Search Results for: opportunities

July 13, 2015

Email still default comms tool for virtual teams, despite drawbacks

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology

Email remains the preferred way corporate teams stay in touch, but there is a widening technological gap between the generations. Although it remains the most widely used form of communication (87 percent) email also has the greatest potential to cause misunderstanding in nearly half (49 percent) of teams. The survey from EF Corporate Solutions of over 800 executives based in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Middle East, Russia, UK and US, indicated that a primary cause for conflict stems from language barriers (39 percent) but 45 percent said there are also barriers to communication between associates over 50 and under 30 in the way they use technology. Respondents also suggest that email has the potential to cause ‘information overload’ and teams can suffer from a lack of interaction when it is the preferred communication method.

June 26, 2015

Value older workers or sleep-walk towards a skills shortage, employers warned

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A demographic time bomb means employers must act to avoid a cliff-edge loss of skills and talents by 2035, a new study by the CIPD has revealed. There are currently 9.4 million workers in the UK today who are over the age of 50 and while the employment rate of older workers has increased significantly in recent years, there is still a 64 percent drop in the employment rate between the ages of 53 and 67. New research from the CIPD and the International Longevity Centre-UK (ILC-UK), the independent think tank on longevity, ageing, and population change, warns the UK could face serious skills shortages over the next 20 years. Unless organisations start improving how they recruit, develop and retain older workers it is estimated that the UK economy will struggle to fill one million jobs by 2035, even taking into account the mitigating effect of migrant workers.

June 25, 2015

The healthy workplace is now a matter of public policy in the UK

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Promoting a culture that improves the health and wellbeing of employees is good management practice and leads to a healthy and productive workplace, according to the Governmental body charged with shaping policy and offering advice on health related matters in the UK. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), part of the Department of Health, has published a new set of guidelines on the issue and called on employers to do more to address the challenge of creating a productive and healthy workplace. According to NICE, workplace health is a significant public health issue with more than a million working people in the UK experiencing a work-related illness each year, leading to around 27 million lost working days and costing the economy an estimated £13.4 billion.

June 25, 2015

Long distance commuting, agile working and dinosaur extinction in the UAE

by Douglas Langmead • Cities, Comment, Flexible working, Property

In Dubai, there are no suburban dinosaurs; those large-scale, single purpose office buildings that ignore the agile realities of modern working life. In the western world, these giants evolved on business parks, driven by the perceived benefits of having office workers agglomerated in order to achieve efficiency of communication and dissemination. The business practices and technologies that underpinned these buildings have evolved and improved and many are in the process of being re-purposed. Things happen on a grander scale in the Middle East where the mantra is “if the land-use doesn’t fit the land, make more land.” Here, the patterns of work and place have evolved differently from the west, and at a much faster pace with creeping tides of development spreading rapidly out from the small centres of traditional trade and commerce to vast tracts of new development.

June 19, 2015

RICS case studies focus on business impact of strategic facilities management

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

Six case studies, which outline how businesses can make the most of strategic facilities management to enhance their performance are being launched today (19 June), at the NEC in Birmingham. Developed by International Workplace for the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the latest set of case studies in the series, provides examples of best practice as outlined in RICS’ Strategic Facilities Management (FM) Guidance Note. The case studies, which can be downloaded from RICS’ website, cover a range of strategic FM issues including procurement, innovation, technology, sustainability, talent management and health and safety. Key themes include a professional understanding of the impact of FM to a company’s reputation, brand and performance, engagement with staff and the supply chain, the importance of measuring impact and outcomes and communication.

June 17, 2015

Eight sustainability megatrends that will impact on UK real estate

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

The ‘Big Eight’ sustainability megatrends that will impact on real estate over the next 15-20 years have been identified in a new report by JLL. Analysing a total of 40 themes, JLL’s Upstream Sustainability Services team claims to have pinpointed eight interconnected trends which are most critical. These are the low carbon economy; technological innovation; urbanisation; land and resource scarcity; workforce transformation; changing demographics; health and wellness; and transparency and social value. According to the report these trends present opportunities as well as risks. Forward-thinking companies which are able to unpick and manage climate change and extreme weather risk, build resilient supply chains, exploit the latest developments in technology, and anticipate the needs of the modern office worker or consumer will stay competitive and succeed.

