Search Results for: employer

July 25, 2016

Office of the future? + Vaping room call + UK will avoid Brexit recession ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property, Technology, Workplace

In this week’s Newsletter; Mark Eltringham on the narrow focus in descriptions of the ‘office of the future’; Maciej Markowski argues the need to keep an open mind on the open plan office; and Neil Franklin finds the ethics of everyday working life are the subject of two new surveys. News of a new device that can store more data than ever; many employees believe their workplace is not making best use of latest technology; and a new research report focuses on smart cities and the future of the built environment. Public Health England advises employers to set up vaping rooms for e-cigarette users; Brexit won’t lead to crash in commercial property say experts; and young workers are ill prepared for office politics. 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.

July 22, 2016

Employees in high performing organisations four times more engaged ⁰

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

Whether or not you raise an eyebrow every time you hear about the need for employee engagement, there is a growing body of research which links engagement to performance. A new report claims that 80 percent of UK employees who say they work for high performing organisations are engaged compared to only 20 percent of those working for low performing organisations. And 80 percent of employees who think their organisation is customer-centric are engaged. This is five times more than employees who don’t think their organisation is customer-centric (17 percent). The highest performing employees are twice as engaged as the lowest, the survey by ORC International suggests. The survey found that overall employee engagement in the UK remained steady at 58 percent his year but the trends show that personal and organisational performance make a difference to engagement.

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July 22, 2016

The people centric urge to personalise space helps firms to engage employees ⁰

by Paul Goodchild • Case studies, Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

In America at least, the great symbol of corporate conformity is the office cubicle. Satirised in the Dilbert cartoons and a staple in any movie about the degrading aspects of modern working life, the cubicle provides a perfect shorthand way of portraying an individual crushed by the corporate jackboot. Yet what these things miss is the propensity of people to personalise their surroundings and claim a space as their own, even if only for the short time they may be there. This seems to be particularly the case when it comes to office design and so we were much taken with this blog which lists the most far out and quirky ways people in the US have found to personalise their cubicles. Of course the need and urge to personalise space are not limited to the US. We often find in the course of our own installations that the first thing people do when they occupy an office for the first time is to personalise their space.

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July 21, 2016

Young people entering the workforce are not prepared for office politics ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace

Office politics is the one thing many young people are least prepared for when starting their first job, according to a new study by the Co-op. The study comes as many them are about to enter the workforce for the first time. With more young people opting for the world of work in the form of apprenticeships and on the job training rather than higher education, the members of ‘Generation Y’ often find they are unprepared for these softer skills needed to get on in the office according to the poll of 1,100 16-25 year olds. Over half of young people (54 percent) said that they were not prepared or informed about office politics. The study is part of the Co-op’s campaign to champion young people in the workplace by taking a closer look at what motivates 16-25 year olds. The research suggests that young people could find it harder to express opinion and ideas in the workplace, which in turn could lead them to feel isolated and unsupported.

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July 21, 2016

Offices not yet smart enough to support new ways of working ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Employees believe their workplace is not making best use of latest technology, but expect this to improve as remote work begins to provide both quality of life and productivity benefits. In the latest Future Workforce Survey conducted by Dell and Intel, nearly half of global employees believe their current workplace is not smart enough, while 42 percent of millennial employees say they are willing to quit their job if technologies are not up to their standard. The research suggest that the addition of collaborative tools and innovations such as internet of things (IoT) and Virtual Reality (VR) will soon become vital to the workplace. According to the poll of nearly 4,000 full-time employees in ten countries, over half (57 percent) believe they will be working in a smart office within the next five years, while 51 percent believe that better technologies will make face-to-face meetings redundant within the next five years.

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July 20, 2016

Public health body calls for vaping rooms and extra breaks for e-cigarette users ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

For those who recall the endless arguments about the rights of smokers and non-smokers that took place both before and after the ban on smoking in public places, the news that Public Health England has advised employers to set up vaping rooms for e-cigarette users will have a familiar feel. The governmental body claims that employers should make it comparatively easier for people to vape in an effort to persuade more smokers to kick their tobacco habit in favour of vaping, which it claims is 95 percent safer. While it acknowledges that smokers are commonly obliged to huddle outside buildings to indulge their habit, the advice suggests that being forced to vape outdoors as well only serves to “undermine their ability to quit smoking”. The advice suggests that of the 2.8 million people who now vape in the UK, the overwhelming majority are former smokers. However, although their habit is less harmful than tobacco smoking, employers treat both groups in the same way.

