Search Results for: environment

May 23, 2013

New report offers latest evidence of link between office design and productivity

by Mark Eltringham • Briefing, Knowledge, Workplace, Workplace design

So, does workplace design have any impact on productivity and business performance? Well duh. So why are we still trying to convince managers when there is so much evidence and experience to prove it. The latest study to demonstrate the link builds on decades of research and adds further compelling evidence in a debate that should have been over a long time ago. In this report, workplace strategist Nigel Oseland and the Atomic Weapons Establishment’s estate masterplanner Adrian Burton describe their research quantifying the effect on worker performance of improvements to the office environment. The question these reports always beg is why the argument still has to be made.

May 22, 2013

New Centres of Excellence for sustainable building design launched

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property

Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design are to be set up at four UK universities in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering. The new centres at Heriot-Watt University, Loughborough University, the University of Sheffield and University College London will form a national network to demonstrate and exchange best practice in teaching and research for a more sustainable built environment. The universities will work closely with the construction industry to develop their engineering and architectural design courses to be as relevant as possible to the work students can expect to do when they graduate. Visiting Professors from industry are a key part of this approach and will be heavily involved in developing the new centres of excellence. More →

May 21, 2013

Flexible working boosts employee satisfaction and lowers business costs

by Tim Clapham • Comment, Knowledge, Technology, Workplace

May 2013 played host to Work Wise Week, an initiative from Work Wise UK that aimed to promote and encourage smarter working practices to the benefit of businesses and employees. Cultural, economic and social changes are affecting attitudes to how we balance work and personal lives, and increasingly, mobility and technology is shifting away the need for the traditional 9-5 work patterns, replacing it with more flexible working practices. There are many benefits of flexible working and, as such, we are seeing more businesses starting to understand that forcing employees to work in an office does not guarantee productivity. More →

May 21, 2013

Worldwide competition launched by RIBA to design a new Scotland Yard

by Sara Bean • Architecture, News, Property, Public Sector, Workplace design

Courtesy of Simon Heath

A worldwide competition to design a new Metropolitan Police HQ has been launched by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The force is moving from its landmark New Scotland Yard site in Westminster, central London as part of cost cutting measures. The project on behalf of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) will involve the redevelopment of the existing and currently unoccupied Curtis Green MPS building located on the Victoria Embankment, London, SW1. Roger Harding MPS – Director of Real Estate Development said: “The opportunity to create a modern efficient working environment for the Met’s future headquarters, with world-class architecture that provides value for money and is alive to the history of the building provides a wonderful challenge.” More →

May 16, 2013

Working on daily commute is on the increase survey finds

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Workplace

As argued on this site today, many people prefer to work while commuting and research published today supports this view. A survey of over 2,000 British workers by recruiter Randstad reveals the number of employees who work while they commute rose from 4.8 per cent in 2008 to 7.5 per cent in 2013. There’s also been a big rise in the number of “extreme commuters” – those travelling more than 90 minutes each way – which has increased by 50 per cent, from just over one in twenty (6 per cent), to almost one in ten (9 per cent). However, while 18 per cent of British workers feel that the development of smartphones and tablets has made it easier for them to work while they travel, – one in ten (9.2 per cent) say that new technology has increased the pressure on them to get work done on their journey to and from work. More →

May 16, 2013

HS2 – still a train that symbolises the clash of old and new ways of working

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Workplace

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We’ve said this before but given the recent round of agonising over HS2 and today’s news that it will already cost £10 bn more than planned, there is no end yet to us hearing more and more about the plans for the Government’s flagship construction project and all-round Keynesian boot in the pants for the UK economy. Most of what passes for debate involves some light class warfare about the route through Tory constituencies, seasoned with a dash of NIMBYism, some chest beating from Labour who started the whole thing but can’t be seen to support it fully and various other bits of pointless to-ing and fro-ing. But what is most remarkable about the scheme as far as we are concerned, has always been how its business case completely and deliberately ignores the way we now work. Something bleedin’ obvious that the NAO has now pointed out.

May 15, 2013

RICS developing BIM accreditation standard to advance uptake

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property, Technology

Alan Muse, Director of Built Environment Professional Groups (RICS) is calling for a cultural shift to ensure that Building Information Modelling (BIM) is more widely adopted. This follows the results of a survey taken at the RICS National BIM conference which revealed that despite its overwhelming recognition within the built environment nearly half of respondents were still not using the process, with 46 per cent identifying minimal client demand as a major factor preventing their implementation of BIM. Comments Muse: “Quite simply, some clients are not yet recognising the efficiencies that BIM can bring”, which is the reason why RICs is now developing a BIM accreditation standard.

May 14, 2013

Will the Great Trade Association Merger have any impact on office design?

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

Anybody who has been working in and around the facilities management sector for any length of time will know that the FM profession/discipline (delete as appropriate) regularly undergoes protracted periods of existential angst about its role. It strikes me however that this is actually quite an easy question to deal with because the answer is the same as it is for similarly amorphous professions such as marketing. It all seems to depend on who you are and what you are trying to do. That’s the twist. The average facilities manager, like the Urban Spaceman, doesn’t exist. I might think that but it won’t stop the associations and institutes currently working together to establish a new super-body for FM in the UK having to continue the debate.

May 14, 2013

How ingrained assumptions about the workplace are eroding

by Ros Pomeroy • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The first day at a new job used to mean getting the answer to that all important question: “so which is my office?” In today’s mostly open plan environments, the same psychological attachment has been transferred to the desk – ‘my’ desk. However the current trend for flexible approaches to where people work means that even the concept of having one’s own desk is now under attack. So how much does having your own desk matter to the UK office workforce these days? We have been asking employees how they feel about having their own desk. The results seem to be that more than half, on average 56% (of a total of 2,653 employees surveyed at 5 recent client projects), think that it is ‘very important’ and a further 25% think it is ‘quite important’.

May 13, 2013

Green Office Week kicks off with a focus on individual behaviour

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Environment

This week is Green Office Week. Obviously it’s corporate sponsored, self-designated and arbitrarily timed with all the ways that leaves it open to criticism. It also offers pretty standard advice for the most part and many people and organisations will be well aware of it. What is interesting is that so much of the advice is about individual behaviour, across the daily themed topics. In some ways this is a welcome reminder that the solution to environmental issues is as much about personal behaviour and management as it is technology. The answer to needlessly burning lights should be somebody remembering to turn them off, rather than a movement sensor. Or it should be both. In practice, people don’t meet their own stated commitments to the environment and there are some pretty good reasons for this.

May 7, 2013

Over 90 percent of UK staff afflicted with bad case of presenteeism

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

We’ve always known that many of us have a tendency to come into work when ill even though we would be better off staying at home, but the problem of people turfing up in the office when they should be in bed or a GP’s queue is worsening according to a new report from insurance company Canada Life. Knocking into a cocked hat all the various surveys which detail the UK’s ‘working days lost’ due to stress?snow/The World Cup/hangovers and idleness, the survey claims that as many as 93 per cent of UK employees have hauled their diseased carcass into the workplace when they really shouldn’t, threatening their own health and the wellbeing of those around them.