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December 12, 2014

UK technological infrastructure not meeting demands of businesses

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

The UK’s technological infrastructure is failing to keep pace with the availability of broadband and mobile services and not meeting demands of small businesses and homes, according to Ofcom’s Infrastructure Report 2014. The report outlines the challenges facing the Government as it seeks to deliver appropriate technological infrastructure for both businesses and consumers. The report suggests that although there is an overall improvement in the availability and quality of broadband services, many remote and rural areas aren’t being connected quickly enough, there are too many urban ‘not-spots’, a lack of superfast broadband for small businesses and no discernible plan for the uptake of the next generation of ultrafast broadband. The report found the average UK household or small business is downloading 53 Gigabytes (GB) of data on their fixed broadband line every month.

December 12, 2014

Can the workplace environment change an organisation’s culture?

by Adam Burtt-Jones • Comment, Workplace design

It is rare that organisations are totally satisfied with their current culture. They will often see what can be improved and at the same time recognise that these improvements will inevitably stem from a change in behaviour or the attitude of their employees. What is important to remember is that a change in the design of the physical environment will not, by itself, change the culture of an organisation. But workplace design can reflect the desired culture of the organisation, and help to promote certain behaviours and attitudes. It can also help to reinforce the unique attributes of your organisation in a powerful, subliminal way. Culture results from the values and behaviours of employees and is best understood by the relationships internally between individuals, teams and departments. Culture can also be seen through relationships externally with customers, suppliers and stakeholders

December 10, 2014

We should bring the soft landings idea back to Earth with a bump

by Andrew Brown • Comment, Facilities management, Property

Soft landings, hit the ground running, smooth handover, transition phase: whatever words you choose to describe the process the principle is the same. Managers and occupiers of a building – any building, want it to function properly. But why is this apparently so hard for anybody to achieve? Soft landings feels more like tainted love right now. So, think back a few steps and imagine you’re buying a brand new, shiny new-build house. It doesn’t come with an instruction manual, but it is a house – what’s not to know about it. But even new homes have issues. Maybe cracking in plaster, gaps around architraves, doors not closing smoothly and heating systems that is noisy and untested. In the trade it’s called snagging. You call the builder up, you make a list he comes round your new house and checks the list and then argues about the repairs.

November 26, 2014

Next ten years will see a surge of activity in new smart cities era

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Environment, Technology

Researchers Frost & Sullivan are promoting a study of the world’s smart cities which predicts that the global market will be valued at US$1.565 trillion by 2020. The report also claims that there will be a minimum of 26 smart cities worldwide by 2025 with more than half in Europe and North America. By 2025, nearly three fifths of the world’s population, or 4.6 billion people, will live in an urban setting and in developed regions, this figure could run to over 80 percent. This new era of urbanisation will force planners to radically rethink how they create cities, develop digital infrastructure and provide services to residents in a sustainable manner across a range of key parameters. The report defines smart cities as those built around ‘smart’ and ‘intelligent’ solutions and technology that lead to the adoption of at least 5 of 8 key parameters—energy, building, mobility, healthcare, infrastructure, technology, governance and education, and citizen.

November 24, 2014

New report offers occasionally surprising vision of the future of work

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

A new report into the future of work from Cisco claims –unsurprisingly – that employers are shifting their workplace policies to accommodate new demands from employees for more flexible working styles, regardless of their demographic cluster. The 2014 Cisco Connected World Technology Report also also claims that the majority of both Generation X and Y professionals already believe that smartphones and wearable devices will be the workforce’s most important communication devices by 2020 – while the laptop will maintain its place as the workplace device of choice. These devices and their attendant software and apps will drive the uptake of flexible working although sixty percent of respondents to the survey still prefer to take notes using a pen and paper. Two of the most intriguing findings of the report are that while just over half of Gen Y professionals think they are more efficient than older workers (roughly in line with the perceptions of older workers themselves) this is way out of step with the impression HR professionals, and the majority of people still believe that the future of work still lies in the office, at least some of the time.

November 20, 2014

Gender pay gap at lowest point in history, reports ONS

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The gender pay gap is now at its lowest point in history, with more women in work than ever before. According to new statistics by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the pay gap has reduced by 0.7 percentage points over the past year to 19.1 per cent, and for those in full-time work the gender pay gap has reduced to almost zero for those under 40. Action is being taken to tackle one of the reasons for the pay gap – career breaks, often to raise a family by extending flexible working to all employees, and from next year, tax-free childcare and shared parental leave will come into effect. However, one of the main causes of the gender pay gap is that men tend to work in better paid sectors to women so a range of measures are being introduced to help women move from low-paid, low-skilled work into higher paid, higher skilled work. This includes a new £2 million training and mentoring programme of events for women, including those working part-time and older workers, to be carried out by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. This will target women working in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), retail and hospitality management and agricultural sectors.