June 16, 2015

London cements its status as Europe’s most important tech hub

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

A new report launched to coincide with London Technology Week claims that London has cemented its position as the most important tech hub in Europe and will boost the UK economy by £18bn in 2015. According to the event’s organisers, London’s technology sector is growing faster than both the overall economies of London and the whole UK and will continue to do so for the next decade. The figures show that the number of companies in London’s digital technology sector has grown by 46 percent since the launch of the Tech City programme. The sector now employs almost 200,000 people, 17 percent more than in 2010. Other research from EY claims to show London’s dominance of the European tech sector. According to EY more than 1,000 international tech investment projects located in London between 2005–2014, significantly more than the next most attractive city, Paris (381).

June 15, 2015

The London Festival of Architecture explores the workplace of the future

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Events, News, Workplace design

The ongoing London Festival of Architecture (LFA) which is running for the entire month of June, continues what the organisers say are the ‘big workplace conversations’ with a week of focussed discussions, debates and contributions from a number of prominent designers, architects and industry commentators on the theme of the workplace of the future. Running in tandem with London Technology Week (15-21 June), week three of the festival will focus on what the organisers claim are several ‘game-changing’ workplaces as well as the smart technologies and architecture already being created by industry leaders shaping where we work, how we work and what the next generation office and employee will need. Exclusive access will also be given into the practices realising the new models of the workplace through the RIBA Open Studios programme.

June 13, 2015

The latest issue of Insight Weekly is available to view online

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Newsletter, Public Sector, Wellbeing, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Dr Kerstin Sailer, Ros Pomeroy and Rosie Haslem describe the ten demonstrable facts about the workplace you may not know; Mark Eltringham says the most pervasive and enduring myth about the office is that it is somehow dying off and discovers that people have been writing guides to good ergonomics since the early seventeenth Century. Also this week; a parliamentary inquiry into the effects of design on behaviour is launched by the Design Commission, a survey for World FM Day reveals the key role played by FM in wellbeing and productivity, the US Government’s plans to reform the way federal office space is managed, and too few employers advertise jobs with flexible working opportunities. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and for weekly news via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

June 10, 2015

Flexible hiring out of step with flexible working, especially in London

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Only a handful (6.2%) of new jobs offer both decent salaries and the opportunity to work flexibly, according to new research from Timewise. Despite technological advances and significant changes in how and where people work, employers consistently underestimate how precious a benefit is flexibility, and rarely mention it in job ads. The flexible talent pool is massive; with more than 5.4 million people already in flexible roles, yet the number of jobs advertised with flexibility are so scarce that 77 percent of flexible workers feel ‘trapped’ in their current role, leaving those who want flexibility to fit with modern life, locked out of chances to progress. Flexible opportunities are better outside of the Capital, as candidates looking for flexible jobs have comparatively greater opportunities in Scotland, Northern Ireland and in the north of England.

June 4, 2015

Third of working women feel disadvantaged in the workplace

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

One in three (31%) successful working women in the UK say that men are offered greater opportunities at work, according to new research by Badenoch & Clark. The research claims that the glass ceiling is still a barrier to women in the workplace and this is especially true in typically male-dominated professions such as law and the IT industry. 58 percent of women in the private sector say that their organisation had leadership and development programmes compared to only 48 percent of women in the public sector. When asked why men are offered more opportunities, over half of the women surveyed (57%) said it was because of an unconscious gender bias with male-dominated senior teams preferring to recruit, mentor and measure performance in their own image. This suggests that the challenging issue of gender bias cannot be resolved through development programmes alone.

June 1, 2015

Trade bodies seek to boost inclusivity and diversity with new initiatives

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, News, Property

Three major trade associations in the built environment sector have announced initiatives to increase the inclusivity and diversity of their respective professions. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has launched its new Inclusive Employer Quality Mark, which is designed to help firms ‘gain a competitive advantage and a diverse workforce’. Meanwhile, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) claims it has strengthened its chartered practice criteria to incorporate requirements related to equality, diversity and inclusion. From 2016, chartered practices are required to have an equality, diversity and inclusion policy. In the US, delegates at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) agreed at congress to introduce a resolution known as Equity in Architecture, that calls for measures to increase representation of what are deemed underrepresented groups ‘to move the profession forward’.