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The Furniture Makers’ Company announces Design Guild Mark 2022 holders

The Furniture Makers’ Company announces Design Guild Mark 2022 holders

by • Company news, Workplace design

design guild mark bisley buddyInnovation of materials and creativity remain at the forefront of British design as 23 outstanding submissions from three categories are to be awarded the coveted Design Guild Mark in 2022. The Design Guild Mark is awarded by The Furniture Makers’ Company, the City of London livery company and charity for the furnishing industry, to drive excellence and raise the profile of British design and innovation. It recognises the highest standards in the design of furnishings in volume production across three categories – Furniture, 2D Design, and Lighting Design. The award is open to designers working in Britain or British designers working abroad. (more…)

Demand for a four-day week continues to grow

Demand for a four-day week continues to grow

by • Flexible working, News

four-day weekAccording to a new report from ADP exploring employees’ attitudes towards the current world of work, six-in-ten (60 percent) UK workers would like more flexibility as to when they work, such as condensing hours into a four-day week. This number increased to two-thirds (67 percent) in Greater London. The report claims that this desire for great flexibility comes at a time when there is a mental health “ticking timebomb” in workplaces. Over half (51 percent) of men and 45 percent of women believe that their work is suffering due to their poor mental health. This is leading to over a quarter (29 percent) of workers actively trying to change their job and/or move into another industry. (more…)

Decarbonisation of buildings key to cities hitting net zero targets

Decarbonisation of buildings key to cities hitting net zero targets

by • Environment, News, Property

decarbonisation of buildingsCity governments are setting ambitious sustainability targets, often well ahead of national goals; yet plans to tackle the carbon emissions from buildings are frequently given insufficient attention. To deliver an effective plan for the decarbonisation of buildings, partnerships with landlords, investors, developers and occupiers are essential, the report claims. In a study of 32 global urban centres, Decarbonising Cities and Real Estate, JLL’s research claims that real estate’s contribution to emissions averages 60 percent, even higher in the world’s largest business centres – as much as 78 percent in London, 73 percent in Tokyo, 71 percent in Washington, DC, 70 percent in Paris and 66 percent in New York. (more…)

Flexible working now arriving at aisle three

Flexible working now arriving at aisle three

by • Flexible working, News

flexible working tescoRemote workers might soon be able to do their jobs and shop for groceries at the same time, under a new “Spaces” project between Tesco and flexible office operator IWG. A trial at a branch of Tesco in New Malden that will start later in this month and will accommodate 12 private desks, 30 co-working spaces and a meeting room. The 3,800 sq ft space within the store would normally have been used for electrical goods, music, and other forms of entertainment, most of which are now mainly purchased online. The aim is to make better use of floor space and, if successful, Tesco stores across the country could become flexible working hubs. (more…)

The truth about motivation, engagement and the employment of motivated idiots

The truth about motivation, engagement and the employment of motivated idiots

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

motivated idiotsThe current obsession with engagement and motivation is evident every time you read the business media these days. This is understandable in many ways, not least because it seems true that firms and employees are often working in an atmosphere of mistrust. But one thing that is often noticeable when a profession such as HR gets itself into a debate of this nature is the gap that can exist between practitioners and everybody else offering a view. So while academics can talk about definitions and suppliers seek to apply their solutions to the issue, it is often down to those who work at the sharp end to dish up the truth, however unpalatable or cynical that can seem to be. (more…)

Half of workers worried about the financial cost of the return to the office

Half of workers worried about the financial cost of the return to the office

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

commuters return to the officeSlack has released the results of a new poll which the firm claims reveals the current state of mental wellbeing among UK workers. Commissioned in partnership with NHS GP and TV Doctor, Dr Sara Kayat, and to mark Mental Health Awareness Week, the survey sets out to examines the impact of the office on wellbeing, the effects of the return to the office after the pandemic and indicates how businesses can build healthier workplaces. (more…)

Demand for office space ‘bounces back’

Demand for office space ‘bounces back’

by • News, Property

office spaceThe start of 2022 saw a jump in new tenants looking to rent UK commercial property, with the uplift particularly prevalent in prime office space. Investor enquiries across all UK commercial property also continued to rise, according to the RICS Commercial Property Market Survey, Q1 2022. Respondents to the survey saw a notable increase in UK office demand in Q1 2022 with the net balance improving to +30 percent from a flat picture at the end of 2021. A considerable change in sentiment was also seen in the retail sector, as occupier demand moved into relatively neutral territory (-1% net balance), the first time this reading has been neutral or positive since the beginning of 2017. (more…)