November 19, 2014

Group of UK’s major employers urges widespread uptake of flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Some of the UK’s largest companies are jointly spearheading the call for the greater uptake of flexible working. On Monday, the 22 companies that make up the Agile Future Forum highlighted the role that factors such as new technology, changing demographics and globalisation are having on the business case for the adoption of agile working practices. Firms such as John Lewis, ITV, Ford, Tesco, Lloyds, BT and B&Q are championing the cause of agile working as a way of running a business that is competitive, productive, attractive to employees and able to compete on the world stage. The AFF, set up by former Lloyds chairman Sir Win Bischoff, used the event to publish its latest research to highlight the ways in which it believes the UK is one of the best-placed countries to foster flexible working in spite of a range of recalcitrant and restrictive working practices. The event cited a recent CBI survey which found that while 97 per cent of UK businesses agree that agility is key to growth, many still offer a limited range of flexible working practices.

November 11, 2014

More than three-quarters of workers are reluctant to switch employer, finds CIPD

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

There is little appetite among workers to switch employer, despite the growth in employment prospects in the UK. This is according to the CIPD quarterly Labour Market Outlook report which suggests that employment will again grow strongly in the final quarter of 2014 but wage growth is likely to remain subdued. The latest report shows that near-term employment expectations have risen to a seven year high, which can be partially attributed to fewer employers looking to make redundancies, as well as an expected continuation of the trend for many employers to be hiring new staff. The proportion of employers reporting hard-to-fill vacancies is broadly unchanged (44%) and two fifths of these are reported as ‘skill shortage’ vacancies. With over three-quarters (77%) of employees saying that they aren’t currently looking to change employers, there is a resultant reduction in churn amongst the existing workforce. This, combined with a growing number of EU immigrants and older people seeking work and an ongoing skills shortage, goes some way to explaining weak pay growth. More →

November 4, 2014

Badmouthing, arse-covering and bluff are main unethical behaviours in workplace

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

A new report from the Institute of Leadership and Management reveals the most common unethical behaviours displayed by employees in the workplace. Unsurprisingly they form a catalogue of low-level, generalised obfuscation, bluff, blame-shifting, bullshit and outright lying that will be very familiar to many people. The three most cited unethical behaviours according to the survey of 1,600 managers are cutting corners (72 percent), lying to cover one’s own mistakes (72 percent) and badmouthing colleagues (68 percent). People are, unsurprisingly, also prone to pass the buck when they miss deadlines (67 percent), cover up for the mistakes of colleagues (63 percent) and pinch low value items from work (52 percent). The ILM claims in its ‘The Truth About Trust’ report that these behaviours arise from a miasma of misunderstanding of what might be considered unethical behaviour, although equally they could just be things that people do if they think they can get away with them.

November 3, 2014

BIM adoption set to soar in UK and US over next two years, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property, Technology, Workplace design

Building owners are embracing building information modelling (BIM) as a powerful technology benefitting the design process, managing project schedules, controlling costs and minimizing project errors, according to the recent McGraw-Hill Construction SmartMarket Report “The Business Value of BIM for Owners”. The latest report focuses on the business value of BIM from the perspective of building owners in the United States and United Kingdom for whom the technology has been deployed. Initially adopted as a design tool and later evolving into an important tool for contractors, its adoption among building owners is expanding, the report claims, and that building owners are becoming more directly involved as “their power is even greater to align BIM use with their specific goals, engage more effectively with all stakeholders and extend the value of BIM beyond construction into facility management.” The study claims that 40 percent of US owners and 38 percent of UK owners expect that more than 75 percent of their projects will involve the technology in just two years.

October 27, 2014

Over 50s have highest rate of long term unemployment

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

More than a million people over 50 have been pushed out of the workplace a new report from The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise (PRIME) has revealed. Up to 1.5 million people aged 50-69 “involuntarily” left employment over the last eight years due to a combination of redundancy, ill health or “forced” early retirement. Of these, 1.1 million people would be willing to work. Yet if the employment rate of this 50–64 age group matched that of the 35–49 age group, it would boost UK GDP by £88 billion (5.6%). The report: ‘The missing million: illuminating the employment challenges of the over 50s’ was produced by PRIME, now part of Business in the Community, in collaboration with The International Longevity Centre (ILC), the leading think tank on longevity and demographic change. The report explores the employment challenges facing older workers and calls for urgent action from policy makers and employers to ensure that people over 50 remain in the labour market, for example through flexible working and retraining. More →

October 17, 2014

The solution to complex issues like green building is to become more sophisticated

by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

One of the current preoccupations of the World Green Building Council is to demonstrate how green business is good business. The way it is presenting this argument is intriguing because as well as extolling the most anticipated benefits of green building design, such as lower energy bills, it is linking green building design with human factors such as productivity, wellness and work-life balance. It has produced a number of reports on this subject, most recently in September with a publication titled Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices which found ‘overwhelming evidence’ of the link between office design and productivity. What such compelling reports also highlight are the complex challenges we face and the sophisticated approach we must take to environmental issues and corporate social responsibility. Fortunately this is already exhibited by many organisations.