Search Results for: office

January 5, 2017

Recognition by promotion rather than reward, is key driver in job satisfaction ⁰

Nearly two-thirds of respondents in a global survey (63 percent) said they would prefer to get a promotion with no salary increase than a salary increase with no promotion this year. One reason for this, the research from Korn Ferry suggests, is that many organizations are not doing an adequate job of creating clear advancement opportunities for professionals. More than half (56 percent) of respondents who did not get a promotion within the last 12 months cited “bottleneck or nowhere to go” as the main reason. Nearly one-fifth (19 percent) said office politics got in their way of moving up the ladder, and while 39 percent said they did receive a promotion within the last year, less than half (45 percent) said they expect to receive a promotion in the coming year. Also, 84 percent said that if they were passed over for a promotion, the No.1 action they would take was to identify the reason and work to improve. The vast majority (88 percent) said that if they wanted a promotion, the No. 1 action they would take would be to have a conversation with their boss and identify growth areas that would enable them to move into the next role.

December 26, 2016

The Winter 2016 issue of Work&Place is available now ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Facilities management, Flexible working, Premium Content, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

The Winter 2016 issue of Work&Place is now available to view online. In this edition… Neil Usher, Workplace Director at Sky offers a first hand account of the story behind the firm’s remarkable new offices at the Osterley campus in London; Kate Langan explores some of the implications of the growing digitisation of the workplace; Jim Ware looks at how the challenge of creating effective meeting spaces is now a strategic concern; John Blackwell tries to make sense of falling productivity levels when we have all the tools and know how to increase it; David Woolf makes the case for designing better collaborative spaces; Mark Eltringham looks forward to an almost entirely unpredictable future for workplaces in the 21st Century; and Karen Plum and Andrew Mawson set out the factors that drive knowledge worker productivity. The PDF edition is available to view and download here. Or view online here.

December 23, 2016

Majority of British workers will work at some point over Christmas and New Year ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Three in five UK employees will work at some point over the Christmas period, a third of staff will curtail their break to return on Tuesday 27th December and 45 percent say working over Christmas is mandatory. These are the key findings of research from Hudson. The firm suggests that growing pressure pressure on companies to meet year round demand is causing employees to work over the traditional holiday period. The quarterly UK office-based workforce survey claims that the majority of workers (61.5 percent), including three quarters of millennials (76 percent), will cut short their festivities to work at some point between Christmas Eve and the January Bank Holiday. More than one third of staff (34 percent) will have to work at least one day between Christmas and New Year, causing problems for the many employees who’ve travelled home to be with their families over the festive period.

December 23, 2016

Presenteeism doesn’t aid productivity, so employers should set workers free ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working

At this time of year, the days are short, the morning commute can be hellish and traffic grid-locked. Wouldn’t it be ideal if more employers recognised this and offered a solution involving flexible hours, remote collaboration or even home-working? And not just at Christmas, but the whole year round? More and more companies are switching on to the benefits this can bring in terms of their employees’ well-being and productivity. Firms can allow colleagues to occasionally work from home or a third place, provide tools that enable them to work remotely and support an agile working agenda. This can be done in parallel with making provision for a hi-tech and collaborative workplace where colleagues can get together regularly to connect, get work done and be part of an effective team.

December 22, 2016

British workers find it increasingly difficult to unwind after work ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A large proportion of British workers are struggling to switch off from work when they finish for the day, according to new research. The study of 1,011 UK adults in full or part-time employment, conducted by Cascade HR as part of the firm’s The Stress Report, claims that more than three quarters (76 percent) are unable to unwind immediately and instead experience residual stress after leaving the office. The data found it takes on average 1 hour and 39 minutes for UK workers to relax after they have left work for the day, while almost a fifth say they often take work home with them and so don’t ever fully unwind. This residual work stress isn’t just encroaching on employees’ free time after work, but time spent on annual leave, according to the study. When they go on annual leave, it takes UK workers an average of 2.63 days for them to relax, and 10.31 days of annual leave for them to return to work feeling truly refreshed. This equates to just over half of the UK’s statutory allocation of annual leave per person, per year.

December 22, 2016

Green buildings help you to think and sleep better ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News

A new study from researchers at Harvard claims to establish a link between those standards for green buildings with an indoor environmental quality (IEQ) component and the wellbeing and productivity of employees. The study, The impact of working in a green certified building on cognitive function and health, has been published in the journal Building and Environment. Based on a study of 109 subjects in ten ‘high performing’ buildings compared to staff from the same firm in uncertified buildings, it found that respondents enjoyed a 26.4 percent uplift in cognitive performance, a 6.4 percent increase in sleep quality and 30 percent fewer symptoms. The accreditations used in the study were LEED New Construction 2009, Green Star Office v3, BREEAM New Construction 2012, BCA Green mark for new non-residential buildings v4.1 2013, and DGNB New Office v2012

December 21, 2016

Employee retention and engagement was top of mind for employers this year ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employee retention was the top workforce management challenge in 2016, claims a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), with almost one-half of surveyed organizations (46 percent) citing it as a top challenge in 2016. Other top workforce management challenges for at least one-third of organizations were: employee engagement (36 percent), recruitment (34 percent) and succession planning (33 percent). SHRM’s survey Influencing Workplace Culture Though Employee Recognition and Other Efforts, which was produced in collaboration with and commissioned by Globoforce, found that as employers look for ways to deal with the challenges of low employee retention and high turnover, more organizations are tying employee recognition efforts to their core values.The majority of respondents indicated that their employee recognition programs had positive impacts on employee engagement, workplace culture, retention and employee happiness.

