Search Results for: business

April 10, 2017

Concerns mount as local government investment in commercial property hit £1.3 bn last year ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Public Sector

Fresh concerns have been raised about the levels of investment by the UK’s local authorities in commercial property. New figures published by CBRE suggest that councils spent around £1.3 billion on commercial property in 2016, most of it borrowed from a Central Government scheme not designed for that purpose. The news is certain to raise alarm across the UK and especially in Westminster. In November of last year, a report from the Public Accounts Committee warned that the increasing scale of commercial activity taken on by local authorities carried a high level of risk and that the council employees and councillors making decisions often lacked the skills and knowledge needed to take on such projects. At that time, the Government put the level of activity at around £1 billion. The fact that this figure is now significantly higher and mostly borrowed money is sure to increase concerns.

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April 7, 2017

New guide aims to advise employers on how to prepare for Brexit ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Legal news, News, Workplace

Sick of hearing about Brexit? Of course you are. Nevertheless, things have only just begin and we’d better get used to it so consultancy XpertHR has launched a new guide for UK employers on how to prepare for Brexit, after Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article beginning the ‘divorce proceedings’. The guide, which the authors claim will be updated as negotiations between the UK and EU progress, focuses on how employers can prepare for potential changes to the right of free movement. It outlines the practical steps employers can take and suggests how they could support their European workforce in the UK. The report suggests that, while the Free Movement Directive, which allows European Economic Area (EEA) citizens and their dependants to live, work and study in any country within the EEA, will remain in force for the next two years, free movement is set to be a thing of the past with EEA nationals expected to become subject to an immigration regime under UK law.

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April 5, 2017

Drastic changes needed to workplace laws as age of automation dawns ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Technology

The rise of robots and automation in the workplace will lead to drastic changes to laws across the world, a new report suggests. The present wave of automation, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) – the development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence – is creating a gap between current legislation and new laws necessary for an emerging workplace reality, states a report published by the International Bar Association Global Employment Institute (IBA GEI). Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace focuses on potential future trends in AI, and the likely impact intelligent systems will have on the labour market, companies, employees’ working time, remuneration and the workplace environment.

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April 5, 2017

Bumpy ride and slow uptake in first two years of shared parental leave rules ⁰

by Sara Bean • Features, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

It is two years since the introduction of Shared Parental Leave (SPL), where couples were given the ability to share leave surrounding the arrival of a new addition to their family; and while sharing leave is seen to have a profound beneficial impact for the family, there are still plenty of barriers. According to research from My Family Care, one of the largest is that there is a sense that it involves a big risk with real concerns around the impact on a father’s career if they were to take more than two or three months off. A second report from the charity Working Families found that despite the initial slow take up of new rights, more than half of fathers would use Shared Parental Leave. However, snapshot figures for the first three months of 2016 showed that 3,000 new parents were taking up the new right. If the maternity leave figure is taken as indicative of the number of couples with new babies at the time the new figures are in line with the bottom of the government’s 2013 estimated take-up range – between two and eight per cent of fathers.

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April 4, 2017

Commercial property investment in London’s West End at record high ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Despite its reputation as the most expensive office location on Earth, commercial property investment in London’s West End has hit a record high of £1.93 billion in the first quarter of 2017, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The figure is up by 22 per cent on the five-year first quarter average, surpassing the West End’s previous record of £1.8 billion in 2013. The report suggests that interest from overseas investors and several large deals had boosted the figures, including the sale of the Facebook Campus and One Kingdom Street. Across the whole of central London, the total volume invested hit £4.18 billion – up from £3.7 billion in the same period last year and approaching the 2015 level of £4.6 billion. The City also enjoyed a strong first quarter, with total transaction volumes increasing nine per cent on the year prior to £2.25 billion.

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April 3, 2017

Brexit should be a chance for the UK to enshrine employment rights ⁰

by Chris Rowley • Comment, Legal news, Workplace

Exploitative employment contracts continue to receive widespread media attention – from shaming the businesses who use them, to prompting questions regarding workers’ rights in Parliament. In light of the Prime Minister officially signing Article 50, to trigger the formal start of the Brexit negotiation period, now is a good time to consider how this will affect the UK’s tarnished relationship with zero-hours contracts? Zero-hours contracts, and their equivalents, are demeaning policies, often backed-up by capricious management practices. They are non-negotiable, offering draconian flexibility in numerical, temporal and spatial terms and conditions. But would continuing with EU membership have made a difference? The evidence reveals otherwise.

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April 3, 2017

The point everybody is missing about the backtrack on remote working by IBM ⁰

by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working

IBM recently announced that it was going to consolidate its 2,600 marketing department in six locations around the US. Nothing wrong with that you may say, but as part of the consolidation it has to told people to relocate so they can attend the office every day and workers that had been part of IBM’s home working initiative for decades told to turn up at the office every day or find another job. The reason for this radical and trauma creating shift for IBM’s people causing increased commute times, social upheaval and increased carbon emissions is ‘innovation’. IBM needs to transform itself, move faster and come up with new ideas faster. All makes sense…..or does it?

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March 31, 2017

America’s corporate occupiers streamline portfolios due to economic uncertainty ⁰

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

While talent continues to reign supreme on the list of top concerns for US companies a growing number of respondents to CBRE’s annual Americas Occupier Survey cited economic uncertainty as a top challenge, up from 36 percent in 2016 to 52 percent. As a result, 87 percent of corporate occupiers report that they are managing to this uncertainty by disposing of surplus space and/or implementing more efficient workplace designs to prepare their portfolios for the future. Only 26 percent of respondents expect to expand their portfolios over the next two years, down from 38 percent in the 2016 survey. Approximately one-half of the 2017 survey’s respondents indicated that the size of their portfolios would remain stable with 2016 levels. However, while uncertainty is driving many real estate decisions, creating a workplace experience focused on talent remains top of mind for the majority of occupiers surveyed.

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March 30, 2017

Levels of employee engagement are declining around the world ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

As the UK triggers Article 50 to leave the EU, France goes through what could be a game changing Presidential election and the United States continues to struggle with an increasingly divisive administration it’s perhaps not surprising that global uncertainty appears to be pushing up levels of employee scepticism. Globally, employee engagement declined for the first time since 2012, according to a report from Aon Hewitt. According to an analysis of more than five million employees at more than 1,000 organisations around the world, levels dropped from 65 percent in 2015 to 63 percent in 2016. Less than one quarter (24 percent) of employees are highly engaged and 39 percent are moderately engaged. “The rise in populist movements like those in the U.S., the U.K. and other regions is creating angst within organisations as they anticipate the potential for a decrease in free labour flow,” explained Ken Oehler, Global Culture & Engagement Practice leader at Aon Hewitt.

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March 29, 2017

Less rigid flexible working practices tend to produce higher performing staff ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Flexible working can increase employee job satisfaction and organisational commitment, but staff who work flexibly under an ad hoc arrangement appear to perform better than those who go through a more formal process, according to research from Cass Business School and Cranfield School of Management. The research focused on the relationship between flexible working arrangements designed to accommodate employees’ needs (e.g. remote working, flexitime, compressed working) and performance appraisals and considered the indirect effects of employee performance via job satisfaction and organisational commitment. An analysis of whether the associations varied according to whether the flexible working arrangement was set up via a formal policy or informal negotiation between the employee and line manager revealed that employees who established flexible working arrangements through informal discussion with their line manager were judged to perform much better than those who use formal flexible working arrangements.

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March 28, 2017

London’s law firms cut back on half of new leases as they rethink their real estate ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property, Workplace design

The number of new leases taken up by the largest law firms in London fell by more than 50 percent last year, claims a new report from CBRE. The study of the 100 largest firms in the capital found that the firms are rethinking their real estate strategy in the light of new developments in flexible working, technology and the result of the Brexit referendum. According to the report, the total space taken through new leases in 2016 was just under 500,000 sq ft – 55 percent down on 2015 and 36 percent below the 10-year average. The report found that no law firms had signed deals for more than 90,000 sq ft last year. The largest deal of 2016 was CMS’ leasing of 84,199 sq ft at Cannon Place ahead of its merger with Nabarro and Olswang, with lawyers from the three firms set to consolidate into one building.

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March 28, 2017

Post Brexit UK sets out its case at MIPIM 2017 ⁰

by Anna King • Cities, Features, Property

Cannes-based international real estate fair MIPIM has always been a magnet for cities, determined to extoll their virtues to investors, developers and occupiers, but this year the UK was in charm overdrive. Buoyed no doubt in part by the presence of the UK government’s Department of International Trade (DIT), waving its ‘open for business’ flag for UK PLC, many of the towns and cities that would normally have ploughed their own furrow, instead came together to leverage critical mass. So Bradford and Leeds combined, conurbations across the central belt conjoined on a Midlands pavilion, and so on. Whether it was panic or confidence, the net result was an unusually prominent UK presence, up a quarter on last year. Of course the UK is just one nationality among the 24,200 real estate and city professionals from 100 countries who come together in Cannes every March.