Search Results for: economy

April 5, 2016

Scientific management and the enduring love of the open plan office

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Technology, Workplace design

There are many reasons why organisations like open plan offices. When it comes to making the business case for them however, firms prefer to talk about some more than others. So while they prefer to focus on the argument in terms of how openness can foster better lines of communication, collaboration, teamwork and team spirit, they talk rather less about the fact that the open plan is a lot cheaper than its alternatives and how they like it because it allows them to keep an eye on what people are doing. In theory, a great deal more of this surveillance now happens electronically so the need for physical presence should be less pressing, but the residual desire to see with one’s own eyes what people are doing remains. This is the instinct that constrains the uptake of flexible working and also means that there is a hierarchical divide in who gets to decide where they work.

April 4, 2016

Growing divide in US firms between the digital haves and have-mores ⁰

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

Last week we reported on the ways in which the UK government and British firms are falling short in their approaches to the increasingly digital world. It would be wrong to assume that this is solely an issue on this side of the pond however. A recent report from McKinsey highlights how specific sectors and businesses in the US are also sometimes struggling to meet the challenges and embrace the opportunities presented to them by the digitisation of the economy. The report suggests that overall US firms are only realising around 18 percent of their ‘digital potential’ and the major challenge the US faces is no longer bridging the gap between the digital have and have-nots, but the digital haves and have-mores. Intriguingly the report also breaks down this divide by individual sectors, thereby highlighting those parts of the economy that stand to gain most from bridging the digital divide.

April 1, 2016

Firms think they can hire Millennials as an alternative to digital skills training ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

A large number of businesses in the UK aren’t investing enough in bridging their own digital skills gap and instead assuming that they can fix things and improve their productivity simply by employing younger ‘digital natives’ who just know all that sort of stuff anyway. That is the key finding of a new report from Barc ays, which claims that companies are knowingly starving themselves of funding for key digital skills training despite understanding how that impacts their productivity. The report claims that firms on average invest just £109 per employee on digital skills training and are planning to increase that by just 19 percent over the next five years. They do this despite the fact that nearly half (47 percent) concede new tech skills would improve productivity. Instead 40 percent assume they can buy in the skills they need in the form of Millennials because they don’t trust older workers to pick up digital skills as quickly, if at all.

March 31, 2016

Government needs to wise up to the Fourth Industrial Revolution ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Property, Public Sector, Technology

Last week, the UK Government passed the latest bill to pave the way for the creation of HS2, the high speed rail line that will initially connect London with Birmingham and later cities like Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds. Most of the criticisms of the line are focussed on its financial and environmental costs, impact on the wider rail network and (frankly poor) design. We can grant the project’s proponents all of their arguments countering those points and still we are left with a perhaps more fundamental problem. We are now committed to creating a train that will monopolise the resources available to public transport for the next twenty years and exist for more than a hundred, but without considering the world in which it will arrive. I’d go further and suggest that even as its tracks are laid, the world around it will already have left it behind, leaving it as an impressive but doomed testament to hubris, old tech and failure of imagination.

March 23, 2016

Is discrimination of women with children the root cause of gender pay gap? ⁰

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

Two reports published this week support the argument that it is when women have children and require more flexible hours, that they really start to feel the sharp end of the gender pay gap. A report by a cross party group of MPs on the Women and Equalities Select Committee, reveals that supporting men and women to share childcare and other forms of unpaid caring more equally would be one of the most effective policy levers in reducing the gender pay gap. Without this support, many women are trapped in low paid, part-time work below their skill level. This contributes to pay disparities and the under-utilisation of women’s skills that costs the UK economy up to 2 percent GDP, around £36 billion. It also found that not enough is being done to support women returning to work if they have had time out of the labour market. Meanwhile a report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission says that three in four working mothers experience maternity discrimination.

March 22, 2016

While politicians squabble, here’s what the Budget meant for the workplace ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Legal news, Workplace, Workplace design

Strange as it may seem now, there was a Budget last week. We’d planned to produce a report on it once the dust had settled but given that whatever dust had originally been kicked up has now been swept away by a political storm, it’s only now we feel able to offer some perspective a few days out. As ever these days, the budget touched on a number of aspects of the workplace, sometimes hitting the mark and sometimes suggesting politicians don’t yet understand how people work. There was the usual stuff about rates and commercial property but also plenty to digest about the freelance economy, productivity, new technology, flexible working legislation and the current, often faltering attempts to develop wealth and infrastructure as well as the 21st Century creative and digital economy in places other than London. There’s plenty to digest here and plenty of people have already had their say, so a chance to grab a coffee and take all or some of it in.

