March 15, 2022

Inclusive office design guide published by Business Disability Forum

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace design

The Business Disability Forum (BDF) has published a new global guide which sets out to showing how all businesses can make their built environments accessible to the one billion people in world who have a disability. Having a disability can affect how a person accesses, navigates, and uses the spaces and structures around them. Built environments include everything from entrances, exits, stairs, lifts, signage, to parking, green spaces, roads, and transport systems so inclusive office design should address a wide range of issues. More →

March 3, 2022

What really happens when we start using offices again?

by Henry Stainton • Comment, Flexible working, Property

Should I stay or should I go? – we have all faced that dilemma in recent weeks with our offices opened by hopeful employers versus the enticement of a warm kitchen, fresh coffee and swerving a long commute also on offer. It is a decision we are all having to make and, which seems loaded with potential, previously unimagined outcomes. More →

March 3, 2022

British Land secures 250,000 sq ft of new office deals across London campuses

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

British Land has signed 34 new deals totalling 238,000 sq ft across its central London campuses. Since the half year results, nine businesses have signed 125,000 sq ft at newly refurbished buildings at Broadgate. New occupiers include customer engagement platform, Braze (49,000 sq ft, Exchange House); proprietary trading firm, Maven Securities (38,000 sq ft, 155 Bishopsgate); US-based law firm, Jenner & Block LLP (13,000 sq ft, 10 Exchange Square) and markets’ infrastructure and technology platform, Symphony (7,000 sq ft, 135 Bishopsgate). More →

March 1, 2022

Office furniture giant Flokk acquires Connection, doubling footprint in UK

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Workplace design

Flokk, one of the leading European manufacturers of office seating and office furniture products, has acquired UK-based office furniture manufacturer Connection, expanding its footprint in the strategically important UK market and underpinning its international growth strategy. “Having Connection join the Flokk group moves us into the major league of Europe’s second-largest office seating market. We roughly double our size to about EUR 30 million in the key UK market. The transaction is another example of Flokk continuing to consolidate the fragmented European office seating market through targeted and value-creating acquisitions of attractive companies and brands,” says Lars I. Røiri, CEO of Flokk. More →

March 1, 2022

Home office falls short when it comes to amenities, say half of workers

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

Over half of employees believe their home office set-up falls short of standard workplace amenities, a new poll claims. The study from Brita and Oktra (page includes promotions) claims to highlight the value of functional design and the impact well-designed workspaces have on employee wellbeing, engagement, and productivity. More →

February 28, 2022

Hybrid working means we have to make the most of our time in the office

by Dr Omar Merlo • Comment, Flexible working

The covid-19 pandemic has drastically affected every aspect of our lives, whether it be in a personal, societal, or professional sense. One of the biggest changes to come from the pandemic is the impact it has had on workplaces, and what we now know our working world to be, including the advent for the first time of widespread hybrid working. Long gone are the days of long commutes, long days in the office and set working hours. More →

February 15, 2022

Office still important for nurturing friendships and inclusivity, report claims

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The physical office remains vital for nurturing friendships, and supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce, according to O.C. Tanner’s 2022 Global Culture Report which analysed the perspectives of over 38,000 employees, leaders, HR practitioners and executives from 21 countries around the world, including over 2,500 from the U.K. Around two thirds (63 percent) of U.K. workers admit that it’s more challenging to form new friendships with colleagues when working remotely, and 58 percent of workers state that the office is where most of their new friendships are formed. More →

February 8, 2022

The office sector needs to develop better arguments for its products

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Workplace design

The distillation of every received and laundered idea of the past two years leads us here. A claim from Gallup that in future just over a third of the desks in offices will be empty. Whatever Gallup thinks, this is great news for the office sector. One of the truths the office sector hasn’t always liked to talk about too much over the last few decades is that in a typical office over that period, around half of the desks have already been empty. More →

February 4, 2022

Want people to return to the office? Then create the best office in the world

by Mike Hills • Features, Wellbeing, Workplace design

More obituaries have been written for the office in the past two years than at any time in history. It has often seemed like even the best office in the world couldn’t preserve the idea of the office. And it’s not like the obituaries were all that rare even before the pandemic forced us to reappraise our relationship with work and the times and places we do it. While all these death notices were being served, one particularly well-informed organisation was making some more interesting observations about it all. In particular, it constantly raised the most fundamental question of all. More →

February 4, 2022

Office furniture maker Connection announces move to new £8m head office and factory

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Furniture

In a planned strategy to capitalise upon unprecedented recent growth in sales, Huddersfield-based British office furniture manufacturer Connection is moving to a brand-new purpose-built state of the art building, which will encompass a head office, showroom and manufacturing facility under one roof. Connection have been based at their Dogley Mills home in Huddersfield since their founding in 1997 but after 25 years at the facility required a substantially larger space with the intent to double both manufacturing capacity and turnover. More →

January 31, 2022

London office market ‘returns to normality’ in latter half of 2021

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

Avison Young’s latest research claims that occupier activity in the London office market last quarter increased to 3.1 million sq ft, 27 percent above the previous quarter, to reach levels last seen in 2019 in what the report claims is ‘a strong sign that London’s occupiers are approaching their workplace strategies and office use with increased confidence’. The firm claims that nine deals above 100,000 sq ft were completed during the last six months, more than in the preceding eighteen months combined. More →

January 25, 2022

Third of people crave a return to the office for their mental health

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property, Wellbeing

A new study from smart building platform Infogrid claims that nearly a third of working Brits (32 percent) want to return to their offices in January because they feel it would improve their mental health, which has been impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The top reasons UK employees cite for wanting to return to the office include working in a positive social environment (35 percent), having a reason to leave the house (26 percent), not having to worry about being cold at home (25 percent), and the daily commute providing time to transition between home and work life (23 percent). More →