Search Results for: collaboration

Groundbreaking White Collar Factory building opens in London

by • Company news, Property, Workplace design

Derwent London has announced the opening of White Collar Factory. The firm claims that the project is one of the most visionary developments of recent years, White Collar Factory combines the look of a well-built industrial space with modern office design. Located near Old Street Roundabout in North East London and designed by architectural practice Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), the features of the White Colla Factory include 3.5m high ceilings, concrete core cooling, a 150m rooftop running track, communal roof terrace, a new landscaped public space and the ability to accommodate flexible occupation. The 293,000 sq ft mixed-use development includes a 237,000 sq ft office tower, where the first tenants are already in occupation. Tenants include Adobe, AKTII, BGL, Box.com, Capital One, Runpath, Spark44, The Office Group and Workshop Coffee. The tower forms part of a new urban campus with a further 56,000 sq ft of offices, studios, incubator space, restaurants and apartments, set around a new landscaped area of public realm, ‘Old Street Yard’.

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Majority of US office workers demand technology that allows them to work anywhere

Majority of US office workers demand technology that allows them to work anywhere

by • Facilities management, News, Technology, Workplace

Majority of US office workers demand technology that allows them to work anywhereThe majority of North American office workers expect their employers to provide technology that allows them to work from wherever they choose and three quarter of employees (74 percent) would rather leave their job to work for an organisation that would allow them to work remotely more often, even if their salary stayed the same. This is because working remotely has moved from being a work perk to a necessity of 21st century living, claims a new study by Softchoice. Collaboration Unleashed: Empowering Individuals to Work Together from Anywhere, found that 85 percent of North American office workers expect their employers to provide technology that allows them to work from their desk, in a meeting room, at home, or the coffee shop down the street.

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High expectations mask large gap between understanding of artificial intelligence and its implementation

High expectations mask large gap between understanding of artificial intelligence and its implementation

by • AI, News, Technology

New research published by the Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review suggests that there remains a wide gap between the understanding and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) at most companies. The global study of over 3,000 firms and industry experts claims that almost 85 percent of executives believe AI will allow their companies to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage. However, only about one in five companies has incorporated AI in some offerings or processes. The new report claims to identify the key characteristics of AI leaders and offers companies a starting point for developing an AI strategy.

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Remote workers perceived as less valued by management than office based staff

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Remote workers perceived as less valued to workplace by office based staffAmerican office workers think it’s twice as difficult for remote workers to build relationships with the boss, make work friends, collaborate with their team and navigate the workplace culture than in-office workers, according to recent research. The “Reality of the Remote Worker Report,” claims that remote workers tend to have their presence go by unnoticed, with 43 percent of office workers believing it’s harder for remote workers to be seen in the workplace than those non-remote. The report, conducted online amongst over 1,500 US workers by YouGov for CyberLink, found a number of disadvantages for remote workers; with nearly 1 in 6 (15 percent) of office colleagues thinking that remote workers are less valued by a company, 20 percent believing they’re promoted less often and 8 percent even viewing them as less trustworthy. And office workers who were asked about their own concerns about working remotely expressed a range of potential frustrations.

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The United Workplace launches to support business workplace strategy on a global scale

The United Workplace launches to support business workplace strategy on a global scale

by • Company news, Workplace design

A global collaboration of workplace experts has been formed to assist companies in the development of their workplaces. Workplace specialists Fourfront Group and Amicus are the founding partners of The United Workplace (TUW), an organisation set up to share expertise and knowledge and deliver workplace design, fit-outs and commercial furniture consultancy and installation worldwide. The network comprises of Fourfront Group in the UK, Amicus which delivers workplace design and fit-out projects in Australia, Ware Malcomb an architectural practice in the US, and Summertown Interiors, a United Arab Emirates fit-out contractor.

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Too much information is leading to a communications overload for many employees

Too much information is leading to a communications overload for many employees

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace

Too much information is leading to a communications overload for employees

Employees are experiencing ‘communications overload’ as a result of their organisation’s attempts to keep them continually informed, a new survey claims. According to research by Clarizen, 81 percent of employers say despite taking steps to improve communication among employees, they still lack a way to keep projects on track and provide management oversight. This is because efforts to improve collaboration among employees by opening new lines of communication can have the opposite effect. Instead, employees suffer from the modern workplace malady known as ‘communication overload,’ a productivity-killing infirmity characterised by too many meaningless meetings and an excessive number of emails, notifications and alerts that are devoid of importance, context or urgency. A common challenge reported by a majority of respondents is that employees, departments and teams are spread across several sites, or team members work from home. 70 percent say they need to go beyond creating additional lines of communication, and facilitate better collaboration among employees so they can work together to meet objectives, coordinate activities and monitor progress.

