Search Results for: change

February 13, 2017

Neuroscience can function as a management tool for personal development ⁰

More and more employers, especially big corporates, are looking at ways to improve employee satisfaction, creativity and productivity. The business of managing change in the workplace has received much attention. It’s a clever game, and one that’s fuelling a booming growth in neuroscientific consulting. Coaching staff to embrace change and think about personal growth, alongside individualised learning programmes are hot topics in the business world. Brain science is a growth industry and it’s providing interesting answers to many important questions about why affecting change in the workplace has historically suffered low success rates, and how that can change.

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February 10, 2017

Reflections on the future of work from a mirrored room ⁰

by Neil Usher • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

This is the first of two responses to an excellent article by Antony Slumbers, in this instance offering that his views offer too conservative a view of how technology will shape the future of work. Dr Pangloss, the teacher of metaphysics in Candide, Voltaire’s hilariously sarcastic attack on Leibnizian optimism, offered a timeless and universal explanation of the most cruel and tragic events as “the best of all possible worlds”. I would argue however that far from creating a landscape of optimism, it facilitates a dismissal of all significant change as an irrelevance given that effectively we have no option other than to happily accept it. For example, whether property transitions to a service or remains locked in its existing institutional quagmire, it doesn’t matter. Either way its fine as it’s the best we can hope for. Accept it, happily. A Panglossian future only looks appealing if you’re –well, Dr Pangloss.

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February 9, 2017

Large number of organisations remain under-prepared for a cyber attack ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology

Over a third (35 percent) of businesses targeted in a cyber-attack in the past 12 months have taken no extra measures to protect themselves in the future, claims a new report. The study of 3,000 companies in the UK, US and Germany, conducted for Hiscox says that more than half (53 percent) of businesses in the three countries are ill-prepared to deal with cyber-attacks. It also found that more than half (57 percent) of companies surveyed admit they have been the target of at least one cyber-attack in the past 12 months, while one in four (26 percent) companies has been targeted three times or more with the average cost per incident to UK businesses estimated to be £42,779. Although three out of five businesses (62 percent) took less than 24 hours to uncover their biggest cyber incident in the past 12 months, and a quarter (26 percent) did so within an hour of its occurrence, nearly half (46 percent) of businesses took two days or more to get back to business as usual.

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February 8, 2017

Take up of flexible space confirms London’s status as a global coworking pioneer ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property

The ‘gig economy’ continues to drive London’s thriving flexible workplace sector which accounted for 8.8 percent of total office take-up in 2016, according to a new study from Cushman & Wakefield. The report claims that the pace of development will continue for the foreseeable future, not least because of the number of corporate occupiers taking on coworking space. Flexible office space accounted for more than 4.5m sq ft of take up in London over the past five years as the capital has cemented its place as the leading global market for coworking, according to the research. In 2016, flexible office take-up amounted to 842,888 sq ft across Central London, representing 8.8 percent of total take-up – slightly above the five-year average of 8.4 percent.

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February 7, 2017

Brexit impact on UK’s future workforce size could undermine productivity ⁰

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

With the UK facing at best, very slow growth, or even shrinkage, of the working population, future changes to migration levels into the UK due to Brexit could exacerbate the financial stresses and strains caused by the UK’s aging workforce. This is according to the Mercer Workforce Monitor™ which claims that companies will need to invest heavily in automation, sectors of society historically under-represented in the workforce and look at ways of increasing productivity. According to the analysis, since 2013, the levels of EU and non-EU born immigration into the UK workforce has filled a gap left by the aging of the nation’s UK-born workforce which sees more in this group leave the workforce – through retirement, emigration or death – than enter it. National growth is closely linked to workforce growth; so reducing its future size would create major headwinds for the UK economy and since another 3.4 million people will reach the age of 65 in 2030; unless the UK decides to make drastic changes to the funding of pensions, health and social care, this smaller working population will be required to proportionally spend more of their income to care for their older citizens.

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February 7, 2017

Employers urged to create age friendly workplaces to help retain older workers ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employers should provide full and equal access to flexible working arrangements, occupational health support and appropriate workplace adaptations to help older workers to manage health conditions at work. This is according to a new report from the Centre for Ageing Better, Fulfilling work: what do older workers value about work and why? which identifies the characteristics of work that are important to people aged 50 and over, and explores actions employers can take to attract and retain them. Understanding what older workers want is the first step in helping employers, policy makers and others create age-friendly workplaces. By 2020, one in three workers will be over 50 but while the employment rate for all working age adults remains at a record high of nearly 75%, for people over 60, this falls to around 50%. and there are currently 12 million people heading towards an insufficient retirement income. Ageing Better commissioned the Institute of Employment Studies to carry out the study as to ways of helping people stay at work and the report finds that health is the most important factor affecting older workers’ decisions to continue in work, ahead of job satisfaction and job quality.

