Search Results for: people

June 13, 2017

Workers spend less time on social media and non-work technology in a bid to restore work life balance ⁰

According to a new survey by job site CV-Library, over two thirds of workers (67.4 percent) don’t use social media whilst at work, and of those that do, the majority (45 percent) will only do so for up to 15 minutes. The study surveyed 1,200 workers on their opinions around technology in the workplace, and whether it is a distraction or an enabler to professionals. Interestingly, the survey claims that despite 56.1 percent admitting that they use smart phones while they’re at work, the majority (79.8 percent) do not use technology to do personal tasks during work hours. Many 0f the respondents cite the desire for a better work life balance as the main reason for their behaviour.

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June 12, 2017

We need to design for a multigenerational workforce ⁰

by Joe Huddleston • Comment, Workplace design

Excitingly, the workforce is becoming increasingly diverse. However there’s more talk about millennials in the workplace than anyone else. In stark contrast to popular belief, the reality is that the British workforce is getting older on average which means that office design must now consider a new set of workplace requirements. The challenge for designers is to create inclusive environments that address the needs of highly skilled and experienced older workers, while still providing productive environments for all users, ensuring the entire multigenerational workforce is engaged, happy and productive. International bodies are already worried about the fiscal impact of an older workforce, in May the World Economic Forum (WEF) said that a looming fourfold rise in over-65s by 2050 is the financial equivalent of climate change. With people born today having a life expectancy of more than 100, WEF warned of more years in the office to provide financial security in later years, as well as a creeping retirement age heading towards 70. This ageing population and workforce will certainly need consideration when it comes to supporting their health and wellbeing.

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June 12, 2017

What will the UK General Election mean for the workplace? Some experts respond ⁰

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

Any residual feelings of certainty that anybody in the UK may have had about the country’s future following last year’s Brexit vote, will have had them pretty much eradicated by last Thursday’s General Election result. However, we must try to make sense of things for society and the wider economy as well as specific facets of it, such as the world of work. The whole thing looks like the pig’s ear that it is, of course. Fortunately, as some experts have already argued, there are some reasons to see some positive outcomes, including a soft (or softer) Brexit and the chance of a more positive approach to workplace rights, now that the Government needs to maintain a broader consensus. The fear or hope that the UK would lighten its already soft touch approach to workplace legislation would seem at least to be less well founded.

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June 9, 2017

Bored and distracted employees are biggest data security risk ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Employees who become distracted at work are more likely to be the cause of human error and a potential security risk, according to a snapshot poll conducted by Centrify at Infosec Europe in London this week. While more than a third of survey respondents cite distraction and boredom as the main cause of human error, other causes include heavy workloads, excessive policies and compliance regulations, social media and password sharing. Poor management is also highlighted by 11 percent of security professionals, while 8 per cent believe human error is caused by not recognising their data security responsibilities at work.

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June 8, 2017

Whether you choose order or chaos depends on what you want to achieve

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

Chaos gets a bit of a bad rap when it comes to running a business. Yet as Greg Lindsay highlighted in his interview with Insight a while back, chaos is something that many organisations should actively try to harness as a way of fostering the creativity they claim to desire. Certain structures, be they cultural silos, traditions, professional demarcations or the physical walls and storeys of a building inhibit chaos and so restrict interactions and creative processes. So, if you want to achieve what many businesses say they want to achieve, they need to introduce a little anarchy. We’ve known about or suspected the links between harnessed chaos and creativity for a long time. In his 1883 novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, writes, “I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.” The same idea has been expressed in many ways, but few of them quite so poetic.

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June 8, 2017

Nearly half of occupants say their building’s toilet facilities need some improvement ⁰

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

Most FMs would tell you that the state of the workplace toilets is often one of the main determinants by occupants on how well the facilities department is doing its job. So it’s disturbing to learn that according to a new survey a significant number of employees have cause to complain about the state of their workplace toilet facilities. The research, carried out by the Association of Plumbing & Heating Contractors claims that 16.5 percent of people are unhappy at work due to the condition of their employer’s toilets which is having a negative impact on their levels of engagement. Their research found 43.8 percent of the people surveyed felt their workplace toilets needed to be better maintained. And when asked if their workplace toilets require updating or refurbishing, 44.4 percent said they did. London seemingly has the worst workplace toilets with 50.9 percent of workers surveyed believing they need to be better maintained and require refurbishing.

