Search Results for: employees

April 19, 2015

Promotion: Can discarded plastic bottles foster employee wellbeing? ⁰

by Insight Promotion • Insight promotion, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Employee wellbeing, productivity and privacy are hot topics in the workplace right now and AgileAcoustics think they have a unique solution to drive this forward. The company, based on campus at the University of Bradford has developed a range of acoustic panels that use plastic bottles destined for the scrap heap to make offices around the world more pleasant places to work. About 18 months ago they developed a ‘shaped’ wall print made from recycled plastic bottles, and raised £13,000 on Kickstarter. Shortly after Stuart Jones, the Founder met with a Commercial Interior Designer who loved the prints and advised him to look at the acoustic performance. Jones quickly set to researching the prints acoustic performance, and shortly after decided to develop a spin-off product with class-leading acoustics performance.

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April 17, 2015

Employers neglecting to check ergonomic safety of office workers ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Legal news, News, Technology, Workplace

The widespread adoption of mobile devices, not to mention the development of the Internet and uptake of flexible working, may render the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 hopelessly out of date, but they continue to oblige employers to ensure that employees’ workstations are assessed for ergonomic comfort and safety. A survey by Fellowes claims over half of companies (62%) acknowledge they have a duty to foster the physical and mental health of their staff, but found that 31 percent of workers were left in charge of conducting their own self-assessments. In over a quarter of organisations (27%), staff raised concerns that their monitor or display screens were not appropriate and more than one fifth (21%) weren’t aware of any legal requirements when assessing a display screen.

April 15, 2015

Office location key factor for staff engagement, with home working preferred ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News

It might be disheartening to learn that despite an employers best efforts to design an engaging and inspiring workplace, for many employees it’s where the offices are located that matters most. In a recent UK poll by ClickSoftware over half (57%), said office location was the most important reason why they’d stay in their job ahead of both pay (52%) and job security (33%). However, the most preferred place to work is at home, with 60 percent of people identifying this location to be ‘very comfortable’. The survey also looked at the factors that affected job performance, and found one in five people (20%) believe their productivity at work has been negatively affected by the location of their job. This increases further in the capital with over a quarter of Londoners (26%) feeling that their productivity would suffer by working in a ‘horrible location’. More →

April 15, 2015

Flexible workforce ignoring data risks of BYOD and mobiles ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology

The use of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) practices by an increasingly flexible workforce is posing huge risks to the data security of employers. Six out of ten employees routinely share their work and personal devices with others, nearly a fifth of employees don’t have passwords on devices, and 22 percent admit they don’t have security measures in place. The “Securing #GenMobile: Is Your Business Running the Risk” security threat study, questioned over 11,500 workers across 23 countries and found that attitudes have moved towards more sharing of devices and an indifferent view to security in the workplace. This high risk attitude to data security, which is more prevalent amongst younger workers is being overlooked by employers with over a third saying they have no mobile security policy in place.

April 14, 2015

RBS to save £18 million a year with office consolidation plans ⁰

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

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to close four of its offices in Edinburgh as it moves to consolidate its operations at its Gogarburn headquarters. The change is expected to divest around 344,000 sq. ft. of space at the four existing sites in the centre of Edinburgh, saving some £18 million a year when the move is completed by 2017. By then some 6,000 employees will be working at the HQ in the rural district of Gogar, doubling the number of existing employees on the site. In addition to the consolidation, RBS is opening up the building to new and existing businesses to promote their growth. The plans involve the creation of a centre for entrepreneurs and small businesses which will allow them access to expert advice and finance, develop relationships with RBS and also encourage them to collaborate and share ideas with each other.

April 14, 2015

The workplace as a strategic resource: a real life CEO’s perspective

by Jim Ware • Facilities management, Furniture, Workplace design

Raise your hand if you agree: “The workplace is obviously a strategic resource.” We facilities management professionals know that to be true. But if you often feel like a voice in the wilderness when speaking to anyone other than a fellow workplace professional, you are not alone. For many if not most senior executives, their facilities are a necessary evil that always cost too much. That reality frustrates me as much as it does you. So my colleague Paul Carder and I conducted two extensive research projects in 2012 and 2013 aimed at making the case (mostly to FM professionals themselves) that facilities and workplaces are incredibly strategic – and very poorly understood. And while we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about the work, we haven’t seen much change in mindsets, management practices or outcomes.

