Search Results for: Working from home

August 31, 2015

BSI revises design and construction standard for facilities managers ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property

BSI, the UK based organisation responsible for developing and publishing standards for businesses, has revised BS 8536-1 Briefing for design and construction: Code of practice for facilities management (Buildings infrastructure). The standard has been included in the Level 2 BIM package which the Government expects companies to offer when tendering for Government contracts. The standard has now been brought into line with the principles of the Soft Landings Framework and Government Soft Landings (GSL) post occupancy evaluation and BIM requirement. Soft landings is designed to enable the transition from design and construction into operation. It advocates collaboration during briefing, design, construction and handover between the design and construction team and the operator, operations team or facilities manager.

August 28, 2015

The reason offices will always be needed is tied up with human nature

by Nigel Sikora • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

People have a tendency to confuse what is possible with what will happen. This appears to be a particular issue when we consider the effects of new technology. Hence the enduring talk of the death of the office, which technology makes possible but which people make impossible. One of the key areas of research that describes this tension is the work of Tom Allen at MIT. Allen made his name in 1984 with the publication of a book called Managing the Flow of Technology which first popularised the Allen Curve, a graph of his research findings which shows a powerful negative correlation between physical distance and the frequency of communication between colleagues. So precisely can this be defined, that Allen found that 50 metres marks a cut-off point for the regular exchange of certain types of technical information.

August 9, 2015

Govt £118bn pipeline, Change leadership, Take a real holiday and more ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Newsletter, Public Sector, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Lee Parsons argues the impact of office relocation can no longer be solely measured in tangible terms; Mark Eltringham questions people’s reluctance to simply go on holiday and explores the complex links that exist between our surroundings and how we think and act. The Government lists around £118 billion of publicly funded building projects over the next five years; and flexible working is the main driver in the growth of Cloud data services. Ergonomics experts focus on the much discussed topics of sedentary working; the Work Foundation presses employers to support the health of older workers; and from the latest edition of Work&Place Rebecca Booth explains one of the biggest obstacles to successful change leadership is “change fatigue.” Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and weekly news here, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

August 1, 2015

Insight Weekly on GenY, digital workplaces, productivity and more

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Newsletter, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace

In this week’s issue; three new studies have joined the already extensive body of work linking workplace design and productivity; how business practices and the way people use technology vary across sectors; and over half of US workers say the 9 to 5 day is an outmoded concept. Amanda Sterling argues social media at work can help shift the power dynamic from the few to the many; Gary Chandler explains how workplace design can express a firm’s culture and Mark Eltringham explores what the Midwich Cuckoos can tell us about Generation Y. The Government challenges businesses to consider the boost untapped disabled talent could bring to their workforce and CoWorking giant WeWork looks to acquire over 1 million sq. ft. of space in London. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and weekly news here, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

July 31, 2015

The latest type of space adopted as a workplace by British workers? The pub

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

We’re used to the sight of workers colonising coffee shops, parks and hotels as ad hoc workplaces. Now, a growing number of British workers are firing up their laptops in pubs, and are demanding free WiFi and (apparently) a cup of decent coffee while they do so. According to the latest Greene King Leisure Spend Tracker, over a quarter of Brits would like to log on to get some work done from the pub. According to the report, the findings reaffirm the pivotal role pubs continue to play at the heart of the community and their ability to adapt to the changing needs of customers, including those who see the whole world as an untapped place of work. Fiona Gunn, Greene King’s marketing director, said: “With flexible working on the rise, increasing numbers of people are now using the pub as a ‘third space’ establishing the pub as not just a second home but a place of work as well.”

July 30, 2015

Over half of employees believe 9 to 5 work is an outmoded concept

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

We’ve heard a lot lately about the plight of workers to take their work home, but according to new research by CareerBuilder.com, for a majority of workers, checking emails from home is their own choice. Well over half (63 percent) believe that working 9 to 5 is an outdated concept, with nearly 1 in 4 (24 percent) checking work emails during activities with family and friends. Half of these workers (50 percent) check or respond to work emails outside of work, and nearly 2 in 5 (38 percent) say they continue to work outside of office hours. Though staying connected to the office outside of required office hours may seem like a burden, most of these workers (62 percent) perceive it as a choice rather than an obligation. Interestingly, 50 percent of those aged 45 – 54 compared to 31 percent of 18- to 24-year-old are willing to work outside of office hours.

