that people who drive to work are generally less healthy and more overweight than those who get to work in other ways. More surprisingly, the report also found that using public transport to commute may be just as beneficial to healthy as cycling. The report suggests that with nearly 24 million people regularly commuting to work each day in England and Wales, its results based long term research with a sample of 16,000 people should have significant implications for Government infrastructure policy, urban design and individual workplace policies. “Policies designed to effect a population-level modal shift to more active modes of work commuting therefore present major opportunities for public health improvement”, it concludes.

August 25, 2014

Encourage staff to stand up at work to improve wellbeing says health expert

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Workplace

The National Director for Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England, Kevin Fenton has recommended that staff should stand for at least an hour a day. He says the working day should be broken up by holding stand-up meetings, coffees or lunches or by simply setting aside a certain amount of time to work standing up; which could help lower obesity levels and improve staff’ general health, reports HR Grapevine. His advice echoes that of campaigners “Get Britain Standing” which warns that statistics showing that British people sit for 8.9 hours each day (on average) has been found to be detrimental to health. Describing being active as the “miracle cure we’ve been waiting for” to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and improving mental health, Fenton said: “Globally we’ve become more and more inactive, in part because our jobs are making us more sedentary. We spend too much time sitting down at our computers.” More →

August 21, 2014

Hotels allocating more public space to meet the needs of business travellers

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

Presenteeism isn’t restricted to the workplace. Growing demand from business travellers means hotels are increasing the amount of working and meeting space they provide in their facilities in cities across Europe and the rest of the world. Three quarters of British employees work while staying in a hotel according to the survey carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute on behalf of hotel business solutions firm HRS. Only Italians spend more time working in hotels (76 percent), followed the UK (75 percent), Poland and Switzerland (50 percent respectively), Germany (46 percent), China (45 percent), Russia (43 percent), Austria (42 percent) and France (25 percent). The firm has also identified a number of hotels around the world which it believes offers exemplars of the new working spaces available.

August 20, 2014

Four year surge in the numbers of over-50s and over-65s in UK workforce

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

We keep saying it but forget all the talk about Gen Y, the UK workforce is actually aging and becoming more diverse. New research from Saga shows that the number of employees over the age of 65 has increased by over a third over the last four years and the numbers of those between 50 and 64 has also increased – by nearly a tenth. The proportion of over 65s within the workforce is up from 3.4 percent to 3.6 percent over the same period but there have also been increases in employment in younger age groups meaning the workforce is more diverse. There are now 1.09 million over 65s still in work and around 8 million in the 50-64 age group. The Saga Monthly Employment report, published in partnership with the Centre for Economics and Business Research, also found that older age groups are now just as economically active as younger demographics