Inflexible return to office strategies starting to damage workplace experience

Inflexible return to office strategies starting to damage workplace experience

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

commuters return to officeFuture Forum, a consortium launched by Slack with Boston Consulting Group, MillerKnoll and MLT to “help companies reimagine work in the new digital-first workplace”, has released the latest findings from its global Pulse study, which shows that employee experience scores are plummeting for knowledge workers who have been asked to return to the office full-time and for those who do not have the flexibility to set their own work schedules. More than a third of knowledge workers (34 percent) are now working from the office five days a week, the greatest share since Future Forum began surveying in June 2020. With this shift, employee sentiment has dropped to near-record lows, including 28 percent worse scores on work-related stress and anxiety and 17 percent worse scores on work-life balance (compared to last quarter). (more…)

Office costs creep up, but not because of higher rents

Office costs creep up, but not because of higher rents

by • News, Property

office costs riseHigher fit-out costs and service charge growth, not rent rises are set to increase office occupier costs in 2022, claims a new report. Savills analysis of Q1 22 Prime Office Costs (SPOC) in global markets around the world has shown that higher fit-out costs, reflecting material and labour cost inflation, are beginning to creep through in some office markets. While overall there has been no movement in the position of cities in the rankings since the end of 2021, says Savills, some markets are experiencing rising costs in fitting out space and increased service charges. According to Savills this trend is most evident in Chinese cities, Kuala Lumpur, and in North American cities at the moment, but other markets across the globe are set to follow suit in the coming quarters.

Jeremy Bates, head of EMEA occupational markets at Savills, comments: “From higher prices for raw materials to increasing labour costs to keep up with rising inflation, it’s likely that most office occupiers will have to pay more to rent and fit-out their space in global cities this year.

“Whilst rent is the usual indicator of increasing cost, service charge rises and higher capital expenditure will represent the largest contributions towards increased occupier costs in the coming quarters. Even in markets where landlords tend to pay for fit-outs, these costs will eventually be passed on to occupiers later in the form of higher rents. Nonetheless, for many office occupiers the expense is unlikely to deter them from selecting top quality spaces in prime central business districts to attract and retain talent, although they are carrying out extensive data gathering exercises on how employees are using space before making decisions on exactly how much to take.”

Savills says that overall headline rents have, on average, remained flat in local currencies and the increasing additional costs have yet to appear across many markets, according to the international real estate advisor, with fluctuating exchange rates due to increased uncertainty producing the appearance of declining costs for many markets in Dollar terms during the first quarter of 2022, while in local currencies they have broadly remained consistent with Q4 2021.

Experimentation is the name of the game

Experimentation is the name of the game

by • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace design

Uncertain times call for different measures and approaches, the old rules and playbooks are no longer applicable – so what are you going to do? Sit around, stagnate, hanker after old solutions trying to manipulate and squeeze them into new, unknowable, untried paradigms? No! One thing human beings are fairly good at is evolving and adapting to new and unknown situations and as we all know, being flexible and  accepting change creates resilience and ensures survival. (more…)

Research casts doubt on environmental benefits of hybrid working

Research casts doubt on environmental benefits of hybrid working

by • Flexible working, News

commuters and hybrid workingA permanent post-pandemic switch to hybrid working may do little to reduce carbon emissions as the majority of remote workers travel further each week than their office-based counterparts, new research from the University of Sussex Business School reveals. The newly published study finds that, prior to the pandemic, most remote workers in England travelled further each week than office-based workers – despite taking fewer trips. This was partly because remote workers tended to live further from their workplace than non-teleworkers, so had longer, if less frequent, commutes. In addition, remote workers engaged in more travel on the days when they worked from home – for example, by making extra trips to shops and cafes. (more…)

Structural and cultural change are what we need to escape the wellbeing rut

Structural and cultural change are what we need to escape the wellbeing rut

by • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

wellbeing at workWellbeing has been one of the largest challenges to the UK workforce over the last several years. A recent study by the Mental Health Foundation and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), states that mental health problems cost the UK economy at least £117.9 billion every year – around 5 percent of the UK’s GDP. Companies recognise the urgency to help: British employers planned to increase spending on employee mental health and wellbeing by 18 percent from 2021 to 2022. But the long and short of the issue is that this progress is being outpaced by accelerating burnout rates among workers. (more…)

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