July 21, 2015

Neocon highlights four of the world’s most important office design trends

by Neil Franklin • Comment, Events, Workplace design

We live in the Global Village, Marshall McLuhan’s idea from 1962 of an electronically contracted world in which attitudes, cultures and our political, business and legislative framework begin to pull together. Yet each nation is shaped by little differences. That is why the comedy programme The Office found an audience on both sides of the pond, but one that needed Wernham Hogg in Slough to become Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania for it to work for the local audience. The central idea of the show has a universal appeal but needs a local voice. And what is true for The Office with a big O is also true for the office with a small o. This was the takeaway conclusion of a series of events staged in London and Manchester last week by Milliken and Humanscale. The touchstone for these events was a debate about the main conclusions of of June’s Neocon.

July 11, 2015

Agile workers beat strikes + World’s healthiest building + 3D printed office

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace

In this week’s issue; Paul Carder points out agile workers were unaffected by tube and train strikes; Maciej Markowski says despite digital technological advances, companies still appear to value human interaction and Sara Bean suggests employers only encourage home-working when it is on their terms. Mark Eltringham finds two new reasons to dislike tall buildings and argues employers attempt to manage stress in the workplace in the wrong way. We learn that a Chinese 3D printing firm plans to print a fully functioning office in Dubai; Melbourne claims to have the healthiest workplace in the world and an alarming report finds that the Internet is reducing our ability to memorise and recall things for ourselves. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar for weekly news, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

June 30, 2015

Settings, silence, serendipity, wellbeing and other lessons from Neocon

by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Events, Furniture, Workplace design

The trick with visits to exhibitions like Neocon, the huge office design event which has just wrapped up in Chicago, is to stay focussed on the wood as much as the trees. So as well as identifying new products, you can also work out the themes pursued by the exhibitors and organisers which are invariably based on the ideas they are currently discussing with their clients. The show becomes a microcosm of what is happening in the outside world. At this year’s Neocon, some of the most readily identifiable themes included the dissipation of the workplace, the creation of work settings, privacy, ergonomics, wellbeing and serendipity. With the possible exception of the age old problem of ergonomics, these all relate to our changing relationship with work and workplaces, not least how we can work from anywhere and what this means both functionally and aesthetically.

June 24, 2015

Second largest deal after BBC’s MediaCity confirmed for Salford Quays

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

The second largest deal since the BBC announced its relocation to MediaCity in 2007 has been confirmed at Salford Quays. A total of 160,000 sq ft of space at the Soapworks scheme is being let to TalkTalk and the Home Office. TalkTalk has agreed to take 106,000 sq ft on a 15-year lease, following the decision by the broadband provider, which originally took 20,000 sq ft at the Soapworks on a ten-year lease in October 2014 for its meeting and training facility, to consolidate its entire North West presence into Salford Quays. The former Colgate factory has also been chosen by the Home Office, which is taking 54,000 sq ft on a ten-year lease. The government department will relocate its operations from premises across Greater Manchester including Manchester Airport to sit under one roof, with the move due to take place in June 2016.

June 23, 2015

A gallery of the workplace winners of this year’s RIBA Awards

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, News, Workplace design

The full list of regional winners of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Awards for 2015 has been finalised. The list of 37 winners will now go on to compete for the Stirling Prize in October. This year’s list is dominated by London projects, as is often the case, but also by homes whereas last year they were dominated by large scale projects, especially The Shard. We’ve rounded up a gallery of the major workplace projects in the list for England and Wales with some notes extracted from RIBA’s own commentaries (so don’t blame us). Each entry is hyperlinked for you to discover more about the project. Unfortunately, the regional winners for Scotland and Northern Ireland are not well served by their respective websites, which is a particular shame given the success Scotland in particular has in terms of the number and apparent quality of its winning projects.

June 19, 2015

Well designed offices should create spaces suitable for everybody

by Dan Callegari • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

The basis of the commonly held belief that offices are designed for extroverts seems to be that, because the primary goal of offices is to bring people together to work and because the de facto office design standard is open plan, then this makes them an ideal home for extroverts. They are parties to which everybody is invited, but at which the wallflowers are told to dance. There is something in this but it doesn’t tell the whole story. This is just as well because personalities are not so straightforwardly easy to categorise and the needs of everybody to collaborate or work alone – however extroverted they might be – vary throughout the day. The office remains endlessly complex and sophisticated and any simplistic notions about it and the things it does should be challenged with a cold, hard look at the facts and what is happening in the real world.