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February 3, 2017

Higher levels of uncertainty blamed for drop in UK commercial construction activity ⁰

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

Commercial construction activity in the UK for the 12 months to the end of 2016 fell to £16.7 billion, down 14.1 percent on the previous quarter, according to JLL and Glenigan’s Q4 2016 UK Commercial Construction Activity Index. In London, activity declined in a quarterly comparison but increased 2.7 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Construction started at 22 Bishopsgate in London City which will provide a total of 1.3 million sq ft of office space, and is scheduled to complete in 2019. The 70,000 sq ft office refurbishment of 33 Gutter Lane also commenced in Q4 with completion scheduled for the second half of the year. Elsewhere it was a mixed picture across the regions with commercial construction activity increasing in the North East, South West and Wales, albeit from a relatively low base; but activity was more subdued in other regions, particularly in Yorkshire and the Humber were the level of construction activity fell 22.0 percent y-o-y.

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January 30, 2017

The Boston Consulting Group: pushing the art and science of workplace design ⁰

by Jo Sutherland • Case studies, Features, Workplace design

This month, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) opened its doors to its latest office in what’s been described as the new heart of New York; namely, the up-and-coming Hudson Yards development. Thought leaders from the world of workplace design including a representative from including Workplace Insight were invited to the launch of the new workspace to find out how the world’s leading advisor on business strategy has pushed the art and science of workplace design. BCG, which is consistently ranked near the top of Fortune’s annual Best Companies to Work For survey, worked with an array of experts for input into the design and use of innovative technologies, including Gensler, Humanyze and Unwork. Leesman was brought in to offer a neutral voice when the project was already in motion to validate the design proposal.

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January 26, 2017

Global workforce fears it won’t adapt fast enough to the digital workplace ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Workers across the globe are excited by the potential for technology to enhance their work lives and create new career opportunities, but over a third (40 percent) fear that they won’t be able to keep up with the rate of change required by digital business, claims a new survey. Across Europe 77 percent of workers acknowledge that disruption and increased competition will require more people with digital skills in order to compete on a global scale; however, the level of encouragement employees believe they are currently receiving to drive change in the workplace varies greatly throughout the world. Only 64 percent of respondents in the US saying they feel empowered by their company culture to lead innovation, whereas 90 percent of employees in Mexico feel their workplaces encourages them to drive change. The BMC study of over 3,200 office workers in 12 countries worldwide found that 88 percent of office workers across the world strongly believe that employers must create an innovative culture to retain staff and enable them to be successful with increasingly digital roles and responsibilities.

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January 25, 2017

The office of the future should be defined by the age of its inhabitants. But not in the way you think ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

The office of the future is most commonly seen as the habitat of Millennials. But there are all sorts of flaws in this assumption. Apart from the casual stereotyping of a diverse demographic of people, the most glaring is the fact that the workforce is ageing rather than getting younger, and that most offices must now meet the needs of a wider range of age groups than at any time in their history. A new report from Totaljobs seeks to redress the balance in this regard. It suggests that some of the key features of the office of the future will not be slides and ping pong tables but flexible working areas, quiet spaces, spas and private medical rooms. The study claims that the fixation with Millennials means that a large number of older workers now feel that the design of offices does not meet their needs.

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January 24, 2017

The impact of technology on corporate real estate: A Panglossian future? ⁰

by Antony Slumbers • Features, Property, Technology, Workplace design

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the concept of Loss Aversion in 1984, highlighting people’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Most studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains. Lose £100 and we will feel a remorse that easily outweighs winning £100. In a similar fashion we find it very hard to see future positives when confronted with short term loses. We understand easily what we have lost but cannot imagine what there is to be gained. Furthermore, as Frederic Bastiat wrote in an 1850 paper, “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen”, man has a tendency to “pursue a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, rather than a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil”. Put these together and it is no wonder that, by and large, the future of work, corporate real estate and the workplace is so widely misunderstood.

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January 24, 2017

Many business leaders lack the skills to manage and develop people ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Two new reports published today reveal a dearth of people management skills among both current and future leaders. Over half of the HR professionals polled for the latest CIPD HR Outlook survey believe too many leaders lack the people management behaviours and skills needed to get the best from their workforce. One of the reasons behind this is suggested in the results of a survey from Robert Half which claims that half (50 percent) of management candidates lack leadership skills, with nearly one in five (18 percent) candidates falling short on planning skills, and 14 percent lacking communication skills. In the CIPD poll, people management was voted the top leadership skill needed by organisations over the next three years. However, out of those who chose performance management, more than half (53 percent) said leaders’ current skills in this area were ineffective. Similarly, 44 percent of HR professionals felt senior leaders’ skills were ineffective.

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