Search Results for: economic

August 10, 2015

London is leading the way in the global coworking revolution ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property, Workplace design

Changing attitudes amongst occupiers towards office space and the explosion in the numbers of freelance workers and microbusinesses are driving an upsurge in coworking and other flexible working environments worldwide. That is the key conclusion of a new report from DTZ which claims that the number of dedicated flexible working locations worldwide is likely to hit 50,000 over the next three years, with parts of London leading the way. We reported recently how coworking pioneer WeWork has already announced its plans to dominate London’s commercial property scene in the same way it already does Manhattan’s. Now, the How You Work report from DTZ suggests that this is the shape of things to come for many cities, with London leading the way alongside a tranche of global tech and creative centres such as New York, Berlin and Shanghai.

July 28, 2015

Government urges employers to recruit untapped disabled talent

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

The number of disabled people in employment has experienced a growth equivalent to around 650 people every day, according to new figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). They’ve been published to mark the first two years of Disability Confident; launched in 2013 to work with employers to remove barriers, increase understanding and ensure that disabled people have the opportunities to fulfill their potential in the workplace. The campaign has been backed by 376 firms so far and seen the number of disabled people in work increase by 238,000. With research this week from the Centre for Economic and Business Research and Averline, revealing that small employers still had 520,000 vacancies that they were unable to fill because of a lack of relevant skills; Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson, challenged businesses to consider the boost untapped disabled talent could bring to their workforce.

July 24, 2015

Growth in demand for scarce office space will lead to rents rise

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Demand from business for commercial property rose for the eleventh consecutive quarter, while available space fell for the ninth successive period, according to the latest RICS Commercial Market Survey. As a result, rents are expected to rise at the fastest pace since the survey began in 1998 with 46 percent more respondents forecasting higher, rather than lower, rent rates going forward. Offices remain the segment of the market where rental expectations remain most buoyant, while retail continues to lag, although even in this area, momentum is picking up. Across the whole of the UK, but excluding the capital, 95 percent of respondents believe that current commercial market valuations are either at or below fair value (roughly unchanged since Q1 2015). However, in London 50 percent of contributors now feel that commercial office space valuations are ‘expensive’ – an increase from 45 percent in the first quarter of this year.

July 23, 2015

Autonomous workers put in a day extra each week, claims new research

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Workplace, Workplace design

One of the usual arguments against offering people greater autonomy over where and how they work is a lack of control and a consequent lack of effort from employees. However new evidence published by German researchers suggests what actually happens is the opposite. When the employer relinquishes control, people work more. The paper, from researchers in Berlin based on an eight year study, found that people who enjoy ‘full and unrecorded’ autonomy over how they manage their work put in an extra seven hours each week. Interestingly, even those with fixed hours give their employers an extra two hours weekly, but the report suggests there is a clear correlation between personal autonomy and hours worked. Other factors that influence hours worked include seniority, job security, satisfaction and tenure. Taken together these account for nearly two hours of extra work each week.

July 22, 2015

OECD nations need to urgently address the coming digital workplace

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

There is now an urgent need for the world’s growing number of digital economies to shift their focus to how they help people to manage their own transition to a new form of digital workplace. That is the main conclusion of a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2015 claims that while most countries have moved from a narrow focus on communications technology to a broader digital approach, they now need to address the significant and growing risk of disruption in areas like privacy and jobs. The report – which covers areas from broadband penetration and industry consolidation to network neutrality and cloud computing in OECD countries says more should be done to offer information and communication technology (ICT) skills training to help people transition to new types of digital jobs.

July 16, 2015

Women are less assertive in asking for a pay rise than men

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

There has been much focus on gender pay this week with the announcement that larger companies will be forced to disclose pay rates. Now a new poll suggests another reason why women’s pay lags over their career, a lack of assertiveness. A report commissioned by Glassdoor found that only a quarter of UK women (27 percent) feel confident they will receive a pay rise within the next 12 months, compared to 40 percent of men. Women are also less likely to leave a job because of low salary than men – 30 percent of women said that low salary had been the major factor behind them moving on from jobs in the past, compared to 39 percent of men. The Glassdoor UK Employment Confidence Survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive, monitors four key indicators of employee confidence: job security, salary expectations, job market optimism/re-hire probability and business outlook optimism.

