Search Results for: creativity

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.

January 16, 2017

UK CEOs bullish on business growth but concerned about skills and global economy ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

UK CEOs are more upbeat about the growth prospects for their own companies than 12 months ago, according to PwC’s 20th annual CEO Survey published today at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Almost nine out of 10 (89 percent) respondents say they are confident of their company’s growth in the year ahead, up from 85 percent in 2016, and above the 85 percent global figure and 77 percent in Germany. Forty one percent of UK CEOs describe themselves as being ‘very confident’. More generally, UK bosses are in hiring mode. Sixty three percent expect to grow their workforce over the coming 12 months, compared to 52 percent of their global counterparts. Just 10 percent expect headcount to decrease, down from 20 percent in 2016. Access to key skills is considered to be the single biggest business threat facing their organisations. More than four in five (83 percent) of UK bosses are concerned about how to get hold of key skills, up sharply from 71 percent last year. The skills most highly prized by UK leaders – adaptability and problem solving, leadership and collaboration, and creativity and innovation – are also proving the hardest to recruit.

January 13, 2017

Growing number of UK employees demanding flexible working cultures ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

A growing number of employees in the UK are prepared to move jobs unless their employers introduce more flexible working arrangements, according to a new study from ILM. The survey claims that over half (53 percent) of all British workers are considering a change of job unless things change. The study claims that three-quarters (74 percent) of UK employees want a more flexible working culture – citing more flexible hours and opportunities for creativity as part of an ideal working environment. The research also highlights a growing demand among employees for a greater say in business decisions with around two thirds of survey respondents claiming they want to have more of an influence at work. Around a third (34 percent) of workers claim that the working culture at their present employer is overly regulated and controlled. When asked how they would change the company culture, around a third (34 percent) said they would like more freedom and flexibility, and 32 percent said they’d like to see more innovation and creativity.

January 11, 2017

Detoxify the workplace to improve employee wellbeing and productivity ⁰

by Sara Bean • Case studies, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

While most organisations recognise the importance of keeping their employees safe, not enough focus is being given to wellness, and those organisations that do not prioritise employee wellness and design their workplaces accordingly will lose talent and potentially face bottom line repercussions. This is according to AECOM, which is urging organisations to “detoxify” their work environments to improve employee wellbeing. With 9.9 million working days lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in Great Britain in 2014/151, employees’ health and happiness can have a direct impact on business performance. Making improvements to the physical environment can help organisations create spaces and working cultures that encourage creativity, support wellbeing and increase job satisfaction. More →

December 19, 2016

Direct causal link between wellbeing and corporate performance, claims study ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

A new report published by IZA World of Labor claims that a rise in workers’ happiness and wellbeing leads to an increase in productivity. The study from economist Dr Eugenio Proto, of the University of Warwick’s Department of Economics and Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) concludes that companies would profit from investment in their employees’ wellbeing. It cites the experience of large companies that have recently highlighted the importance of employee wellbeing in their company profiles. The authors claims that, until recently, evidence for a link between employee wellbeing and company performance has been sparse and that their own study shows a positive correlation between a rise in happiness and an increase in productivity. Proto believes that finding causal links between employee wellbeing and company performance is important for firms to justify spending corporate resources to provide a happier work environment for their employees and that the available evidence suggests that companies can be encouraged to introduce policies to increase employee happiness.

December 12, 2016

Can an organisation simply buy employee motivation? ⁰

by Matias Rodsevich • Comment, Workplace

It’s the end of the year and like in most companies it’s probably time to start calculating and reassessing your employee’s compensation. But can you actually use money to motivate and retain your employees? A study by Willis Towers Watson found that only 20 percent of employers in North America actually believe merit pay is effective in driving high performance. Traditionally money was seen as the main incentive used to motivate employees. Higher productivity results in higher salaries and bonuses. For companies, it’s been used as the main tool to attract, retain and engage their people. Today we’ve learned that the key to motivation is much more complex than that.