December 15, 2016

Commuting – stressful, annoying or just another opportunity? ⁰

by Mike James • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

Unless you work at home you will have to commute to work in some form or another and for many people this part of the day can become such a negative factor it can impact on productivity, job satisfaction and even cause depression. However, what if we tried to look at commuting in a different light? What if we took a step back and attempted to turn all those wasted hours into something good and maybe even something productive? Depending on what source you read and when the study was done the average commute in the UK is between 50 minutes and 1 hour 38 minutes. This mean in any given working week most people are spending around 10 to 16 hours getting to and from work. If this amount of “down time” appeared during the working day business owners and managers would take it very seriously indeed. However, as the time falls outside of the employees work remit and essentially the company doesn’t need that person before and after work it is not discussed. The problem is, employees do feel like it is part of the working day and this leads to resentment, stress, fatigue and possible depression not to mention lower productivity.

December 14, 2016

Surge in take up of London commercial property defies Brexit storm ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

London commercial property has managed to weather the Brexit storm with a late surge of City deals over the past three weeks set to see Central London take-up in line with its long-term average level of 10 million sq ft in 2016. According to the latest figures from JLL, despite take-up in Central London being subdued in the lead-up to and immediate aftermath of the referendum, City take-up has surged during the last quarter, and is expected to reach 5.3 million sq ft by year end, just 6 percent below the long term average. This is offset by strong take-up in East London, where the recent deal to the GPU at Canary Wharf propelled take-up to 8 percent above its long term average level. The most notable deals of 2016 included – The Government Property Unit (GPUK) took 542,000 sq ft at 20 Cabot Square, E14 which was a sub-lease from Barclays; Apple pre-let 500,000 sq ft at Battersea Power Station, SW8 and will be paying a rent in the high £50 per sq ft; Thompson Reuters acquired 315,362 sq ft at 5 Canada Square, E14, paying a rent of £40 per sq ft; 33 Central, EC4 was pre-let to Wells Fargo who took the entire building, totalling 227,689 sq ft and New Look pre-leasing 127,096 sq ft at R7 Handyside Street, N1C for £77.50 per sq ft.

December 13, 2016

US study projects massive shift to agile working model over the next decade ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

By the year 2025, most workers (70 percent) and employers (68 percent) agree a majority of the workforce will be employed in an agile working capacity as contractors, consultants, temporary or freelance staff, according to a study released by Randstad US. The Workplace 2025 report of more than 3,100 workers and 1,500 HR and c-suite executives across the US found that as early as 2019, as much as 50 percent of the workforce will be comprised of agile workers, as nearly 4 in 10 (39 percent) workers say they are likely to consider shifting to an agile arrangement over the next two-to-three years. The study claims that this movement is fuelling an equally aggressive adoption of new workforce models that tap into both permanent and agile employees to combat staffing shortages, leverage globalisation and fuel greater innovation for organisations.

December 13, 2016

Commuting woe will drive uptake of flexible working in 2017, claims study ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

As more rail strikes grip the South East of England, a new study from Regus suggests that commuters are increasingly frustrated by the sheer tedium and disruption of getting to work in the first place and would like to adopt more flexible working practices as a result. In a study of 1,700 UK professionals carried out by the serviced office provider, 58 percent of respondents said they are looking to ‘work remotely in order to improve their travel schedule’ next year. The study cites recent reports which estimate that today’s average UK commute takes anywhere from 55 to 90 minutes with more than 3 million workers regularly facing journeys of two hours plus to get to and from work. Research has found that the commute has a detrimental effect on wellbeing, with the Office of National Statistics reporting that commuters have lower life satisfaction, lower levels of happiness and higher anxiety.

December 9, 2016

The workplace holds the key to enormous productivity boost, claims study ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Workplace design

Companies could boost their productivity by between 1 and 3.5 per cent, adding as much as £70 billion to the UK economy, by focusing on how the workplace might be used to generate revenue, instead of regarding them simply as a cost to be managed. That is according to the newly published The Workplace Advantage report from The Stoddart Review based on a meta-analysis of 200 studies by workplace expert Dr Nigel Oseland. Taking a new approach to how space is used to help employees to be productive and changing who is responsible for the decisions is the first step. The Review, a collaboration between business leaders and workplace experts, found that only a little over a half (53 percent) of the UK’s office workers can say their workplace enables them to be productive. For the rest, a workplace that’s unproductive is also affecting their pride in the company, its image and culture. It found that too many businesses are prioritising filling up their offices with people rather than asking themselves ‘what will make their staff productive’. As a result, as many as 70 percent say their office is too noisy and they are disappointed by the lack of different types of workspace including communal areas and break-out zones.