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July 18, 2016

The ethics of everyday working life come under the spotlight ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The ethics of everyday working life are the subject of two new surveys. A study from job site CV-Library, claims that over half of UK workers believe their workplaces have become ‘more strict’ in recent years over issues such as health and safety and personal behaviour, attitudes and appearance. There are some exception to this, according to the survey, as employers become more tolerant of behaviour such as the wearing of tattoos, relaxed dress codes and making personal calls. The second survey from online expenses management provider webexpenses claims that, contrary to popular belief, people working in sales and marketing are the least likely to lie at work while the most dishonest professions are human resources and IT. Four out of five people working in either HR or IT admit they have committed at least one deceitful deed at work, against while only 60 percent of those working in sales, media and marketing jobs admit to fibbing (unless they’re lying about that, obviously).

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July 14, 2016

Beyond Monoculture: how design eats strategy for breakfast ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Insight Briefings, Premium Content, Workplace design

The idea that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ holds a grip on our imagination and tends to be misunderstood in equal measure because at first glance it seems to suggest that strategy is less important or can be trumped by culture. In fact what Peter Drucker, who is the man commonly held to be responsible for saying it, identifies is that the two must go hand in glove. A strategy that does not heed culture is more likely to fail. A culture without strategy quickly becomes unanchored. The same need for balance is evident in the way we develop workplace strategies. Without understanding culture and knowing how a workplace can both reflect an existing culture and prompt a shift, the strategy runs the risk of becoming undone, or failing to fully meet its objectives. This link between culture and workplace strategy and design has never been more important than it is right now as the old bonds of time and place that once tethered people to an employer have loosened and dissolved. These issues are explored in our new Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design.

July 9, 2016

Perils of sitting + Meeting change with resilience + Root causes of stress ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Furniture, Insight Briefings, Newsletter, Wellbeing, Workplace

In this week’s Newsletter; Gary Chandler argues we are witnessing a new era for office design; Neil Franklin wonders who fares best when working remotely; Mark Eltringham unpicks the facts from fiction on the dangers of sitting; suggests the ways we can break ourselves out of groupthink and delves into a report which suggests order and disorder are perfectly functional ways for firms to operate. The overwhelming majority of UK employees are working beyond their contracted hours; employers’ views on the causes of workplace stress differ from employees; managers struggle with the fall-out from crises; and despite the prospect of a female PM, the boardroom remains out of reach for many business women. 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.

July 8, 2016

Overwhelming majority of employees putting in unpaid extra hours ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The overwhelming majority of UK employees (81 percent) are working beyond their contracted hours, claims a report from recruitment firm Morgan McKinley. Overall, 81 percent of people put in the extra hours with senior staff most likely to work more than 10 hours over their contracted hours (42 percent) each week compared to 21 percent of those who had just started working. The Morgan McKinley Working Hours survey of 2,600 professionals in sectors such as banking and finance, claims that 75 percent of employees felt obliged to work beyond their contracted hours, yet just 13 percent of respondents to the survey say they are paid for working extra hours. The study claims that only 32 percent of professionals believe that they are productive during the extra hours that they work. A third (34 percent) don’t take a lunch break of any kind, with Millennials (21 percent) being the largest group to have a working day without their lunch break.

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July 6, 2016

Which aspects of workplace design are most important to personal wellbeing? ⁰

by Marc Bird • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

There is no doubt that the UK’s office based knowledge industry is facing a crisis in the form of a ‘wellbeing deficit’. Both the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have reported record levels of absenteeism, with the latter attributing 23.3 million lost working days to work-related ill-health, such as depression, stress, anxiety and musculoskeletal disorders. A great deal is already known about the causes of the key issues of employee stress and demotivation, but more work needs to be done to establish how organisations can meet their corporate goals with regard to these issues, whilst still engaging, motivating and nurturing their workforce. A significant body of published research has identified that a sense of ‘personal control’ can have a hugely positive impact on employee wellbeing, but how can we engender that control when it comes to creating a productive working environment?

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July 5, 2016

Sea and space: the final frontiers for remote working and connectivity ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Case studies, Comment, Knowledge, Legal news, Technology

Tim Peake’s recent return home from space at the end of a six month stay in the International Space Station highlighted just how essential it is for people to stay in contact with their friends, family and the rest of the world, literally from wherever they may be. Of course, back on Earth we now take it for granted that we are in a state of constant connectedness to the rest of the world. So the idea of someone being out of contact, even for brief periods of time, strikes us as odd. Perhaps that partly explains our fascination with the experiences of astronauts and other people who cannot take connectivity for granted. But it’s not just astronauts who have to consider how to enjoy the connectedness that we normally assume to be ours by right. People who work at sea face the same challenge and you could argue that it is more important for such truly remote workers to be in contact with other people and the Internet. So who fares better when it comes to achieving connectivity?