Search Results for: opportunities

November 4, 2015

Commercial property owners not keeping up with changing needs of tenants ⁰

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

A new study from Northumbria University, sponsored by serviced office provider Citibase, claims that the owners of commercial property in the UK stand to lose out on £4.8 billion over the next decade because they are failing to adapt to the changing needs of tenants for more agile spaces. The study claims that property owners in 27 towns and cities in England, Wales and Scotland are already missing out on £325 million annually and paying out another £170 million on holding cost and there are stark differences between the prime and secondary office sectors. The report, Taking Stock: Secondary opportunities and the agile future, claims that out of all total empty stock calculated, only 10 percent of vacant office space is prime, the other 90 percent is secondary. The secondary sector currently has an estimated 26.4m sq ft of office space vacant compared to just 3m sq ft of empty stock in the prime market.

November 3, 2015

Almost half of UK employees plan to change jobs within three years ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

UK employees are among the least loyal in Europe, according to new research by ADP, with nearly half of UK workers (47 percent) planning to change jobs within three years, compared to a third (34 percent) in the rest of Europe. Just 17 percent want to spend the rest of their career in their present organisation, whilst 40 percent of German workers see this as an option. The job market is now becoming more competitive as employees are looking for opportunities outside their home country. However, attitudes towards foreign talent are generally positive with 69 percent of UK employees who don’t see foreign talent as a threat. Even though companies may benefit from a global talent pool, losing local workforce is causing a headache for some countries. Employees in Spain (49 percent), Italy (47 percent), and Poland (39 percent) are particularly concerned about a talent drain to other countries.

November 3, 2015

Less than one year’s supply of office space now available in Central London ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Office occupiers are being forced to search further afield from traditional London commercial property centres as the vacancy rate of office space in Central London falls to a 15 year low. According to research from BNP Paribas Real Estate, at just 4.68 percent of total stock, the level of supply during the third quarter of the year was just 10.29m sq ft; equivalent to less than one years’ supply at current levels. Take-up to the end of September reached 10.78m sq ft, 18 percent above the long term trend, whilst the investment volume of £11.91bn is 28 percent ahead of the average. The West End’s office market was boosted by several large transactions involving Media Tech firms and take-up in Q3 2015 reached 1m sq ft, making the third quarter the busiest so far in 2015. The City is still attracting media tech companies, but there’s been a resurgence in traditional City occupiers from the professional sector.

October 29, 2015

Facilities management must become more strategic or risk becoming irrelevant ⁰

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

A new report claims that there are persistent and well-founded perceptions at boardroom level that facilities management is a support function with little or no strategic relevance and that this poses a serious risk to the discipline. While this may raise few eyebrows amongst those who have been aware of the problem for many years, what is startling is that the report comes from the International Facilities Management Association. The report, Redefining the Executive View of Facility Management, authored by Richard Kadzis, highlights the long reported mismatch between this perception and that of facilities managers themselves who believe they represent an industry that continues to adapt to a changing world and add value to the organisation. Conversely, senior executives see FMs as ‘glorified custodians’ whose performance should be measured in terms of the money they save the organisation.

October 26, 2015

An updated green building standard designed to meet wider business objectives ⁰

by Sue Gregson • Comment, Facilities management, Legal news, Property

The publication in September 2015 of the revised ISO 14001 Global Environmental Management Standard has been heralded as a move that will “shift business focus on the environment from compliance with regulations and direct operations, to placing the environment at the heart of thinking and strategy.” This will assist businesses around the world to respond to increasing global sustainability challenges and ensure long-term business success. Currently there are over 300,000 organisations worldwide that are certified to the ISO 14001 Standard, first published in 1996. According to the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, (IEMA) ISO 14001 is the second most used standard companies employ to manage their performance globally, with 171 countries now represented. Its popularity as a management tool has been linked to both improved financial and environmental performance.

October 22, 2015

UK’s digital leaders set to deliver £92 billion boost to economy ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Company news, News, Technology

A new report from Virgin Media Business and Oxford Economics claims that the UK’s ‘Digital Leaders’ are set to use digital technology deliver a massive boost to the UK economy in the very near future. The study of 1,000 companies employing 470,000 people claims that the UK economy could see an increase of 2.5 percent in GDP (£92 billion) and create more than a million new jobs over the next two years. According to the respondents, they had already increased their revenues by 4.4 per cent and reduced costs by 4.3 per cent over the past year by making better use of digital technology, generating an estimated £123 billion contribution to the UK’s economy, equivalent to 3.4 per cent of GDP. In terms of jobs, 44 per cent of executives don’t expect any jobs to become obsolete and, across the economy, companies anticipate hiring 1.1 million employees as a result of digital investments.

