Search Results for: finance

June 29, 2016

Higher productivity levels reported by staff with flexible hours ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Measuring productivity is hardly an exact science, but there are ways that individuals can analyse their working habits and come up with ways of improving their performance. According to research by Conference Genie we all have times where we’re very productive and others where we struggle to get any work done. The data gathered in the study of 2,000 UK employees who work from home or in an office, can be split into age, gender, region and industry sector and shows that over half of UK office/home workers say they sometimes waste time at work, and a further 15 percent say they often waste time at work. It seems that the older generation is most productive. Eighteen to 24 year old’s gave themselves the lowest productivity rating and 55+ the highest. And in a further indication of the benefits of agile working a third of those who gave themselves a productivity rating of 4/5 say that their employer offers them flexible hours.

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June 3, 2016

UK’s productivity crisis is not helped by lack of work-based training ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, News, Technology, Workplace

Despite the well-publicised productivity crisis in the UK, over a million of the country’s employees are spending more time on tea breaks than on any form of work-based training. Research from the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) has found almost a third (30 percent) of staff have never had any form of work-related finance training. Given this situation, nearly four in ten (38 percent) employees admit they search online to find out how to do their jobs better, in their own time. The survey of 2,000 workers, half who are employees and half of whom are managers working in finance/accountancy-related roles, also found discrepancies between attitudes towards training at work. A fifth of managers admit they think training their staff will only help them develop their own careers, not benefit their current role and a quarter (27 percent) believe training is good in principle, but disruptive in practice.

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June 1, 2016

Financial sector is rationalising real estate to remain in London ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, Property

A relentless drive to cut costs is forcing financial services occupiers to focus on reducing real estate costs and adopting strategies to use their space more efficiently in Central London. According to research from CBRE there has been an ongoing move by big banks to relocate non-core functions outside of Central London, as seen in HSBC’s decision to move 1,000 head office staff from London to Birmingham. However despite the inherent challenges, banks continue to cite client needs, recruitment, profile and presence as key reasons to keep office space in the Capital. This is reflected in last year’s leasing figures with banking and finance occupiers leasing 3.2m sq ft, 4.9 percent above the 10-year average. There are a variety of compromises companies may make as part of rationalisation strategies to maintain their position in London. Consolidation is an ongoing trend. But it is not a one size fits all approach.

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May 20, 2016

It isn’t easy to grow big when being small makes you more innovative ⁰

by Matias Rodsevich • Comment, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Today one of the key challenges most companies face is being able to scale rapidly while still keeping the innovative edge. Startups have less decision-makers making it easier to take the risks needed to remain as innovative. As these companies grow, they often experience a downturn in innovation as management rises. In fact, many larger corporations are now attempting to harvest the success of startups by creating small internal companies. This begs the question do you have to stay small to be innovative? According to the Economist’s study on organizational agility, the main obstacles to improved responsiveness are slow decision-making, conflicting departmental goals and priorities, risk-averse cultures and silo-based information. This isn’t a problem that faces a select number of companies. A survey by McKinsey&Company found that 94 percent of managers are unhappy with their company’s innovation performance.

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May 6, 2016

Can building design presage the decline of the world’s tech giants?

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

At the movies, buildings are often used to denote hubris. The ambitions and egos of Charles Foster Kane and Scarface are embodied in the pleasure domes and gilded cages they erect to themselves and their achievements. Of course, the day they move in is the day things invariably go badly wrong. In the real world too, monstrous edifices have often presaged a crash. The UK’s most ambitious and much talked about office building at the turn of the Millennium was British Airways’ Waterside, completed in 1998, just a year after Margaret Thatcher famously objected to the firm’s new modern tailfin designs by draping them with a hankie and three years before BA had to drop its ‘World’s Favourite Airline’ strapline because by then it was Lufthansa. Nowadays BA isn’t even the UK’s favourite airline, but Waterside remains a symbol of its era, albeit one that continues to influence the way we perceive building design.

