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Latest Insight newsletter: weaving together the strands of people, place and technology

by • Environment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter

ipad musculoskeletal disorders insightThe latest issue of the Insight weekly newsletter is now available to view online. This week; reflecting on the key messages of this year’s Worktech conference, Sara Bean and Mark Eltringham concur that while the office may be entering a new phase, we still have a need for human interaction and a place we call the workspace. Ergonomics expert Lee Jones warns that the leap in the number of cases of workplace musculoskeletal disorders is a reminder there is a world of difference between an iPad on a sofa and a PC on a workstation and Sam Robins comments on Government plans to measure wellbeing. In news; why the UK’s largest companies are calling for the greater uptake of flexible working, green building credentials become a driver of investment performance and the gender pay gap reaches its lowest point in history.  If you don’t already receive a copy, please sign up using the simple subscription form in the right hand sidebar and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

Worktech weaves together the strands of people, place and technology

by • Cities, Events, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

WorktechDay two of Worktech London and affirmation that far from dying, as so many headline writers would have us believe, the office is merely entering a new phase. The underlying theme of Worktech continues to be how we find new ways of weaving together the strands of presence and connectedness formed by cities, buildings and technology. Worktech is a constant reminder that while our world may be shaped by algorithms, we still need each other and need to be with other people at least some of the time. The event is admirably hosted by long time collaborator and MC Jeremy Myerson whose knowledge and donnish charm holds things together while the real Don, founder Philip Ross, beams from the sidelines. It is now de rigeur for such events to have a poet in residence and this year’s was Matt Harvey who summed things up at the end of the day with reference to Worktech’s longstanding idea of jellybean working  but who popped up in between sessions with lyrical summations including one that showed some real spunk (you had to be there).

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Group of UK’s major employers urges widespread uptake of flexible working

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

flexible workingSome of the UK’s largest companies are jointly spearheading the call for the greater uptake of flexible working. On Monday, the 22 companies that make up the Agile Future Forum highlighted the role that factors such as new technology, changing demographics and globalisation are having on the business case for the adoption of agile working practices. Firms such as John Lewis, ITV, Ford, Tesco, Lloyds, BT and B&Q are championing the cause of agile working as a way of running a business that is competitive, productive, attractive to employees and able to compete on the world stage. The AFF, set up by former Lloyds chairman Sir Win Bischoff, used the event to publish its latest research to highlight the ways in which it believes the UK is one of the best-placed countries to foster flexible working in spite of a range of recalcitrant and restrictive working practices. The event cited a recent CBI survey which found that while 97 per cent of UK businesses agree that agility is key to growth, many still offer a limited range of flexible working practices.

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Commercial property market sees significant shift in attitudes to green building

by • Environment, Legal news, News, Property

commercial propertyThe UK commercial property market is experiencing a major attitudinal shift towards green buildings according to GVA’s fifth Green to Gold report. The biannual survey questions commercial property investors on their understanding of market perceptions of the value of sustainability criteria and gauges their attitudes towards regulation and related issues. The latest edition of the study published this month claims that the market ‘no longer views sustainability as a nice to have’ with more than half of those questioned considering green building credentials as a key driver of investment performance. Perhaps unsurprisingly this belief strengthens with regard to longer term investments. The research also found that nearly all (94 percent) of those surveyed now had a sustainability policy in place at either the organisational or fund level and 59 percent of respondents said that three quarters of their portfolios have been assessed against sustainability criteria, compared with just a quarter in 2012.

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Workplace Week focuses on the office and individual productivity in all its forms

by • Events, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

1KP_4971The holy grail of improving people’s productivity was the focus of this year’s Workplace Week, which took place last week from 3-7th November and raised more than £12,500 for Children in Need. The annual event organised by AWA and designed as a celebration of workplace innovation, included visits to 11 workplaces showcasing the latest techniques to get people performing at their very best, a day-long convention and a series of Fringe events. Andrew Mawson, who heads up AWA, opened the convention by setting the discussion in context. “We have maximised asset productivity by getting more people into buildings, and therefore working a building harder. But we need to focus on human productivity. If each organisation could make each person just 5 per cent more productive, that would have a major impact both on that organisation and the wider economy. In the knowledge economy we need to get the very best performance out of each and every brain on the payroll and to create the conditions that consciously support that.

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Current issue of Work&Place explores intersecting worlds of people, place and tech

by • Architecture, Cities, Facilities management, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace design

wandpcoverAs we prepare the upcoming issue of Work&Place (don’t forget to subscribe on our homepage), a reminder that the September issue of Work&Place is available to download or view as a PDF or now in an online edition. Amongst this issue’s highlights are: Ian Ellison’s retrospective of last Summer’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.

Orgatec 2014 focuses on collaboration, quiet and wellbeing in the workplace

by • Comment, Events, Furniture, Workplace design

Anna King reports from the biennial office furniture and interiors fair Orgatec, which took place recently in Cologne: Collaboration seemed to be king once again at this year’s Orgatec trade fair in Cologne, so much so that you’d be hard pressed to find a conventional workstation amongst the thousands of products on display. Even ergonomic task chairs in the traditional sense were thin on the ground. Senator’s offering was typical in its focus on collaborative work and the provision of work settings. As well as the Ad-Lib Scholar range for educational establishments, it presented the Ad-Lib Work Lounge multipurpose chair, both the work of British design studio PearsonLloyd. This upholstered model complete with headrest is available on glides or castors so it can slot into a multitude of workplace scenarios. Shown in some rich shades such as moss green and turquoise, it comes complete with a fold-down worksurface for brainstorming or other group working.