October 13, 2015

Small business demand for coworking space ‘set to soar’ in the UK ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Property

New research from the UK solicitors network QualitySolicitors claims that demand for flexible coworking space is set to soar, with 71 percent of SMEs predicting this to be a priority for them in the short and medium term. According to the study of 250 small business decision makers, over two fifths (42 percent) believe that having a flexible and adaptable space where they can grow is ‘more important’, almost a fifth (18 percent) say it’s important to be able to interact and collaborate on ideas with other businesses in their premises and a further 39 percent are looking for a workspace with networking opportunities. It’s not just the space that needs to be flexible however; over half (54 percent) claim they want flexible, short term lets when negotiating their lease and 53 percent would demand a break clause to prevent them from being tied down if the space is no longer practical for their business.

October 7, 2015

Millennial workers value variety over job security and tenure ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Employers may continuously be looking at ways to engage staff to ensure they still loyal to the organisation, but according to new research it seems they needn’t bother. Over one third (37 percent) of US workers — regardless of their satisfaction level — are seriously considering leaving their organizations, up from 33 percent of the workforce who were considering leaving in 2011. According to Mercer’s latest Inside Employees’ Mind research, which surveyed 3,000 people representing a complete cross-section of the US workforce, nearly one out of two employees who said they are very satisfied with their organizations and their jobs (45 percent and 42 percent, respectively) are still looking to leave. And perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s the Millennial workers who seem to value accelerated career paths and diversity (in the workplace and the work itself) over job security and tenure.

September 30, 2015

Case studies illustrate key role of HR in transformational change ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Workplace, Workplace design

A growing understanding of the importance of breaking down silos between workplace disciplines has resulted in initiatives such as the launch of the Workplace Conversation. Now a new report from the CIPD and the University of Bath, features four change management case studies that demonstrate what can be achieved when HR becoming an integral part of the team responsible for designing and implementing all the processes required during periods of transformational change. The report, Landing transformational change: Closing the gap between theory and practice features BBC Worldwide, HMRC, News UK and Zurich UK Life and reveal that in all these cases, the HR function was most successful when it facilitated action, enabling managers to inject their own customisation to suit the needs of their divisions, rather than adopting a more centralised approach to implementing change.

September 29, 2015

Fifth of employers not productive enough to afford Living Wage warns CIPD ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Although the UK has experienced two years of solid economic growth, a fifth (21 percent) of organisations are still stuck in survival mode and aren’t making the necessary investments in equipment or people to boost their productivity a new report from the CIPD has revealed. A further 29 percent of employers are failing to get the right balance between investment in their workforce and investment in technology and equipment. Investing in Productivity found a clear link between an organisation’s mindset and its approach to investment, which could help to explain the UK’s poor productivity performance in recent years. The CIPD’s chief economist Mark Beatson warns that too many businesses are being held back by an ‘ambition ceiling’ which is preventing them from making the productivity gains needed to achieve business growth and implement the new National Living Wage without risk of job cuts.

September 24, 2015

Weighing up the pros and cons of the BREEAM environmental standard ⁰

by Charles Marks • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

For some years there has been a growing awareness of the need to improve the environmental performance of buildings. This is closely linked to both the Government’s own international commitments to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent over the next 35 years and the need of organisations to act ethically and cut costs while they’re about it. Buildings are important in this regard because of their impact on the environment (and the bottom line). According to The Carbon Trust, buildings produce around 37 percent of the UK’s total carbon emissions, 40 percent of it from commercial buildings.This is commendable stuff but the real problems arise when it comes to meeting such laudable goals in practice. We are learning all the time about how to achieve the best results and we are helped in that with the availability of a number of increasingly sophisticated building environmental standards.

September 22, 2015

The worldwide demographic timebomb is transforming the workplace ⁰

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

There are a number of reasons why we shouldn’t be drawn into blindly accepting the narrative about Generation Y’s impact on the workplace. It seems the most important is also the least talked about. It is that the workforce is actually ageing in the world’s leading economies. While it may be true that 27 is middle -aged for employees at technology companies, for pretty much everybody else, shifting demographics, longer lives, improving health, falling pensions and changing personal preferences are likely to mean they stay in the workforce for longer. This is true in both the UK and US, where Millennials may make up the largest demographic grouping in the workplace but are still in a minority within an increasingly diverse workforce. The dynamics of these changes are playing out in different ways in different countries, but the forces are essentially universal.