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April 27, 2016

Lack of pay and support prevents ill or injured UK workers taking time off ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

More than half of ill or injured property and construction workers still go into work because they can’t afford to take time off, a new survey on 2000 employees within the UK has revealed. The data gathered by First4lawyers on the run up to Brexit on EU employment law and sick pay has revealed how European countries treat their sick or injured workers. The results show that while a UK worker off work for a month would only receive 15 percent of their monthly wage – those in Germany receive 100 percent. This lack of pay forces many UK workers back into the workplace, but nearly three quarters (71 percent) also say they are scared to have time off work because they fear their employers opinion of them; 30 percent say their boss acts different toward them after asking for time off sick, and more than 1 in 3 say their employer does not support them during this time.

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April 12, 2016

Women who feel valued at work will help close the gender pay gap ⁰

by Mark Bull • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace

There has been much debate around the gender pay gap but aside from any instances of obvious gender discrimination is the controversial fact that women appear to be more afraid of asking for a pay rise than men. According to a recent survey by Randstad 72 per cent of women are afraid even to ask for a raise for fear of jeopardising their existing position. This clearly shows there is work still to be done to encourage women to ‘lean in’. When people start questioning the value they bring to a company they are less likely to put themselves in the spotlight, or under scrutiny, by asking for a raise or a promotion, and the key to increasing confidence is by getting genuine feedback on work performance. If you know that your work is getting recognised by colleagues and you are being praised for it, then you are more likely to understand the value of the work you are doing, regardless of what industry you are in.

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April 6, 2016

Just one percent of men have taken-up UK’s shared parental leave right ⁰

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

One year on from its launch and it’s emerged that just 1 percent of men have so far taken up the opportunity of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) while over half (55 percent) of women say they wouldn’t want to share their maternity leave rights. The main reasons why men have chosen not to take up SPL are financial affordability, lack of awareness, and unwillingness from women to share their maternity leave. A combined survey of over 1,000 parents and 200 businesses (HR Directors) from My Family Care and the Women’s Business Council found that taking up SPL was very much dependent on a person’s individual circumstances, particularly on their financial situation and the paternity pay on offer from their employer. It found that 80 percent of both men and women agreed that a decision to share leave would be dependent on their finances and their employer’s enhancement of SPL. (more…)

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.

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March 22, 2016

Manchester refurbished office market thrives due to occupier demand ⁰

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

Approximately 625,000 sq ft (58,063 sq m) of office space in Manchester is set to be refurbished over the next two years as the market responds to continuing demand. According to Savills, Grade B has accounted for an average of 62 percent of the city’s annual take up over the last 10 years, and with Grade A supplies running low the proportion could be even higher in 2016. Despite growing demand for Grade A office space in Manchester over the last three years, annual take up has consistently been under pinned by larger Grade B occupiers seeking to balance high quality offices with value for money. Savills also reports that the TMT sector has taken more Grade B space in Manchester than any other sector over the last five years, with deals totalling 710,889 sq ft (66,042 sq m); a significant increase on the 294,631 sq ft (27,371 sq m) of secondary space let to TMT occupiers in the previous five years.

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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.

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March 8, 2016

Eight in ten women believe gender discrimination still prevalent at work ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

Today is International Women’s Day, which marks the official day of the year when gender equality across the world comes under the spotlight. In the UK, a poll by Investors in People found that 8 in 10 of women (83 percent) in full time employment believe gender discrimination is still present in the workplace. According to the poll of 2000 employees almost half of women (45 percent) think they have personally experienced discrimination in the workplace because of their gender. And what is depressingly unsurprisingly to many women is that when the poll explored employee perceptions of gender discrimination versus the reality, 30 percent of men believe there is no difference between men and women’s pay, when according to the facts, women are earning on average 19 percent less than men an hour (UKCES, 2015). More encouragingly though, 41 percent of employees believe their workplace has a culture of encouraging gender equality, a statistic that has room for growth.