April 10, 2015

Workplace wellness programmes can reduce obesity levels of staff ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Workplace wellness programmes can help people lose weight, but are more effective when staff are actively involved in the process, a new study has found. The results of a two-year project published in the American Journal of Public Health show that providing healthier food choices and increasing opportunities for physical activity, successfully reduced the number of people considered overweight or obese by almost 9 percent. Results were particularly good when these efforts were designed with the input and active participation of employees. An estimated 68 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. As they spend on average a third of their lives at work; researchers based at the University of Rochester’s Department of Public Health Sciences worked with a local company to see how effective workplace intervention could be in addressing the obesity problem.

April 9, 2015

Why Facebook and other tech giants still apply mainstream office design ideas ⁰

by Charles Marks • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

This week Facebook moved into its new offices in Menlo Park, California. As you might expect they are somewhat out of the ordinary. Designed by Frank Gehry, they are bright, open and loaded with quirky and colourful design ideas. Yet upon closer inspection their underlying office design principles are often resolutely mainstream, not least the inclusion of what is billed as the world’s largest open plan office. In fact this has the personal backing of the CEO himself and has long been the core element in the brief because Facebook sees the idea of openness as being an essential part of its mission and business model. Mark Zuckerberg announced the opening of the building on his own Facebook page (where else?). In his official statement, he explains the thinking behind the design in an interesting way and it bears reproducing.

April 8, 2015

Managing the Millennials should be no different to the other generations

by Emma Parry • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace

There is much debate about the way the group known as Millennials should be treated. Millennials, those born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, are viewed as different to my peers, Generation X (those born in the 60s and 70s), and certainly vastly different in outlook to the post-war Baby Boomers and the pre-war Veterans. A stereotypical view is that these newbies are highly ambitious and want everything ‘now’, for example, regular pay rises and instant promotion without putting in the work. Yet I believe that Millennials should not be viewed as a distinct group and what we are in fact seeing are long-term changes as a result of trends in society and the workplace. So while employers may recognise the particular needs of Millennials it is these long-term changes they should really be addressing.

April 8, 2015

Sino might: a review of the CIFF office design show in Guangzhou

by John Sacks • Comment, Furniture, Products, Workplace design

Guangzhou, about two hours by train from Hong Kong, is China’s third city. It is a sprawling metropolis. Apart from a cluster of skyscrapers and the busy, broad sweep of the Pearl River which carves the city into districts, it has few redeeming features. Unlike the previous years’ office design shows hosted in Guangzhou, the heavy rain stayed away and the weather was hot and humid. It would probably have been sunny, were it not for the pall of smog which constantly shrouds the city. The 35th China International Furniture Fair is too large to be held at one time in the 430,000 sq. m. China Import & Export Fair complex, so it’s split into two, five day phases, held six days apart. Billed as the ‘Fabulous Furniture Fair’, Phase 1 concentrated on residential furniture. Phase 2 was for CIFF Office and for Interzum – the furniture materials and machinery show.

April 2, 2015

New study explores link between workplace design and productivity

by Mark Eltringham • Flooring, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The latest report linking specific workplace design elements with increases in productivity and wellbeing has been published by flooring manufacturer Interface and organisational psychologist Cary Cooper. The Human Spaces report into The Global Impact of Biophilic Design in the Workplace, claims that employees who work in environments with natural elements report a 15 percent higher level of well being, are 6 percent more productive and 15 percent more creative overall. The report is based on a study of 7,600 office workers from 16 countries. It concludes that office design is so important to workers that a third (33 percent) of global respondents believe it would ‘unequivocally’ affect their decision whether or not to work somewhere. Design is particularly important in India (67 percent), Indonesia (62 percent) and the Philippines (60 percent).

April 2, 2015

Flexible working and recognition linked to happiness at work

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

The eternal quest for happiness is the subject of two new reports which conclude that if you want to feel more satisfied with your working life, it’s important to feel as if you are in control of it. New research from Professor Andy Charlwood at Loughborough University claims that government and employer policies that give people greater flexibility to choose the hours they work helps to foster their wellbeing and that overworked people are less satisfied with their lives and experience lower levels of psychological wellbeing overall. A second, less scientific study commissioned by US software provider InLoox claims that one of the most important determinants of happiness at work is an ability to work unsupervised or not to report to anybody at all so, if you must have a job, make sure you’re in charge.