Search Results for: agile

Where are zero hours contracts and the gig economy taking us?

Where are zero hours contracts and the gig economy taking us? 0

by • Comment, Flexible working

gig-economyZero-hours contracts have had a bad time in the press. Mike Ashley, founder of Sports Direct, has taken a pounding after uproar over workers conditions, and after vehemently defending his position, he is remarkably making a U-turn, ditching the controversial zero-hours employment arrangements. A large number of companies new also turning their backs on zero hours, including Cineworld, Greene King and Wetherspoons. Casual work isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, the secure, jobs-for-life of post-war Britain lasted merely a few decades. Prior to the 1940s casual work was the longstanding nemesis of the working class. The welfare state and the much-cherished political mantra of full employment emerged in a post-war, golden age. In the 1980s capitalism found its sway. Margaret Thatcher redefined worker’s rights, and it paved the way for employers to benefit again from a more flexible workforce and ultimately what we now refer to as the gig economy.

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HSBC moves 300 staff into coworking space in Hong Kong

HSBC moves 300 staff into coworking space in Hong Kong 0

by • Coworking, Flexible working, News, Property

tower-535-coworking-12The idea that coworking is primarily for the self-employed, tech startups and other small firms who can’t afford permanent offices in the world’s expensive cities has been challenged with the news HSBC has moved 300 staff into a coworking space in Hong Kong, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. The bank has rented the workstations in WeWork’s space in Causeway Bay, one of the world’s most expensive districts for offices and shops. The bank has taken out a large scale corporate membership with WeWork for the 300 members of its digital and transformation team. According to the report, a spokesman from CBRE claimed that the move is less about saving money than it is with providing short term flexibility in a time of economic uncertainty. However you view that, the bank is saving as much as HK$2.45 million a month with the move (£240,000 or $320,000). The annual cost savings are estimated at HK$23,640 per person.

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Employers must adopt a trust based approach to flexible working

Employers must adopt a trust based approach to flexible working 0

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Working remotelyEmployers are being urged to create a more inclusive and flexible working environment for their employees by adopting a trust based approach which focuses on the meeting of objectives rather than hours. This is the advice of Harvard University’s Global Leadership award winner Charlotte Sweeney on the launch of National Work/Life Week. In 2015, 23 percent of employees were reported to be doing some of their work remotely, up from 19 percent in 2003 according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics. But more than just adopting agile working, the diversity expert says businesses should begin to focus on individual well-being and supporting employees to enrich all aspects of their lives, their families and their communities. Corporates should implement a trust-based approach, which focuses on employees meeting their objectives, rather than focusing on where they are actually doing the work or even how many hours it takes to complete.

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Flexible productivity myth + Women’s wear + Millennial motivators 0

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Property

Insight_twitter_logo_2In this week’s Newsletter; Colin Watson points out that we sometimes forget just how young the Internet is; Paul Carter ponders working off the radar and the rise of co-working hubs and agile working; Mark Eltringham argues we’ve known for some time what makes people happy and productive at work; and says flexible working has developed a reputation as something of a silver bullet. Women’s choice of office attire is subject to unfair criticism by bosses; contrary to popular belief Millennials want the same from the workplace as everyone else; and evidence that sensory inputs can significantly improve productivity and cognitive performance. A new report suggests how technology will impact on real estate; and reasons for the boom in co-working spaces in London are revealed.  Download our new Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design on the link between culture and workplace strategy and design; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

CoreNet report sets out how technology will reshape corporate real estate

CoreNet report sets out how technology will reshape corporate real estate 0

by • Events, Facilities management, News, Property

Workplace technologyThe speed of today’s technological advances is dramatically reshaping the way that corporations manage and use their real estate. It’s a dynamic that has significant consequences for the workplace, urban development and the overall lifestyle of the average worker. Those are the unsurprising conclusions of a new report from trade association CoreNet Global, which was discussed this week at the organisation’s 2016 Summit – EMEA, held in Amsterdam. As ever, the devil is in the detail so the report is worth exploring to get a sense of just how imminent many of the changes will be, especially because they will converge to create a perfect storm of change for the workplace. This marks the new era out from the past when technology developed in more predictable ways. Several CoreNet Global Gold Strategic Partners contributed to the report including CBRE, Deloitte, ISS, JLL, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, Sodexo and Steelcase.

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Nearly half of employees work unpaid extra hours to cope with workloads

Nearly half of employees work unpaid extra hours to cope with workloads 0

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Unpaid workNearly half of working parents in the UK put in unpaid extra hours to keep up with workloads and a third believe that overtime is now an ingrained part of workplace culture, according to a study by pressure group Working Families. The results were announced on the day the group announced details of this year’s National Work-Life Week which will encourage organisations to explore agile and flexible working. The report claims that 27 percent of people believe their line manager expects them to work extra hours, 33 percent believe that unpaid overtime is part of their workplace culture and 42 percent work extra hours to deal with workloads. Sarah Jackson, CEO of Working Families, said: “In the UK we have some of the longest working hours in Europe, with more than one in 10 employees putting in more than 50 hours each week. But success is about productivity, not impressive timesheets, so it’s worrying that our survey showed many parents feel a cultural pressure, or direct pressure from their manager, to stay late.”