March 18, 2016

Organisations and senior staff have contradictory ideas on motivation ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Only 40 percent of executives say their organisation helps them unlock their potential, according to a new global survey of senior executives. Pay and benefits are just one of many factors motivating these executives; with the most commonly cited motivation “making a difference,” chosen by 55 percent of respondents, followed by “personal growth and development,” “leading and organising others” and “monetary compensation,” each chosen by 45 percent of those surveyed. The wide range of motivations among leaders is underscored by the fact that no single factor was chosen by much more than half of the respondents. The survey by Egon Zehnder, “What Makes You Thrive?” discovered that many executives are leaving their potential at the office door, with 31 percent saying their organisation didn’t help unlock their potential and 27 percent not sure. 72 percent of those surveyed said they would welcome more help from their organisation to pinpoint and pursue personal motivations and goals.

March 16, 2016

The difference between ‘recyclable’ and ‘recycled’ is management not material

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Furniture

The Times (paywall) has uncovered some pretty remarkable statistics about the way the British consume coffee. It appears that we now buy some 2.5 billion paper cups of coffee each year, primarily from the main High Street chains. That’s about 7 million cups a day. The good news for the environmentally conscious public would appear to be that all the chains ensure that each cup is fully recyclable and so prominently displays its green cred where the consumer can’t miss it. The problem is that just 1 in 400 of the cups are actually recycled with the rest going to landfill. The firms involved may include recycling bins in-store, but that accounts for just a fraction of the disposal of the cups. As The Times points out, the companies understand that consumers are more impressed by the claim that a product is 100 percent recyclable than 0.25 percent recycled. They are swayed by the material and ignorant of the management.

March 16, 2016

Hong Kong, London and Beijing most expensive cities for office space ⁰

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

Hong Kong is the world’s most expensive office location, followed by London, Beijing and New York.This is according to JLL’s Premium Office Rent Tracker, which compares like-for-like occupation costs across 24 cities around the world. This ranks Established World Cities such as New York and London, Emerging World Cities like Shanghai, Dubai and Mumbai, and New World Cities such as San Francisco, Boston and Toronto. The latest research shows that six of the top ten most expensive cities for office rentals are in Asia; with Hong Kong the world’s costliest office rental market on a net basis as well as including added costs such as service charges and property tax. The tracker found continued demand prime office space, despite a rise in economic uncertainty; while across the global cities, the technology, media and telecommunications sectors are moving into premium office space – previously dominated by the finance and professional services sector.

March 10, 2016

Staff believe 91 percent of UK firms will no longer be competitive by 2020 ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

Studies using 2020 as an apocalyptic landmark are thinner on the ground these days as we get closer to the actual year, so it’s great to see the old chestnut given another roasting in a new report from tech consultancy Infomentum. The headline stat from their new Beyond Digital report is that 91 percent of UK employees believe that new technology will mean that their current businesses will no long be competitive by 2020 unless they face up to the challenges of the digital economy. The report, based on a study of over 1000 office workers, examines how new technology is set to disrupt businesses and employment. Around 50 percent of respondents believe their employers will have to invest in new technology in order to fend off extinction. The survey also suggests that organisations resort to bandwagon jumping when it comes to new technology rather than assessing their needs before making decisions.

March 7, 2016

Government talks a good game on technology, then fails to deliver ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, News, Technology

Last week, the UK Cabinet Office Minister Matt Hancock delivered a speech to the Institute of Directors, outlining details of the government’s Cyber First programme which aims to develop the skills needed to address the security threats posed by the digital revoluution. The speech was full of the usual stuff about the ‘interconnected world’. It even suggested at one point that the UK has ‘one of the most digitally advanced governments in the world’. Recent developments would suggest that this is slightly wide of the mark, to put it mildly. According to a February report from the regulator Ofcom, the UK’s broadband infrastructure continues to lag behind other countries, held back by BT’s characteristically inept and self-serving monopoly of cable infrastructure. Now the government has confirmed it scrapped its flagship mobile infrastructure project which set out to reduce the number of ‘not spots’ in the country.

March 4, 2016

World cities are victims of own success as high costs price out businesses ⁰

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

The two highest ranking global cities in the world, London and New York (as measured in the A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index), are also the most expensive for businesses and workers to occupy. According to Savills latest Live/Work Index, which measures the combined cost of residential and office rental per person per year across leading world class cities, the cost of accommodating an employee in London (US$112,800) is more than double that of Sydney, ($49,500). The average total cost of accommodation per worker, per year in the 20 cities that were measured is US$56,855, in a list that includes established world cities and some dynamic up and coming rivals, dubbed “upstarts” by Savills. The rise of the digital economy has pushed these smaller cities, such as Berlin (population 4.3 million) and Dublin (1.7 million) into the realm of world class city status; with San Francisco seeing the greatest price rise over 2015, up by 13 percent, compared to a 9 percent fall in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro.