Search Results for: business

April 23, 2013

CIBSE creates diversity panel to reflect varied workforce

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

Efforts to encourage a more inclusive culture within the built environment appear to have moved up a gear. RIBA President Angela Brady has voiced concerns on the “gender inequality that continues to pervade the profession,” and now the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineering (CIBSE) has launched a Diversity Panel. Formed to encourage diversity in all its forms, whether race, gender, age, sexual orientation or disability, it is made up of CIBSE members who are keen to increase the routes to the profession through educational paths and by promoting a diverse workplace. Commented CIBSE: “The employment and retention of a varied workforce is integral to meet the building services engineering skills gap and to therefore improve building performance.” More →

April 23, 2013

Client focus as crucial as great design says RIBA

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Workplace design

The architectural profession can’t rely on great design alone, but needs to be more business and client focused warns the Royal Institute of British Architects. According to RIBA’s 2012/13 Business Benchmarking Survey, 62 per cent of practices do not have a business plan and, of those that do, only 13 per cent plan beyond one year. Interestingly, the survey also finds that 50 per cent of the profession’s work is won as the result of a direct approach with no competitive process. RIBA President Angela Brady said: “One key element exposed in these latest results is the acute split in business management, profitability and specialisms between large and small practices on how to make the most of their own position in the market place. What is clear is that if growth is on the agenda for a practice, then simply being a great designer, or a good project runner, is unlikely to be enough.” More →

April 22, 2013

NHS Estate inefficiencies present ‘Hyde Park sized opportunity’, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property, Public Sector

Consultants E C Harris have just published the latest edition of their report into the NHS Estate which claims that the service has an opportunity to save around £2.3 billion a year in the way it manages and procures space. Every report needs headlines to go with and in this case E C Harris have plumped for the idea that the NHS is underutilising space equivalent to an area the size of Hyde Park and that an eighth of the estate is unsuitable for its intended use, equivalent to ‘three Hyde Parks’. Last year’s edition of the report claimed the potential saving of disposable space was the equivalent of ‘264 Premier League football pitches’, which at least has the advantage of being comprehensible for those who can’t envisage how big Hyde Park is.

April 19, 2013

Flexibility not finance motivates Generation Y workers

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

Millennial or Generation Y workers are not the bunch of entitled youths we’ve been led to believe. Those born between 1980 and 1995 say they would choose workplace flexibility, work/life balance and the opportunity for overseas assignments over financial rewards. PwC’s NexGen survey reveals that millennials view work as a thing rather than a place that requires a traditional nine to five routine, so are more likely to stay in a job if they feel supported and appreciated, are part of a cohesive team and have greater flexibility over where and how much they work. This contrasts with the non-millennial generation, who place greater importance on pay and development opportunities.

April 19, 2013

Female-friendly employers named as progress of women in boardrooms stalls

by Sara Bean • Comment, Knowledge, News, Workplace

In an interview this week on BBC’s Newsnight, Facebook’s CFO Sheryl Sandberg, revealed how she’d come to notice a growing gender imbalance as she moved up the corporate ladder. As her new book Lean in, points out, 30 years after women became 50 per cent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions. This is just one of many reasons why the publication this week of the Times Top 50 Employers for Women list of the UK organisations that are leading the way in gender equality in the workplace is to be welcomed.

April 19, 2013

High wire act: balancing attitudes and expectations in the workplace

by Simon Heath • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

This week, with some fanfare and a modest splash on social media, CBRE, the Global real estate services provider launched The Workshop Idea. One of its stated aims is the revitalisation of our high streets and, with the introduction of local venues in a number of differing guises, an increase in the degree of choice and flexibility of places in which to work when not travelling into the office. A whitepaper is due out shortly and we will cover this specific initiative once that has been given the proper consideration and thoughtful analysis it deserves. However, it raises some initial thoughts on expectations, attitudes and behaviours that need to be overcome in the way we view our high streets and places of work and the degree to which those who provide services respond.

April 18, 2013

Fully mobile workplace for Cisco’s new Singapore regional HQ

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

IT giant Cisco has opened a new regional headquarters in Singapore that features utilisation-based space allocation that for the first time allows all of its staff to work just about anywhere in the building, using whichever kind of mobile device they prefer. The move reflects the findings of Cisco’s recent report which revealed that growing numbers of workers prefer to use an iPad or iPhone rather than a PC. The new offices, located at UE Biz Hub, within the Changi Business Park in Singapore, brings together 1,000 employees from Cisco’s previous four offices around the island and has reduced around 40 per cent of the required workspace.

April 17, 2013

Older workers remain untapped resource for employers

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, Legal news, News, Workplace

Employers who ignore Britain’s growing population of older workers could suffer skills shortages and lose an important competitive edge, warns a new government guide. “Employing older workers”, published by the Department for Work and Pensions, warns that Britain is running out of workers. There are 13.5 million job vacancies which need to be filled over the next ten years, but only seven million young people are projected to leave school and college over that time. Yet despite a predicted surge in numbers of employees over 50, employers remain reluctant to recruit older people.

April 17, 2013

Government approach to efficiency yields savings, but is it sustainable?

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector

A new report from the UK’s National Audit Office (NAO)has praised the work of the Efficiency & Reform Group (ERG), part of the Cabinet Office in delivering over £5 billion of savings in central government but has challenged the ERG to make them sustainable over the longer term to meet the Government’s target of making annual savings of £20 billion by 2015. The NAO report welcomes the achievements of the ERG so far but expresses its concerns that many of the savings had been achieved with quick wins related to the renegotiation of existing contracts, staff cuts and the cancellation of marketing budgets, which had already begun to tail off.

April 16, 2013

UK employers gain confidence to start recruitment of new staff

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Public Sector, Workplace

UK businesses are slowly gaining confidence in hiring new staff this year and the majority of employers (79 per cent) don’t plan any job losses. This is according to the Barclays Job Creation Survey 2013 which found that while the proportion of larger employers that plan to create jobs this year has fallen to 65 per cent from 72 per cent in 2012, mid-sized businesses hiring intentions are up to 71 per cent from 65 per cent. The majority of those employers who do intend to hire remain cautious however, with 73 per cent planning to have sales growth lead to job creation as opposed to job creation creating sales (2012: 77 per cent).

April 15, 2013

UK firms want to stay in EU but majority favour employment law changes

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

A new report from the British Chambers of Commerce shows that while the majority of businesses still favour the UK’s ongoing membership of the European Union, the majority would like to see significant changes in certain key legislative areas including employment law, health and safety regulations and regional development. The EU Business Barometer from the BCC gathered responses from around 4,400 firms of all sizes and from a range of sectors and found that over half (54 per cent) wanted changes to employment law, a similar proportion wanted changes to Health and Safety laws (46 per cent) and a third changes to policies related to regional development.

April 15, 2013

Better reporting required on employee engagement and wellbeing

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

There is a need for more open reporting on employee engagement and wellbeing by FTSE 100 organisations according to an inaugural report into wellness by Business in the Community. The first Workwell FTSE 100 benchmark, which analysed how FTSE 100 organisations manage their 6.3 million employees gave an average score of just 21 per cent, which said BITC was “not unexpected” at this first stage of development. The highest scoring Workwell indicators were Diversity and Inclusion (at 50 per cent of total marks) and Health and Safety (at 44 per cent), showing how compliance drives measurement and reporting.