Search Results for: commercial

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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March 16, 2017

White paper sets out challenges of Brexit for UK’s built environment sector ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

BSRIA has published a new white paper to explore how issues related to Brexit will impact the UK’s built environment sector. The report highlights the ways in which the industry that supports the built environment has a major impact on the overall UK economy and plays a positive role in supporting the government’s climate change and emissions reduction objectives. According to the white paper, the sector is particularly sensitive to the uncertainties surrounding Brexit because it is technology intensive, requires a highly-skilled workforce, and is very dependent on international trade.

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March 2, 2017

Brexit effect means London’s real estate is much better value than last year ⁰

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

In the two years running up to the Brexit vote, London vied with New York and Hong Kong for the title of most expensive world city to accommodate employees and last year it was crowned the most expensive world class city for international businesses to rent office and living space for their employees. Now Brexit’s impact has made the UK look much better value on a world stage as the devaluation of sterling means it now ranks closer to Paris and Tokyo, leaving New York and Hong Kong in a league of their own with much higher accommodation costs. It now costs an average of US$88,800 per person to rent office and housing space in London, well below the price tag of June 2014 of US$124,500, according to the latest Savills Live-Work Index which measures annual accommodation costs per worker in leading world cities. By this measure, London is now 10 per cent cheaper in these terms than it was in December 2008.

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February 23, 2017

Digital transformation and flexible workforce will help drive growth, say senior managers ⁰

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

Implementing new technologies over the next 12 months is of primary importance for senior managers, with nearly two-fifths of finance directors saying digital transformation is one of their greatest priorities. Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, chief financial officers (CFOs) are focusing on increasing profitability (41 percent) and driving overall company growth (39 percent) in the year ahead, according to research from, Robert Half Management Resources which claims that CFOs and finance directors (FDs) will assume more responsibility for balancing traditional financial responsibilities with developing business strategy. The use of temporary and interim professionals also looks set to continue with a third of CFOs and FDs planning to use temporary staff for business transformation projects to either fill vacated positions or support active expansion. In the long-term, 31 percent of finance executives plan to actively add new permanent positions to implement the company’s digitisation and automation efforts over the next 12 months.

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February 21, 2017

What you need to know about changes to business rates and lease renewals ⁰

by Alex Watt • Comment, Facilities management, Legal news, Property

Business rates are a substantial overhead for many businesses, and therefore those occupying a property need to be aware of the impact of the 1 April rates revaluation and the forthcoming changes to the rates valuation appeals process. The revaluation may affect the level of compensation payable to some business tenants seeking to renew their leases. Current business rateable values took effect in England and Wales on 1 April 2010, based on rateable values on 1 April 2008. However, the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is revising rateable values on 1 April 2017. While the rateable value of some properties is reducing, others (for example many London retail and restaurant premises) face a significant increase. You can check the draft values on the VOA website to see whether your property is due to change.

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February 6, 2017

No job is entirely safe as era of robots at work dawns ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Two new reports have highlighted the ways in which a new generation of robots could transform the workforce, opening up opportunities while also threatening existing jobs. A study from Oxford Martin School claims that 35 percent of jobs in the UK are at risk of automation, and not necessarily those of the low skilled and unskilled. The study analyses which jobs commanding a salary of more than £40,000 are most at threat. It found that top of the “at risk” ranking are insurance underwriters, with a rating of 98.9 percent, followed by loan officers at 98.4 percent, motor insurance assessors (98.3 percent) and credit analysts (97.9 percent). A second report from think tank Reform suggests that robots should be proactively brought in to the workplace to replace 90 per cent of Whitehall’s 137,000 administrative staff with “artificially intelligent chatbots” by 2030, saving £2.6 billion a year.

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January 25, 2017

Just one in five UK workers still take the traditional lunch hour ⁰

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

Only one in five workers in the UK still take the traditional lunch hour break; a stark contrast to France, which sees the lunch hour as a key part of the working day, a new survey by commercial property agency Savoystewart.co.uk claims. Digital marketers take the shortest breaks, taking a meagre average of 14-minutes, followed by recruiters and those in telesales. At the opposite end of the spectrum are media & communication professionals, who take almost their whole hour at 55 minutes. Some of the reasons cited for the shorter break were to please the boss, too much work to do, other colleagues don’t take lunch, there’s nowhere to go or one hour is too long. Half of those polled work right through their lunch break, 30 percent will take under 30 minutes off, 52 percent admit to eating over their desk most days and 27 percent deliberately take a shorter break to please their boss. Yet UK legislation actually allows for a 1 hour interrupted 20-minute rest break after working 6 hours+, and those who are under 18 are entitled to 30 minutes if working above 4.5 hours. Some work contracts may even allow for additional breaks alongside lunch, like tea breaks.