Search Results for: four day week

Orgatec preview: the next generation workplace is all about settings

by • Comment, Events, Products, Workplace design

There is a well travelled international circuit for those interested in what office design tells us about the way we work that has, for a number of years, taken in London, Milan, Chicago, Stockholm and Cologne as its main stopping off points. This week sees the launch of Orgatec, the longstanding biennial workplace festival in Cologne. One of the interesting features of Orgatec is that, because it takes place every two years, it offers snapshots of key developments in the market. It throws a spotlight on whatever workplace professionals are talking about and whatever product designers are doing in response to the changing world of work. And it does it on a big scale. This year over 600 companies from 40 countries will be presenting across an exhibition area of 105,000 sq. m. This seems big, and is, but is down markedly on the size of the show from 20 years ago when Orgatec was the launch pad for seminal products such as Herman Miller’s Aeron Chair and the Ad Hoc  furniture system from Vitra.

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Global executives value work-life balance benefits of connected workplace

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Global executives value work-life balance that technology allowsSenior global executives are working more hours and in more locations now ever, but advances in workplace connectivity mean they are far more satisfied with their work-life balance. According to the 2014 BlueSteps Work-Life Balance Report, by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC), over half (52%) are satisfied or very satisfied with their work-life balance. In comparison, four years ago, 55 per cent did not believe their current work-life balance was satisfactory. Global executives work an average of 58.5 hours per week, with 39 per cent working over 60 hours per week; but the majority (81%) of those polled consider work-life balance when deciding on whether or not to accept a new position.Over one quarter (28%) rate their work-life ratio as more important than their potential earnings and 31 per cent would refuse a promotion or new job offer if it negatively affected their preferred work-life balance ratio. (more…)

Deloitte increases flexible working rights to attract future female leaders

by • Company news, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace

Deloitte increases flexible working rights to attract future female leadersAs employers prepare for new flexible working legislation, which comes into place at the end of this month; Deloitte UK has announced it is to allow its 12,000 employees more say in where, when and how they work. The firm has introduced a range of new and adapted, formal and informal agile working arrangements to incite a change in the day-to-day culture at the UK firm. Deloitte already offers all employees the right to request a formal flexible working arrangement; it will now also enable them to request a block of four weeks unpaid leave each year, without reason or justification. These arrangements support its wider measures that encourage a more agile workplace, including the introduction of collaborative and adaptable working spaces, an environment that supports open conversations about agile working and improvements to technology that make it feasible. (more…)

Support for flexible working an increasing challenge for IT managers, claims survey

by • Flexible working, News, Technology

Flexible workingOne of the greatest challenges currently facing IT managers is providing secure and robust technological infrastructure for flexible working, and it is set to become even greater as more and more firms adopt Cloud based working, according to a new report  from technology specialists ControlCircle. The survey of 250 UK based CIOs, ‘IT Growth and Transformation’ found that over the next five years the increasing mobility of the workforce is going to present them with a range of increasingly important challenges, with IT leaders predicting that security (56 percent), cloud (46 percent) and mobility (41 percent) set to become the biggest challenges they face. The survey also revealed that nearly half (48 percent) of respondents experience hourly, daily and weekly technology availability issues and a fifth (21 percent) experience business downtime daily or hourly as a result.

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When worlds collide: a preview of the Salone Internationale del Mobile in Milan

by • Comment, Events, Furniture, Workplace design

S285 deskDon’t even think about going to Milan for a break at this time of year – you probably won’t get a hotel room. Every year the Salone Internationale del Mobile (International Furniture Fair) and Milan Design Week ensure that hotels are full despite room rates soaring for the duration of this world class exhibition. Salone is the show to attend if you want to know what’s going on in the world of furniture design. Along with Orgatec, Neocon, CIFF, Clerkenwell Design Week and the Stockholm Furniture Fair, Salone makes up the Grand Tour of furniture and design shows around the world. These shows not only provide an international showcase the very latest in furniture design, each also offers its own unique insight into the way we work and live. And they do so on a massive scale. In the case of Milan, this means extending the show beyond the halls of the central Rho fairgrounds to use locations around the whole city, when it takes place next week.