December 5, 2016

The strange future of work + New edition of Work&Place + Workplace irritations ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Legal news, Newsletter, Technology, Wellbeing, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s Newsletter; Mark Eltringham dissects the current obsession with engagement and motivation; and from the Winter 2016 issue of Work&Place which is now available to view online; discusses the future of work and place in the 21^st century. We discover why creativity in the workplace is a prime engagement tool; that 85 percent of employers believe workplace automation will create more jobs than it will replace; however, in the now, technology issues cause the most lost time for SMEs. One in three lawyers would not feel comfortable even beginning the conversation about flexible working with their employer; a fifth of employees are distressed by political discussions in the workplace and employers urged to develop strategies to help retain older workers. Download our new Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design on the link between culture and workplace strategy and design; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

November 29, 2016

Majority of employers believe automation will create more jobs than it will replace ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

A new report published by Capita Resourcing claims that 85 percent of employers believe workplace automation will create more jobs than it will replace in their organisation in 10 years’ time. The main benefits to businesses and employees over this period are likely to be enhanced productivity (76 percent) and new skills development (54 percent). The ‘Workplace More Human’ report surveyed the attitudes of 200 business leaders in medium to large organisations and 1,000 full or part time employees. It revealed that the workplace is currently undergoing rapid transformation with over half (54 percent) of employers already automating business processes that were once performed by people. A further 39 percent plan to automate more processes in the next 12 months.

October 5, 2016

Employees increasingly value health and wellbeing benefits ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employee benefits that help promote a healthy workforce are increasingly important when you consider that (perhaps unsurprisingly) 69.8 percent of employees say they felt less productive if they come into work whilst ill. But these benefits are increasingly as important to employees as an aide to productivity. A range of employee benefits are still a crucial recruitment and retention tool, with almost three quarters (69 percent) of employees saying they are more likely to stay with an employer that offers a good employee package compared with 66 percent in 2015. New research from the fourth annual Capita Employee Benefits Insight Report also reveals that 44.8 percent of respondents would judge an employer based on the quality of the health and wellbeing packages they offer. This is particularly valued by higher earners where nearly half (48.8) percent of employees earning over £45,000 a year said they would evaluate their employer or potential employer on the strength of their commitment to employee wellbeing.

September 27, 2016

Nearly all UK cities lagging behind European average for productivity ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property, Public Sector, Technology

The UK’s major cities are lagging behind their European competitors in terms of skills, innovation and productivity, claims a new report from the Centre for Cities think tank. In Competing with the Continent, the authors argue that the onus is on the UK to come up to speed with the 330 cities covered in the report, especially if they want to compete in the new post Brexit European landscape. However, the report notes that the UK has a number of existing, structural advantages over other countries. UK cities generate around a fifth of Europe’s total economic output and contribute more to the national economy than cities in other countries. Major British cities contribute 60 percent of national GDP, compared to just 36 percent in Germany and 32 percent in Italy. The report shows that UK cities lag behind on a range of indicators including skills, innovation and productivity and a number have an industrial mix that has more in common with cities in Eastern Europe than those in the West.

September 1, 2016

New report sets out four key challenges for the workforce of the future ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new report from The Future Laboratory and UBS Wealth Management claims to identify the key factors that will drive workplace change in the near future. According to The Future of the Workforce report, the next two decades will see the way we work completely reshaped by forces such as artificial intelligence and an increasingly multigenerational workforce. The report claims that the entry of more Millennials into the workplace, their differing values to older workers, a growing propensity to turn freelance and the dissolution of the old bonds of loyalty could mean that employers struggle to create a strong culture. The report also claims that there will be a growing emphasis on the provision of wellness programmes, driven partly by growing demand from employees as well as a greater focus on improving productivity from employers. It also suggests that employers need to act to remove any biases they may have to appeal to the values of the new generation of workers.

August 23, 2016

US Millennials ‘martyred’ behaviour helps drive culture of presenteeism ⁰

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

As the school holidays draw to a close, those Brits who’ve enjoyed their annual two-week holiday break will probably have squirreled away some days to take them through to the end of the year. Not so easy for the average US worker who earns on average just ten paid vacation days per annum, for each year of service. According to a survey carried out last year, many Americans even fail to take that allocated leave for fear of being seen as slacking. And now a new piece of research claims that far from breaking this tradition of presenteeism, US Millennial workers are the most likely generation to forfeit time off, even though they earn the least amount of vacation days. These findings, from Project: Time Off’s new report, The Work Martyr’s Cautionary Tale: How the Millennial Experience Will Define America’s Vacation Culture suggest that Millennials stay at work because they feel more fear and greater guilt about taking time away from the office than any other generation.