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Two new reports claim firms and employees are out of step on flexible working

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

flexible workingThe two latest stones to be tossed into the flexible working maelstrom in the hope of creating a ripple both suggest that employers are out of step with the expectations of their staff when it comes to working hours and conditions. The CIPD launched a new report Getting Smart About Agile Working, at the start of its annual conference in Manchester on 5 November which claims that a third (35 percent) of employees would like to change their working arrangements with nearly half (43 percent) saying they would most like to change the start or finish time of their working day. Meanwhile a separate report from BUPA claims that half of employees of SMEs think their employees underestimate the part that benefits including flexible working have to play in the overall feel of the company, and a similar number (51 percent) believe that not offering such benefits damages an employer’s attractiveness to new recruits.

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Why isn’t the UK Government acting to curb the scandal of fake furniture?

Why isn’t the UK Government acting to curb the scandal of fake furniture?

by • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

fake furniture

The real thing

If you’ve watched a DVD recently, it probably started with an advert highlighting that ‘you wouldn’t steal a handbag, so why would you steal a DVD?’ The point it’s making is that it’s unacceptable to buy poor quality copies of DVDs. They’re fake products and there’s a stigma attached to them, in the same way there’s a stigma attached to buying a fake watch, handbag or a forged piece of art. That’s how things should work, but this isn’t yet the case for fake furniture in the UK. And the reason for this is government inaction that is not only allowing a market for poorer quality replicas of iconic designs to exist, but to thrive. In April 2013 the UK government passed the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, a section of which closed a loophole in British intellectual property law. Under the new regulations, artistic designs for products such as furniture would be protected for up to 70 years after the designer’s death. Before the Act was passed, if more than 50 copies of a design were made, it was considered to be mass produced and was subject to only 25 years’ protection.

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Employers warned that landmark legal decision could cost them dearly

by • Legal news, News, Workplace

Employment Law changes ahead in 2014A ruling  by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) is significant and could be potentially financially crippling, employers have been warned, following yesterday’s ground-breaking decision by the EAT to uphold an earlier Employment Tribunal’s decision that both compulsory and voluntary overtime must be included in addition to basic salary for the purposes of calculating a worker’s holiday pay. According to Shivali Chaudhry, an Employment solicitor at law firm Hamlins LLP: “Not only will employers have to increase the amount of holiday pay they pay workers to take into account all overtime, they may also face historic underpayment liabilities going back up to 16 years in respect of some workers.” However, Mike Emmott, Employee Relations Adviser at the CIPD says the ruling still leaves much to be resolved – particularly on the issue of backdating. He said: “The ruling means that employers will have to change how they calculate holiday pay in future to take account of voluntary overtime. However it does seem to have limited the scope for substantive retrospective claims, which was the biggest concern in terms of possible costs for employers.” (more…)

Badmouthing, arse-covering and bluff are main unethical behaviours in workplace

Badmouthing, arse-covering and bluff are main unethical behaviours in workplace

by • Knowledge, News, Workplace

devils-dictionaryA new report from the Institute of Leadership and Management reveals the most common unethical behaviours displayed by employees in the workplace. Unsurprisingly they form a catalogue of low-level, generalised obfuscation, bluff, blame-shifting, bullshit and outright lying that will be very familiar to many people. The three most cited unethical behaviours according to the survey of 1,600 managers are cutting corners (72 percent), lying to cover one’s own mistakes (72 percent) and badmouthing colleagues (68 percent). People are, unsurprisingly, also prone to pass the buck when they miss deadlines (67 percent), cover up for the mistakes of colleagues (63 percent) and pinch low value items from work (52 percent). The ILM claims in its ‘The Truth About Trust’ report that these behaviours arise from a miasma of misunderstanding of what might be considered unethical behaviour, although equally they could just be things that people do if they think they can get away with them.

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Musculoskeletal disorders leap by a fifth, according to latest HSE data

Musculoskeletal disorders leap by a fifth, according to latest HSE data

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

ipad musculoskeletal disordersWhile the UK remains one of the safest places to work in Europe, work related ill health continues to rise for British employees according to the latest data from the Health and Safety Executive. The HSE claims that there were some 28 million days lost over the last year, costing the economy over £14 billion. While the most dangerous professions continue to be construction, agriculture and manufacturing, the report found that over two thirds of days lost (20 million) and some £9 billion can be attributed to a number of well defined causes rooted in the modern workplace; musculoskeletal disorders, stress, anxiety and depression. The HSE study claims that around 80 per cent of new work-related illnesses were attributable to these conditions. Of the 535,000 new illnesses reported in 2013/14, 184,000 were musculoskeletal disorders and 244,000 were related to stress and depression. There are now over half a million (526,000) people with self-reported cases of musculoskeletal disorders in the UK, up by 20 percent since figures were last reported in 2011/12.

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