Search Results for: environments

Back to workplace basics, the joy and pain of work, squeezing people in and some other stuff

Back to workplace basics, the joy and pain of work, squeezing people in and some other stuff

by • Features, Wellbeing, Workplace design

A coworking workplace in Chengdu by WeWorkLet’s get the inevitable WeWork story out of the way first. A supposed news item in Crain’s New York Business has claimed that WeWork is ‘squeezing’ people into half the space recommended in the BCO’s Specification Guide; “roughly the size of two standard doors laying side by side”. You can see the editorial cogs at work here, combining a story about WeWork with one about how people are crammed into the workplace like cattle these days.

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Is London Smart City Initiative as smart as it could be?

Is London Smart City Initiative as smart as it could be?

by • Cities, Comment, Technology

It’s been a year since the launch of the Mayor of London’s smart city roadmap, designed to transform the capital into the smartest city in the world. But twelve months later, is the city any smarter? The Mayor of London’s smart city roadmap is proposing to transform the capital into the smartest city in the world, and as part of the initiative, Sadiq Khan appointed his first Chief Digital Officer to help steer the plan to focus on knowledge and technical advancements that will make life easier for London’s citizens. (more…)

Reasons to be agile, part three

Reasons to be agile, part three

by • Comment, Workplace design

Agile Working at Peaks and PlainsThe Agile Manifesto, published in 2001, signalled a shift in approach to workplace design as well as technology. Though the document was conceived as a guide to speeding up software development, its contents have gone on to inform how organisations think and operate in ways that extend far beyond IT. “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.” That’s the fifth of 12 ‘principles’ in the manifesto. (more…)

Maternity leave progressing around the world

Maternity leave progressing around the world

by • News

With studies claiming almost as many women with children (74.1 percent) participated in the labour force as women without, in 2014, women who are juggling careers and motherhood benefit from flexibility at work the most. Recent research claims women account for 40 percent or more of the total labour force in several countries, making flexible working hours, extended maternity leave, breastfeeding rooms, free education and free healthcare just a few of the ways that some countries build the best working environments for mothers. (more…)

The tipping point for flexible working arrives

The tipping point for flexible working arrives

by • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

Although people have been talking about flexible working in one way or another for decades – the economist John Maynard Keynes declared in 1930 that technological advances would lead to a 15-hour working week – we may now be at the tipping point where work takes on an entirely different character. (more…)

Commercial property sector shifts focus to wellbeing in response to tenant demands

Commercial property sector shifts focus to wellbeing in response to tenant demands

by • News

Wellbeing is an increasing focus for the commercial property sector A new report from the Urban Land Institute (ULI), claims that the wave of interest in wellbeing in the UK is expected to translate into significant investment from the commercial property sector over the next three years. The report, Picture of health: the growing role of wellbeing in commercial real estate investment decision-making, has been published by the ULI UK Sustainability Forum to highlight the rise of wellbeing investment in commercial buildings. The report from ULI UK was sponsored by E.ON and addresses questions about the investment case for incorporating wellbeing into buildings and how to measure its impact. (more…)

Office design should take account of the quality of interactions as well as quantity

Office design should take account of the quality of interactions as well as quantity

by • Comment, Workplace design

People in the sort of office design that encourages communication and better working relationshipsEver since technology first made it possible for people to work remotely from their colleagues, there has been speculation not only that office design should change but even that the physical office could be dispensed with entirely, and with it the idea that people should come together to work in the same place at the same time to achieve common goals and to share in a common identity.

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Offices still failing to support collaborative work

Offices still failing to support collaborative work

by • News, Workplace design

collaborative workTeam-based collaborative work is increasing as people in the UK now spend 55 percent of their time working with others, according to new Steelcase research. This global trend toward collaboration is critical for organisations which need to quickly generate new ideas and solve complex problems; yet, the new study suggests many workplaces do not support this team-based work. (more…)

Lack of workplace trust associated with heart disease

Lack of workplace trust associated with heart disease

by • Wellbeing, Workplace

An abstract painting of a heart to show the link between lack of workplace trust and heart diseaseA study published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, based on data drawn from a Gallup index of more than 412,000 full-time workers, suggests that lack of workplace trust could be a significant contributory factor to heart disease. (more…)

People feel most creative at mid-morning

People feel most creative at mid-morning

by • News, Workplace

People feel they’re most creative at 11:05am, according to new research by MPA Group. The survey of 1,000 UK office workers looked into the time of day employees feel most creative, and which working environments best help to stimulate our creativity. Interestingly, the morning was the most creative time across all industries, with the overwhelming majority claiming their best ideas come between 10am and 11.30am. More specifically, across the whole country, the average time for optimum creativity was 11:05am. (more…)

Office taxonomy and an increasingly diverse workplace ecosystem

Office taxonomy and an increasingly diverse workplace ecosystem 0

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

A very modern workplaceIt is perhaps the most common misconception of evolutionary theory that all animals are somehow evolving towards some end point – meaning us. This notion is perhaps best summed up when a sceptic asks: “If we have evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” The lesser of the two problems with this is its solipsistic assumption that humans are the pinnacles of life and that, if evolution were true, all species would eventually evolve into people. (more…)

Jobs upheaval as world adapts to era of automation

by • AI, News, Technology

A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit and UiPath claims that organisations around the world currently making extensive use of automation technologies, with 67 percent of UK business executives claiming to be satisfied satisfied with the results of their automation initiatives, 48 percent describing their organisation’s progress with automation as advanced, and 73 percent expecting their company’s operating costs to improve as a result of automating business processes. It is published on the same day as another report suggests that up to 20 million manufacturing jobs could be lost to robots across the world’s leading economies by 2030, replaced by a range of new jobs. (more…)

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