Search Results for: media

March 29, 2016

Workers spend large parts of each day doing nothing or wasting their time ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Wellbeing

If it ever seems that you spend a large chunk of your average working day either doing nothing or wasting it on pointless nonsense, then don’t worry about it because that is all perfectly normal. You may already know that just by looking around you, but two new surveys highlight just how much time people consider unproductive each day. The Global Attitudes to Work survey from Qualtrics polled 6,250 employees in 14 countries and found that UK workers believe that 36 percent of the time they spend at work is unproductive. This puts the UK towards the bottom of the international pile when it comes to perceptions of their productivity, a fact perhaps explained by another survey from Workfront which suggest that many Brits are unnecessarily disorganised and spend inordinate amounts of time dealing with non work related emails, looking for lost files and then simply replicating them after fruitless searches.

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March 24, 2016

Coworking spaces not just suited to start-ups with Millennial occupants ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property, Workplace design

The rise in popularity of coworking spaces has been largely attributed to growing demand from creative and tech start-ups for shared workplaces that are cost-effective alternatives to traditional office leases. But there’s new evidence from the US that coworking spaces could also be eminently suitable even for larger occupiers, and especially in costly metro areas such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston. According to a new report from CBRE Group a number of misconceptions that have perhaps kept larger occupiers away from extensive use of coworking facilities do remain, including that this type of space is priced at a premium compared with traditional leases; that it is only utilized by entrepreneurs and small businesses; and that the users are exclusively post-college millennials. Yet CBRE’s report found that these assumptions are not accurate.

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March 23, 2016

The choice of a clear or messy workplace is an expression of personality ⁰

by Michael Page • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

When it comes to each individual’s working space and workstation area, a question that is always worth asking (and often is) is whether it is best to back off and let people customise their immediate surroundings to fit with their own tastes and needs or whether a company-wide tidy desk policy and uniformity of approach be imposed to protect a specific look and standard. One factor that is relevant is that there seems to be a pendulum swing between aesthetics and wellbeing going on at the moment, with many companies going back and forth in pursuit of the best approach. A study, conducted a few years ago by psychological scientist Professor Kathleen Vohs, along with a number of other researchers from the University of Minnesota, considered the behaviour of people working on both messy and clean desks and found that the individuals working in messier spaces came up with more creative and interesting results in their work overall.

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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 11, 2016

What that story about menstrual leave teaches us about flexible working ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

There’s nothing that makes you yearn more for the end of humanity quite like the comments section on a website. There is such a direct correlation between your zeal for the apocalypse and the amount you expose yourself to the fetid bullshit that seeps from some people’s heads on to the Internet that you could graph it pretty accurately, with an especially steep curve formed by the stuff that lie below the surface of YouTube videos and certain newspaper articles. It’s wise to limit your exposure to this stuff because whenever you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you. Occasionally though, the eye may drift below the content and catch a glimpse of how a lot of people think. One example cropped up recently when it was announced that a Bristol based company called Coexist had decided to offer its women employees menstrual leave, meaning they could work from home or take time out if they felt they needed it.

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February 25, 2016

Over half of UK employers will implement flexible working by next year ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The UK is on the verge of a flexible working ‘tipping point’ with more than half of employers offering staff more choice of where to work. Working anywhere: A winning formula for good work? produced by Lancaster University’s Work Foundation, and commissioned by Citrix, reveals that 2017 will be the time when over half of organisations in the UK are likely to have adopted flexible working. It also predicts that over 70 percent of organisations will have followed suit by 2020. The Work Foundation, which hosted interviews with academics, business leaders and the public sector to glean insights around the theme of flexible working, supported by research with 500 managerial level employees within medium to large businesses, warns that there is still much to be done to address attitudes towards flexible working, from ensuring people don’t end up working longer hours to dealing with feelings of ‘disconnect’.

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February 25, 2016

Gen X is the UK’s hardest working demographic group, claims report ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Workplace

Maybe it’s the mortgages, children and other responsibilities but a new study suggests that the UK’s hardest working demographic is Generation X. The survey of 2,500 employees from project management software firm Workfront found that over half (52.3 percent) of UK respondents said Generation X (roughly those aged between 34-54) as the hardest workers and almost 60 per cent (59.5 percent) claimed GenXers also had the strongest work ethic. Born between the early 1960’s and early 1980’s, Gen X was also claimed to be the most skilled (54.5 percent) followed by Baby Boomers, those approximately aged around 54–70-years-old, (27.1 percent). Millennials, those born between the 1980s to early 2000s, were identified as the most ‘tech-savvy’ (66.3 percent) but according to the survey it seems other skills are perceived as more valuable as only 18 percent of people surveyed said Millennials were the most skilled overall.

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February 23, 2016

High demand in Dubai office market continues to sustain rents ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Office rents in Dubai’s main markets have remained strong as a result of continued high demand from both international and domestic occupiers, reports Cluttons, but despite a sustained demand, occupiers remain cost conscious and budget driven in the face of a softening global economic backdrop. Landlords, by contrast appear to be slow to react to a cooling market, with many reluctant to move on asking prices and others demonstrating a lack of flexibility for lease terms at renewal. The emerging gulf between market reality and landlords’ expectations is a concern, says Faisal Durrani, Cluttons’ head of research, “particularly for a market that is now starting to show signs of maturity.” The analysis of the performance of 22 submarkets across the city in the first quarter of the year reveals that 13 submarkets witnessed no change in starting rents in 2015, seven experienced notable increases and the remaining two lower limit rents decreased over the 12 months of 2015.

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February 18, 2016

What would happen if you didn’t turn up for work tomorrow? ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

You might assume that most people would like to think of themselves as more or less indispensable at work. And if they’re not already, would like to make themselves indispensable at some point. But what exactly would happen if you simply didn’t turn up for work tomorrow? It might be nothing, as the recent case of Joaquin Garcia proved. The Spanish civil servant hadn’t turned up to work for at least six years, according to reports from last year. His absence only came to light when his employer decided he was eligible for a long term service award. His case became something of a sensation in Spain, where he earned the moniker el funcionario fantasma – the phantom official. But his story isn’t a one off. In a grim news item from 2004, a Finnish tax inspector died at his desk and the fact went unnoticed for two days.

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February 11, 2016

Manchester set to run out of Grade A office space this year, claims report ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property

Manchester could completely run out of ready to occupy, Grade A office space this year, according to a new report from Colliers International. The snapshot of the commercial property market in the city claims that take-up of space in Manchester during 2015 was over a third (37.5 percent) above a ten year average and the rate of occupation by both UK and overseas firms was double that of the previous three years. As a consequence, the local property market is currently unable to keep pace with demand and the availability of Grade A space declined by 61 percent during the year to reach its lowest level since 2006. There is now just 216,000sq ft of Grade A stock available to let in Central Manchester, with major new developments in the key Spinningfields district (above) and elsewhere not expected to complete until later this year and into 2018. Even some of these spaces are already let, according to the study.