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Employees with higher levels of trust and autonomy at work are more productive

Employees with higher levels of trust and autonomy at work are more productive

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace

Employees who feel trusted by their employer to manage how and when they work for themselves can improve their levels of productivity, a new survey suggests. The research by Peldon Rose claims that UK workers rate feelings of trust and autonomy from employers and colleagues as increasingly important in keeping them productive and happy in the workplace. But the survey also shows that many employers are failing to provide employees with the resources and support they need to manage their workload and keep them motivated. Although the majority of staff (59 percent) say they work most productively in the office, a third (33 percent) wish they were more trusted to manage how and when they work and 42 percent say that their office does not support a culture that allows them to work flexibly. Despite the clear value that staff place on trust and autonomy, employers are overlooking an opportunity to create a confident and self-motivated workforce.

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How workplace design shapes and reflects organisational hierarchies

How workplace design shapes and reflects organisational hierarchies

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The roots of the open plan office can be traced back to the 1960s when post-capitalism was beginning to emerge as a political and intellectual movement. The social and political upheaval that followed World War Two and the emphasis on the autonomous, motivated and engaged worker combined to inspire designers and architects to develop a new and more “modern” way of working. A mode of work characterised by an increased emphasis on social relations and flattened hierarchies. The open plan office was heralded as the ‘office of the future’; a progressive, transformative and near utopian design concept which would enable its occupants to thrive and succeed in a more socialist world. Yet the proponents of the open plan do not appear to have been fulfilled in large corporate businesses in the UK. I’d like to suggest that this failure is not a design fault but rather a problem caused by a clash of ideologies. Upon closer inspection, it appears that these larger corporations have not fully been able to shift into the social-democratic model of collaborative, open working styles.

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Google wins approval for new London headquarters

Google wins approval for new London headquarters

by • Cities, News, Property

Google’s much talked about plan to build a new London headquarters in King’s Cross has been approved by Camden Council. The building, designed by Thomas Heatherwick and BIG in collaboration with BDP replicates some of the campus facilities now associated with a tech campus including a garden, 200m jogging track on the roof, swimming pool, massage parlours exercise  rooms and facilities for badminton, five-a-side football and basketball. The finished 11-storey building will be more than one million square feet in size of which Google will occupy 650,000 sq ft. Motorised timber blinds on the outside of the building keep direct sunlight out. Solar panels on the roof will deliver an annual output of 20MWh. The main contractor Lendlease will start on site next year on a contract believed to be worth around £350m.

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Whatever you might be told, this is not the Office of the Future

Whatever you might be told, this is not the Office of the Future

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

office of the futureIt seems like we don’t have to wait more than a few days at a time before some or other organisation is making its own prognoses about how we will be working in the future, especially at this time of year. The thing these reports about the office of the future all share in common, other than a standardised variant of a title and a common lexicon of agility, empowerment, collaboration and connectivity, is a narrow focus based on several of their key narratives and assumptions. While these are rarely false per se, and often offer some insights of variable worth, they also usually exhibit a desire to look at only one part of the elephant. The more serious reports invariably make excellent points and identify key trends, it has to be said. However, across them there are routine flaws in their thinking that can lead them to make narrow and sometimes incorrect assumptions and so draw similarly flawed conclusions. Here are just a few.

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Link between offices and wellbeing is too important for landlords and occupiers to ignore

Link between offices and wellbeing is too important for landlords and occupiers to ignore

by • Facilities management, News, Property, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Developers and landlords who invest to create offices that embody the occupier-driven focus on wellbeing will reap their rewards commercially while those that don’t face diminishing returns, according to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield. The Well Workplace report claims to map out the major trends, opportunities and challenges of the future facing owners and occupiers of commercial office space due to the growing emphasis on employee health and vitality as part of the work environment.  Improved lighting, layout and use of plants are all known to benefit wellbeing and can increase employee performance. Gains through boosting performance far outweigh potential cost savings through real estate efficiencies – making the imperative for occupiers clear, according to the report’s authors.

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Top performing organisations build six elements into their design

Top performing organisations build six elements into their design

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Adopting agile ways of working makes a company five times more likely than competitors to be a top performer, with faster growth and higher profits, according to a new report from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), “Boosting Performance Through Organization Design”. The report describes agile as ‘a concept borrowed from software development, describes workplace processes that emphasise speed, autonomy, and teamwork to get products to market faster’. It is one of six key factors of organisation design that set top performers apart from rivals, according to results of a BCG survey included in the report.

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