July 14, 2015

Prime Minister vows to force employers to reveal gender pay gap

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

A consultation begins today on plans by the government to force larger companies with more than 250 employees to reveal the difference between the average pay of their male and female employees. Writing in today’s Times Prime Minister David Cameron says he is making a personal commitment to ensure that when his daughters aged four and eleven start work they will experience complete gender equality. Although the gender pay gap has narrowed to almost zero amongst the under 40s, ONS figures show that by the age of 40, men out-earn women by an average of £1.64 per hour, while according to the recent PwC annual Women in Work Index, the UK still lags well behind many other countries in overall female economic empowerment. The new consultation will be wide ranging and will look at who will be required to report, as well as the content, frequency and manner of reporting.

July 10, 2015

UK Government abandons zero carbon buildings pledges

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

The UK Government has today announced that it is to abandon its plans to introduce zero carbon buildings, including homes in 2016 and zero carbon commercial buildings in 2019. As part of a range of planning measures officially announced by the Treasury, it has been confirmed that the government ‘does not intend to proceed with the zero carbon Allowable Solutions carbon offsetting scheme, or the proposed 2016 increase in on-site energy efficiency standards’. Officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) have also separately confirmed that the zero carbon policy for non-domestic buildings will also be discarded as part of the new changes. The move has already been heavily criticised by the UK Green Building Council and senior figures in the construction sector, who are dismayed at the move by a Government that once claimed it was to be the UK’s ‘greenest ever’.

June 29, 2015

Beyond agile working: the six factors of knowledge worker productivity

by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

Whilst the world has focussed heavily on the asset productivity of offices over the last 30 years, reducing the cost of offices per head, often using agile working as a tool for achieving this, it’s becoming clear that the mobility afforded by the latest technology products can be used to aid Knowledge Worker productivity. Knowledge work plays an increasingly large part in the economic fortunes of developing countries. Indeed the vast majority of people working in AWA’s client organisations are Knowledge Workers. Over the last 30 years we’ve seen a gradual shift from manufacturing to service and now to knowledge based industries. Knowledge Workers are broadly speaking ‘people who think for a living’. Whilst the concept of ‘productivity’ in manufacturing and service industries is well understood it is barely understood at all for knowledge based sectors.

June 26, 2015

Value older workers or sleep-walk towards a skills shortage, employers warned

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A demographic time bomb means employers must act to avoid a cliff-edge loss of skills and talents by 2035, a new study by the CIPD has revealed. There are currently 9.4 million workers in the UK today who are over the age of 50 and while the employment rate of older workers has increased significantly in recent years, there is still a 64 percent drop in the employment rate between the ages of 53 and 67. New research from the CIPD and the International Longevity Centre-UK (ILC-UK), the independent think tank on longevity, ageing, and population change, warns the UK could face serious skills shortages over the next 20 years. Unless organisations start improving how they recruit, develop and retain older workers it is estimated that the UK economy will struggle to fill one million jobs by 2035, even taking into account the mitigating effect of migrant workers.

June 25, 2015

Long distance commuting, agile working and dinosaur extinction in the UAE

by Douglas Langmead • Cities, Comment, Flexible working, Property

In Dubai, there are no suburban dinosaurs; those large-scale, single purpose office buildings that ignore the agile realities of modern working life. In the western world, these giants evolved on business parks, driven by the perceived benefits of having office workers agglomerated in order to achieve efficiency of communication and dissemination. The business practices and technologies that underpinned these buildings have evolved and improved and many are in the process of being re-purposed. Things happen on a grander scale in the Middle East where the mantra is “if the land-use doesn’t fit the land, make more land.” Here, the patterns of work and place have evolved differently from the west, and at a much faster pace with creeping tides of development spreading rapidly out from the small centres of traditional trade and commerce to vast tracts of new development.

June 24, 2015

CTBUH announces winners of best tall buildings awards for 2015

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Cities, News, Property

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has announced the winners of the Best Tall Building Awards for 2015. The winners were selected from a pool of 123 entries based on an evaluation by a panel of industry experts. The organisers claim that not only do the winners exemplify best practice they also advocate ‘improvements in every aspect of performance, including those that have the greatest positive effect on the people who use these buildings and the cities they inhabit’. Many of this year’s winners demonstrate a commitment to sustainability, especially those that make use of greenery to enhance the looks and environmental credentials of the building. The organisers also note that buildings are better integrated into their surroundings which ‘has been a long-needed requirement’. The Best Tall Buildings have been named from 33 countries in four competing regions.