January 24, 2020

Time-poor workers put off health checks

Four in 10 workers around the world are concerned about their health but don’t want to go to the doctor, a new research report has claimed. Although 40% of workers said they are worried about their long-term health, the same number hadn’t had a health check in the last year and most have no idea about basic indicators such as what their cholesterol level or body fat is. Inflexible and long working hours are compounding the problem, the report by Aetna International suggested, as employees feel unable to take time off to manage their health. (more…)

January 23, 2020

Mental health challenges cost employers £45 billion each year

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

A new report from Deloitte claims that poor mental health costs UK employers up to £45 billion each year. This is a rise of 16 percent since 2016 – an extra £6 billion a year. The research also looks at how employers can tackle this problem, finding that it pays to support employees’ mental wellbeing. On average, for every £1 spent on supporting their people’s mental health, employers get £5 back on their investment in reduced presenteeism, absenteeism and staff turnover. (more…)

January 22, 2020

We might spot patterns in office design, but a global picture is beyond us

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The ongoing evolution in the design of the places we work has much in common with evolution in the natural world. But whereas natural selection is dependent on its ‘Blind Watchmaker’ to indirectly shape creatures in response to the constantly changing forces in their environment own, office design is anything but blind – at least it is when done intelligently and with insight. (more…)

January 22, 2020

Workplace bullying is being swept under the carpet

by Jackie Le Poidevin • News

A quarter of employees think challenging issues like workplace bullying and harassment are swept under the carpet in their organisation, a new report from the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, claims. (more…)

January 21, 2020

Workers often care more about income than work life balance

by Jackie Le Poidevin • News, Wellbeing

Financial success is important to employees around the globe but the importance of maintaining a work-life balance differs between cultures, new research from BI Norwegian Business School has suggested. (more…)

January 17, 2020

HR struggles to develop high-quality leadership talent

by Jackie Le Poidevin • Business, News

More than one-third of HR chiefs are struggling to develop effective senior leaders and only half of 2,800 surveyed leaders believe they are well-equipped to provide the leadership to guide their company in the future, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. Efforts to tackle the emerging issues of the 2020s and beyond – including public pressure for business transparency, the rise of automation and the creation of never-before-seen jobs – will be fruitless unless HR managers find ways to nurture and retain capable future leaders, the research and advisory company concludes. (more…)

January 16, 2020

What Baloo can teach us about our suspicion of tall buildings

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Cities, Comment

“What Baloo had said about the monkeys was perfectly true. They belonged to the tree-tops, and as beasts very seldom look up, there was no occasion for the monkeys and the Jungle-People to cross each other’s path.” Of course, Rudyard Kipling meant this figuratively but there is a clear link between ‘up’ in the figurative sense and ‘up’ in the physical sense. The executives at Omnicorp don’t lease the most expensive offices in a tower in so they can sit around on the ground floor watching the hoi polloi pass by at street level. They need to be at the top of the building looking down on them. (more…)

January 14, 2020

Office design in the US now more closely aligned with needs of workers

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Office design and expectations around professionalism in the workplace are evolving along with the modern workforce in America, according to a new report from researchers at Olivet Nazarene University. The Modern Office Study claims that office design is evolving in parallel with changes in working culture, especially in the way that traditional North American cubicles, which were once the default model of office design in the US, are rapidly being replaced with open plan layouts. The report claims that these are now found in over half of American workplaces. (more…)

January 13, 2020

Other things being equal, this year will see the end of open plan and start of a four day week

by Mark Eltringham • Features

You’ll only get one prediction from me this year and that’s about how all of the other workplace predictions will be cut and paste jobs from the past three decades and more. If you want to take a cynical approach to the whole thing, you’ll find one from your humble servant here. Apart from that, if you only read one set of actual predictions for 2020 or even the Twenties (that’ll take some getting used to), then make it this from an author also jaded and burdened by too many glib pronouncements about work and workplaces in general and the annual parade of predictable predictions in particular. (more…)

January 10, 2020

Outdated technology continues to ruin people`s days

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Technology

New research by Currys PC World in collaboration with technology expert Theo Priestley claims that outdated technology and delays in finding fixes are eating into around 46 minutes of the average employee’s working day, which could cost a business approximately £2,752 a year. Time and money are not the only things lost to outdated technology, however, as half of Brits admit that it has a negative impact on their productivity in their jobs. What’s more, morale can be impacted when employees feel they have to work overtime to make up the time they have lost due to tech issues. (more…)

January 8, 2020

From the archives: Is this the missing piece of the facilities management puzzle? ⁰

by Ian Ellison • Facilities management, Features, Premium Content, Work&Place, Workplace design

The IFMA Foundation Workplace Summit of summer 2014 felt like an optimistic time for facilities management and the workspace industry. Heavyweights from the sector were asking searching questions about our organisational contribution, with thankfully less of the internally focused, debate-free hubris typical of much of the industry narrative. The newly announced (and now evidently historical) collaboration between BIFM and CIPD was in full swing, endorsed by social media savvy Twitterati under The Workplace Conversation banner. (more…)

January 7, 2020

L`Oréal moves London HQ to White City Place

by Freddie Steele • News, Property

L’Oréal UK and Ireland has announced that it will be moving from its current office site in Hammersmith to a brand new bespoke building in White City Place, West London, W12. L’Oréal will occupy six floors of the eleven storey building, which is part of the new creative business district White City Place, developed and owned by Stanhope, Mitsui Fudosan and AIMCo. Other occupiers at White City Place include the fashion designers Ralph & Russo, online luxury fashion retailer Yoox-Net-a-Porter, the BBC and ITV Studios. The workforce of 1,000 employees at L’Oréal’s London-based headquarters are due to move in Autumn 2023 to the new building, which is when the company will reach the end of its current lease. Stanhope claims that the space will reflect L’Oréal’s culture, focused on collaboration, creativity and agility. (more…)