Search Results for: business

September 18, 2013

Winners announced for outstanding leadership in sustainable buildings awards

by Sara Bean • Environment, News, Property

City Green Court building in Prague

British Land, Spanish city Vitoria-Gasteiz and the City Green Court building in Prague, Czech Republic, have clinched the top spots in the inaugural World Green Building Council Leadership Awards – Europe Region. The awards, which were announced to coincide with World Green Building Week 2013 – honour leadership and best practice in green building policy, construction projects and corporate initiatives. British Land won the category for Business Leadership in Sustainability; Vitoria-Gasteiz picked up the award for Leadership in City Policy for Green Building award; and office building City Green Court, topped the Leadership in Building Design and Performance category for its sustainability features. (more…)

September 18, 2013

Service providers taking desperate measures to combat “loaded dice” procurement

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Legal news, News

Building rapport with a potential client is an important part of the procurement process, but how far do you go? According to new research, some service providers have resorted to desperate measures to bag new business, including hiring the client’s daughter; bringing in actors and equipment to make their organisation seem larger than it is and even helping the prospect write the Request for Proposal to ensure that it matched the services they could deliver. The reason, according to findings unveiled today by blur Group is that despite the majority of decision makers believing there are better service providers available than their existing network, the vast majority (89%) were still likely to approach their existing service providers when a new project arose. (more…)

September 17, 2013

New research sheds light on why executives persist in stressful work habits

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

There’s a fine line between enjoying the stimulation of a demanding job and feeling burnt out. Lloyds’ chief executive, Antonio Horta-Osorio made headline news in 2011 after being signed off sick with stress and exhaustion. As the recent suicides of two Swiss banking executives have shown, it’s often difficult for pressurised workaholics to admit the job has become too much. A recent US academic study provides some clues as to why senior executives persist in working to unhealthy levels; while research by serviced office provider Business Environment reveals how UK office workers are also prone to stressful work habits. One fifth (21%) take work home at least one to two times a week, and one in five employees (19.6%) have taken time off work due to stress. (more…)

September 13, 2013

100% Design: Holding a mirror up to the way we design and manage workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Furniture, Products, Workplace design

Hanging Room at 100% Design

If art holds a mirror up to nature, shouldn’t the design of workplace products hold a mirror up to the way we work? By definition, the things with which we surround ourselves should tell us something about the way we see ourselves and what we do. It should be possible to infer from the design of the products suppliers offer to the market what is changing in the workplace. This isn’t always the case, of course, especially for those firms who see design not so much in terms of putting lipstick on a gorilla as telling you that what you’re looking at isn’t in fact a gorilla at all. It’s Scarlett Johansson.

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September 12, 2013

Growing commercial occupier demand set to price firms out of the City fringe

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

A “west-to-east” migration, focussing predominantly on Clerkenwell and the western City core, is continuing amongst media and service sector businesses seeking more affordable London rents. But according to Cluttons’ latest West End Office Market report, many firms seeking the combination of value and idiosyncratic space are set to be priced out of the current City fringe. The area between the City and West End – branded Noho by estate agents – is attracting a new wave of private equity and extraction firms, willing to pay premium rents for new or pipeline space just north of Oxford Street. Meanwhile, prime office rents in Mayfair / St James’s have broken through the £100 per sq ft ceiling once again as a handful of tenants continue to favour location over quality. (more…)

September 11, 2013

Research reveals UK’s shrinking workplace space standards and regional disparities

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

The latest Occupier Density Study from the British Council for Offices reveals that London and the South East of England have some of the most spacious workplaces in the UK, in spite of the fact that London has the most expensive office space on Earth. The BCO research found that the South West has the highest density at 8.6 sq. m. per workstation while London (11.3 sq. m.) and the South East (12.7 sq. m.) have lower densities than all UK regions apart from Wales (11.4 sq. m.). Yet recent research from Cushman and Wakefield has identified London as the world’s most expensive city to rent office space and a report last week from BNP Paribas revealed the large disparities in total occupancy costs between London and the rest of the UK.

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September 10, 2013

We deserve better than a polarised debate about cellular v open plan offices

by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Jacques Tati’s Playtime

Stimulated by a number of rather unsubtle commercial interests, the ‘in’ workplace discussion seems to have swung from ‘collaboration’ i.e. organisations need more new spaces for formal and informal collaborative interactions, to ‘distraction’ i.e. open plan workplaces are creating a loss of productivity because people whose work requires concentration are impeded by constant interruption. The implication of the latter is that people should keep their ‘cubes’ and open-plan should be avoided at all costs. You can see pretty quickly where the commercial axes are being ground can’t you.

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September 9, 2013

Construction sector awarded £60m for development of more energy efficient buildings

by Sara Bean • Environment, News, Property

£60 million to help the UK construction industry design and develop more energy efficient buildings is to be awarded by the Government’s Technology Strategy Board. The projects, which address the challenges of both new and existing buildings, are expected to leverage in an additional £60 million of industry investment and £30 million extra funding from across government and other agencies. The board has already invested £83 million of funding through the Low Impact Buildings Innovation Platform, (LIBIP). It aims to help the UK construction industry deliver buildings with a much lower environmental impact by investing jointly with industry and other funders in projects to bring innovative solutions to a growing market for more environmentally friendly buildings. (more…)

September 8, 2013

Full details of programme confirmed for Workplace Week 2013

by Mark Eltringham • News

Details of Workplace Week in November this year have been announced by the event’s organisers. Workplace Week is, as its name suggests, a week-long showcase of workplace and workforce innovation that’s taking place between 4th and 8th of November 2013. As well as giving people the chance to discuss some of the most topical and progressive ideas relating to the modern workplace, it also aims to raise as much money as possible for Children in Need. Participants this year include AWA, Herman Miller and KPMG with convention speakers from IBM, the I-Opener Institute, BDO and Brother. The website can be found here.

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September 6, 2013

Mobile apps will dominate workplace communications within next three years

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology

The news this week that Microsoft is to purchase Nokia’s mobile phone business for £4.6bn is a reminder of how rapidly app-based communications tools have transformed mobile phones and computer devices. Within the workplace, fragmentation and lack of standardisation of the technologies have resulted in organisations often using multiple tools, including that of employees’ own consumer smartphones and tablets. According to analysts Gartner most collaboration applications will be equally available on desktops, mobile phones, tablets and browsers by 2016. Over the next three to five years it predicts, every business will be using mobile collaboration tools – boosted by BYOD, personal cloud file sharing and the increasing availability of mobile applications. (more…)