The traditional office is still very much alive, but it is changing

The traditional office is still very much alive, but it is changing 0

by • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

mote_articleA skim through workplace features in the media and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the traditional office is no longer with us. According to the narrative, we’re all now 20-somethings, working in open-plan warehouses, with table football, bean bags and comfy sofas to lounge on, while drinking our custom-made soya lattes. When in actual fact, while more relaxed, fun and funky offices tend to make the headlines, the majority of people still work in a relatively traditional way, with their PC or laptop, a desk and an ergonomic task chair. What’s more, with an ageing workforce, we certainly aren’t all 20-somethings, with DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) figures revealing that the employment rate for people aged 50 to 64 has risen by 14 per cent in the last 30 years, and doubled for over 65s. So designing with just the youngsters in mind simply doesn’t add up. Recent research by the Senator Group, backs up this view.

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Employees in high performing organisations four times more engaged

Employees in high performing organisations four times more engaged 0

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

EngagedWhether or not you raise an eyebrow every time you hear about the need for employee engagement, there is a growing body of research which links engagement to performance. A new report claims that 80 percent of UK employees who say they work for high performing organisations are engaged compared to only 20 percent of those working for low performing organisations. And 80 percent of employees who think their organisation is customer-centric are engaged. This is five times more than employees who don’t think their organisation is customer-centric (17 percent). The highest performing employees are twice as engaged as the lowest, the survey by ORC International suggests. The survey found that overall employee engagement in the UK remained steady at 58 percent his year but the trends show that personal and organisational performance make a difference to engagement.

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We need to keep a more open mind about open plan office design

We need to keep a more open mind about open plan office design

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

BelGroup7Most people will be aware that there has been an historic and enduring debate about whether open plan offices are a good or a bad thing. Past articles whether in the Guardian, Dezeen or across the pond in the Washington Post would typically suggest that they diminish productivity and foster a number of other workplace ills. However introducing open plan design principles into your office is almost certainly a good idea. You really just need to make sure that you provide your employees with a choice of settings that allows them to work somewhere that suits the task in hand whether it’s space for concentration or privacy for confidential conversations in order to make it work. It’s a complex and contentious issue so it’s worth asking where open plan works and where it really doesn’t. If you ask many employees working in open plan offices what is bothering them, they’ll probably tell you two things: that they cannot focus and they have no privacy.

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SMEs must offer flexible work or face recruitment and retention challenge

SMEs must offer flexible work or face recruitment and retention challenge 0

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace

Flexible workSMEs that neglect to offer flexible work options may find their employees decide to switch to somewhere that does, according to a survey from Regus. Over 3,000 professionals across a variety of sectors were quizzed on the importance of flexibility in their working life. SME respondents left very little doubt about the value of a flexible approach, with 92 percent of workers in SMEs saying that, faced with a choice of two similar jobs, they would choose the one that offered flexible work. A third of respondents (33 percent) also stated that they would have stayed longer in their previous jobs if flexibility had been offered. According to Richard Morris, UK CEO, Regus, SMEs should think long and hard about the type of roles that they are offering to today’s professionals. He argues that the days of the fixed hours, fixed location job are becoming as outdated as the office fax machine. Flexibility is no longer seen as a perk, it is now a key differentiator for talented individuals.

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Beyond monoculture + Future shock + Confusion over productivity 0

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, Insight Briefings, Newsletter, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

Insight_twitter_logo_2In this week’s Newsletter; Mark Eltringham pays tribute to futurologist Alvin Toffler who died this week and is famed for introducing the concept ‘Future shock’; and Charles Marks looks at the ways our noisy world was foretold by some of the 20th centuries’ greatest minds. A study finds that people find meetings more useful than is widely reported; many office workers struggle to understand the meaning of productivity; and spending on workplace technology doubled over the past five years. Older workers – not millennials – are most positive about working freelance; more US over 65s are working now than at any time; and agile workers report the highest levels of productivity. You can download our new Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design which examines the link between culture and workplace strategy and design; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

Increase in workplace technology spend will help make offices ‘more human’

Increase in workplace technology spend will help make offices ‘more human’ 0

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Agile workingSpending on workplace technology has doubled in the past five years as artificial intelligence is used to redefine how we connect in the workplace. That is the central claim of a new report from design firm Unispace based on interviews with CEOs and Heads of Real Estate at some 100 blue chip firms worldwide including KPMG, Cisco, Adidas, GE, Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Regus, Deloitte, UBS, Chevron, CitiGroup, and Ashurst, Respondents were asked to assess how they expect to use office space in 2020. According to the report, respondents indicated that they will continue increasing technology spend, irrevocably changing the traditional office space as we know it. Over the last five years, the average company spent 10 percent of its workplace budgets on technology with 30 percent going on services, partitioning and furniture. The trend has now reversed with technology spend outstripping other spend as companies strive to improve efficiency, collaboration, creativity, engagement and recruitment.

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