Search Results for: commercial

May 18, 2017

Sickness causing germs at the office desk mainly due to poor personal hygiene ⁰

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

The number of sick days taken by office workers could be reduced if companies implemented a better cleaning routine and staff improved their personal hygiene, finds a new academic study. The workplace is ranked as one of the unhealthiest places you’re likely to inhabit on a daily basis, says Dr Lisa Ackerley, hygiene expert and visiting professor at the University of Salford, whose study revealed that the main cause of germs at the desk and keyboard is poor personal hygiene, with nearly 50 percent of office workers responding to her survey admitting they do not wash their hands after going to the toilet. Your hands and the surfaces you touch, including your office chair are germ motorways, she warns. Crumbs and spills encourage the growth of bacteria that can lead to stomach bugs, coughs, flu and even food poisoning. Bacteria and viruses that people bring back from the toilet multiply on the hard work surfaces of the desk and chair and remain infectious for 24 hours. (more…)

May 16, 2017

Three workplace managers walk into a bar … and the rest is no joke ⁰

by Paul Carder • Facilities management, Features, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

This is a long tale, but a worthwhile one to tell, and something that many of you will relate to, especially if you have anything to do with workplace design or management. Three managers walk into a bar. This is always a good place to start. They each have gender-neutral names, so I’ll leave you to work out whether they may be male or female. Not that it even matters in this context. Frankie gets there first. “Hi. Large glass of wine please. What do you have?” The bartender pauses, then replies: “We have … red … or … um … white. Um … oh, and fizzy and pink”. Frankie thinks for a moment, dismisses the idea of a cocktail or a short, then orders a beer. It’s a corporate training centre after all. What would you expect in a place like this? An extensive wine list?

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May 9, 2017

Number of CEOs with technical background grows to meet demands of digital economy ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

The number of CEOs from a financial background is falling as firms put more sway into technology skills, a new report claims. The annual Robert Half FTSE 100 CEO Tracker shows that in the last four years the number of CEOs with a technology background trebled as businesses prepare to compete in an increasingly digital economy. In 2014, only three CEOs had a background in technology while today this number has increased to 11. There is a also a generational shift occurring in the FTSE 100, with just eight CEOs under the age of 50 on the FTSE 100, a quarter less than in 2010 when there were 33 CEOs under the age of 50. The typical age of a CEO is 55 years old and the average tenure is five years and two months. While a majority of CEOs still have a background in finance, this figure has fallen to 43 percent from 55 percent last year and the lowest level in three years. Of those CEOs with a financial background, nearly half (19 percent) are Chartered Accountants.

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May 2, 2017

Winners of BCO Awards for Midlands and Central England announced ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Workplace design

The £10 million new headquarters of Wolverhampton beer and pubs group Marston’s has been named as the Best Corporate Workplace at the British Council for Offices’ annual Midlands and Central England Property Awards. The refurbishment was led by interior design firm Newman Gauge. Centre City, in Birmingham, gained the award for best commercial workplace following a redevelopment by owner Bruntwood. The judging panel said the 1975 building had been brought back to life by the refurbishment. Energy Systems Catapult, a workspace lab based at Cannon House won the award for best fit out of a workplace, with judges praising the company ethos to stimulate innovation in energy technologies.

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April 26, 2017

Best workplaces in London honoured by British Council for Offices ⁰

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

The British Council for Offices has announced the six winners of regional property awards for London and the South East of England. The winning entries, announced at a lunch at the Park Lane Hilton were Sky Central (main image), 8 Finsbury Circus, The Estée Lauder Companies, 20 Eastbourne Terrace, 67-71 Beak Street and Sea Containers House by BDG architecture + design. The prestigious BCO awards programme claims to recognise ‘the highest quality developments and sets the standard for excellence in the regional and national office sector.’ The winner of the Best Commercial Workplace was 8 Finsbury Circus while Sky Central took home the prize in the Best Corporate Workplace Category.

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April 24, 2017

WeWork extends property as a service offering as IBM takes on entire coworking building ⁰

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

In a deal of enormous significance for the commercial property and workplace sectors, IBM has agreed a deal with coworking giant WeWork to take on all the space at its 88 University Place office in New York. Although originally targeted at startups and freelancers, especially those working in the creative and technology sectors, a growing number of corporate clients are seeing the appeal of coworking space in a fast changing world and now make up over a fifth of WeWork’s membership worldwide. Meanwhile, in moves that are sure to have major implications for the corporate real estate and facilities management market, WeWork has also announced plans to become a major real estate investor and introduce a wider range of FM services. The firm already operates in 135 locations spread across 44 cities in 14 countries.

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April 20, 2017

UK government property agency opens bidding for huge estates framework ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Public Sector

The UK government has opened the tendering process the Estates Professional Services framework, the vast public sector property contract that covers all central and local government property and which reports claim is worth up to £430m in fees to the firms appointed. The bid is managed by the Crown Commercial Service, an agency sponsored by the Cabinet Office which has been driving the major overhaul of public sector property as it seeks to save £8 billion through a programme of rationalisation and divestment. The contract runs for four years with the present framework due to expire this September.

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April 5, 2017

Corporate occupiers turn to coworking space to keep down property costs ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Property, Workplace design

Demand for coworking spaces is growing at an average of 10-15 percent per annum across all regions as firms look to cut their real estate costs by embracing the concept based on shared work spaces and collaboration. That is the key finding of a new report from Cushman & Wakefield. As the trend gains momentum, according to the study, developers are increasingly incorporating the aesthetic and function of such flexible working environments into mainstream building design. However the main driver of uptake continues to be concern about the cost of renting offices in prime locations and it is no surprise that coworking is focussed on major globalised cities.

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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.

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March 28, 2017

Over half of employees in small and medium firms regularly work unpaid overtime ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Long working hours are embedded into Small and medium sized firm’s (SME) culture, new research by AXA PPP healthcare has claimed, with 47 percent of employees in SMEs across the UK regularly working four or more hours of overtime per week, 27 percent of these putting in seven or more hours and for half (52 percent), the extra hours are unpaid. In addition, 22 percent of employees take fewer than 30 minutes for lunch, 19 percent have cancelled family time and 19 percent have missed a child’s event such as a school play due to working over and above their contracted hours. Over half (54 percent) of employees have continued to work after putting children to bed. With Britain’s small and medium sized firms making up 99.9 percent of the UK’s private sector businesses, employing nearly 3/5 of its workforce and accounting for 48 percent of the turnover this accounts for a lot of workers.

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March 23, 2017

Employers blame gender pay gap on career breaks and part-time work ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Over a quarter (29 percent) of senior managers within UK enterprises do not see the gender pay gap as an issue for businesses and many believe the gap is partly due to women’s personal career decisions, a new survey claims. Research by NGA Human Resources (NGA HR) found that despite the UK gender pay gap sitting at 13.9 percent, only 17 percent of decision makers surveyed believe that regulations on gender splits will reduce the divide. Nearly half (49 percent) of senior leaders in businesses blame the disparity on the fact that women are more likely to take career breaks or work part-time (42 percent) as the main factors for pay disparities. Other reasons given for the gender pay gap are the lack of representation of women in the overall workforce (20 percent) and fewer women in senior management positions (27 percent).

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