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CBI moves to new flagship London office at Cannon Place

by • Company news, Property, Workplace design

CBI Cannon Street 1The CBI is moving out of the Centre Point building this weekend to take up residence at its new flagship offices in London’s Cannon Place on Monday (31st March). The UK’s leading business group is leaving the Centre Point building in London’s West End after 34 years to relocate to new offices in Cannon Place, above Cannon Street station, where its new headquarters will be based. The 25,000 sq ft space on the fourth floor of the eight-floored Cannon Place will be open plan and home to around 200 staff. It will boast a member lounge with work stations and meeting rooms, as well as regular exhibitions showcasing the best of British business from around the globe. This first exhibitor will be Bristol-based film and television company Aardman Animations, the makers of the award-winning Wallace and Gromit series. (more…)

Google’s new Amsterdam office exposes Tech’s youthful obsessions

by • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

Google Amsterdam 2

All images © Alan Jensen and D/Dock

Back in the 1990s, when Frank Duffy was one of the august handful of people popularising notions of a changing approach to office design, he categorised four models of the workplace that he foresaw would come to reflect the work done in them, namely the den, cell, hive and club. Back then, the word ‘club’ conjured up images of gentleman’s clubs and Duffy himself described it in his 1997 book The New Office as ‘essentially an ingenious early 19th Century device to allow the kind of people who are now called networkers to share as supportive an environment as possible’, illustrating his point with an old coloured engraving of upright gents sitting around in a neo-classical, Victorian, smoke-filled room reading newspapers, sipping port and chewing the fat. Nowadays, the word club would appear to suggest something more along the lines of a youth club, as the latest pubescent design of a Google office shows us. (more…)

Research finds the treadmill desk improves wellness and productivity

by • Facilities management, News, Workplace

Workplace fitness

Despite employers offering staff access to a gym to help promote wellness, actually getting people to use the fitness facilities is another matter. The answer could be to bring the fitness equipment directly to their office; as new research shows that employees who use treadmill workstations as they work not only receive physical benefits but also are more productive. According to a recently published study by researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, sedentary employees from a non-profit financial service company who had their current cubicles and offices outfitted with treadmill desks were found to burn an average of 74 more calories per day than they did before they received the treadmill workstation. They were also found to be more productive. (more…)

British employees are most stressed workers in Europe

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

British employees are more affected by stress UK office workers are more affected by stress than their European counterparts, with only 13 per cent of British employees saying they don’t suffer from any stress and deal with their workload well, compared to the European average of 42 per cent. According to new research by recruiters StepStone and totaljobs.com nearly one quarter (24 per cent) of British workers are feeling increased pressure at work. At the other end of the spectrum, the Dutch and the French are the most relaxed, with sixty four per cent of employees in these countries not at all stressed and feeling perfectly able to handle their workload. These disturbing revelations follow recent statistics from the ONS that showed absence related to stress, depression and anxiety accounted for 15.2 million lost days of employment last year, up from 11.8 million in 2010. (more…)

No pay rise for a while? Get used to it, says the CIPD

by • News, Workplace

Ivor Lott and Tony Broke_96The Chartered Institiute of Personnel and Development has today released a report analysing the most sustained and severe fall in real wages since at least the Second World War, and warns that the decline will not be reversed until there is a substantial improvement in the UK’s productivity.  The report is accompanied by new survey data showing many employees expect pay rises in 2014 to be below inflation – a repeat of their experience in 2013. ‘Have we seen the end of the pay rise?‘, which is the third in a series of four Megatrends surveys exploring the future of work and the economic challenges which lie ahead, examines the effects of average weekly earnings that are now between 7.8 percent and 10.2 percent lower in real terms than they were five years ago, in January 2009, leading to a sustained squeeze on household finances.

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Legal update – Employment Law changes ahead in 2014

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

Employment Law changes ahead in 2014

Some of the most hotly debated employment law issues from last year; including flexible working, workplace wellbeing and the contractual rights of employees look set to make more headlines this year, because 2014 is shaping up to be another year of significant change in UK employment law. While the timetable is subject to amendment, currently the Government is intending to introduce a number of revisions. The key employment law events and cases to watch out for in 2014 will include changes to TUPE, flexible working, flexible parental leave, employment tribunal procedures, redundancy consultation, Acas conciliation, calculation of holiday pay and post-employment victimisation;  which we list below in the date order in which they are proposed. (more…)

Festive burnout is latest ailment to strike unwary office workers

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Festive burnout latest ailment to strike unwary office workersAs we enter the last full working week before the Christmas holidays, the reason why the office is already half empty isn’t just because staff have faked a sickie to do their Christmas shopping. Many of them may be genuinely sick – with Christmas the primary reason. The new ailment of “Festive Burnout” has been coined to mark the countdown to Christmas, as stress, exhaustion and illness begins to strike offices. According to the findings of a new investigation from AXA PPP healthcare;  while one in four Brits say that Christmas is their favourite time of the year, a third tend to start their holiday feeling burnt out from the stress of the run up to the holiday break.

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