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June 7, 2017

Coworking and the current French revolution in the workplace ⁰

by Baptiste Broughton • Case studies, Cities, Features, Flexible working, Workplace design

In France, we might have been the first to behead a King and hold a revolution, or to stand on barricades and die for ideals of justice and equality, but when it comes to change – especially in large organisations– we always seem to lag behind. You could blame it on a number of factors: a cultural bias towards tradition, the legacy of an interventionist and ever-present state, spawning bureaucratic models of large state-owned corporations, the everlasting grasp of the elites stifling innovation and the ability to “think outside the box”… Whatever this may be, the debate around remote working – a type of work organisation which allows employees to work regularly away from the office – in France has always been articulated around the preconception that France was behind. And that while its Anglo-Saxon or Nordic European neighbours displayed a boastful 30 percent of the working population as remote workers, France struggled to reach a meagre 9 to 10 percent in 2010.

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June 6, 2017

Three quarters of HR professionals expect Brexit to escalate the war for talent ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

New research claims that, as a result of the UK’s decision to leave the EU, nearly three-quarters of HR professionals (72 percent) expect the war for talent to intensify, and nearly two-thirds (61 percent) predict further difficulty recruiting senior and skilled employees over the next three years. The latest CIPD/Hays Resourcing and Talent Planning Survey of more than 1,000 HR professionals found that recruitment difficulties are already being reported by three quarters of HR professionals (75 percent), and nearly two-thirds (65 percent) agree that the skills needed for jobs in their organisation are changing. Professionals with leadership (58 percent), digital (54 percent) and commercial awareness skills (51 percent) are most likely to increase in demand over the next 12 months.

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June 5, 2017

Podcast: Is universal basic income a Utopia for realists? ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Podcasts

At his recent Harvard commencement ceremony, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg addressed the issue of universal basic income. In his speech he articulated the underlying premise of basic income as a way of redefining our relationship with work and society. “Every generation expands its definition of equality. Now it’s time for our generation to define a new social contract,” Zuckerberg said. “We should have a society that measures progress not by economic metrics like GDP but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things.”

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June 2, 2017

SME staff admit to faking sick days to help cope with an “always on” culture ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

One in seven SME employees admit to feigning illness and taking at least three bogus sick days off each year in order to cope with a culture which expects them to be available all the time. Nearly half (42 percent) of staff who are pulling sickies do so because they need a rest as just under half (46 percent) of SME employees bother to use up their full holiday allowance. At the end of 2016, SMEs employed 15.7 million people and accounted for 99 percent of all private sector businesses. Due to the piling pressure on small business owners, half (51 percent) of the 1,500 British SME workers and business owners who were polled by breatheHR confessed to contacting an employee while they were on sick leave – this number jumps to 72 percent for younger business owners (18-34-year-olds) showing clear generational differences. Additionally, three-quarters (71 percent) of business owners would expect employees to work if they had a common cold. Why? Because absenteeism impacts the bottom line – 85 percent of business owners say it has an economic effect.

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June 2, 2017

Sprinkling a little stardust on the workplace design debate

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

The idea that extraterrestrial organisms have throughout time seeded the surface of the Earth is not the sole preserve of loonies, mystics, conspiracy theorists, the permanently stoned and various wishful thinkers. This idea of panspermia has some pretty high profile and serious adherents. Perhaps one of the most surprising was the renowned but controversial astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle; pillar of the scientific community for much of his life, atheist, Darwinist and the man who coined the term Big Bang, albeit as a way of disparaging it. Yet also a man who believed that the global 1918 flu pandemic, polio and HIV were each the result of micro-organisms that fell from the skies rather than developing here on Earth. The broader scientific community dismisses such thinking because it derives in part from either an incredulity at the processes involved – as was the case with Hoyle – or an ignorance of them.

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June 1, 2017

Settings and serendipity define workplace design at Clerkenwell Design Week ⁰

by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Workplace design

Because a vast show like Clerkenwell Design Week is about as easy to digest as a whale omelette, visitors often find themselves discussing with other people what is worth seeing and, perhaps more importantly, what they think its themes are. At this year’s show, the fine weather meant it was possible for people to occupy the pavements with a drink and share a general feeling that in terms of workplace design, there were few, if any, standout products and that most of the themes were now pretty well understood.

There was a great deal of talk about the need for privacy, the creation of a choice of settings in which to work, the influence of the coworking movement, wellbeing, agile working, Millennials, the intersection of design idioms from the domestic and commercial worlds and planned serendipity. These are now familiar subjects and, with the exception of a largely false narrative about Millennials, all in tune with the main concerns of occupiers and employees. They may be familiar but we should celebrate the fact that this in itself signifies not only growing sophistication in the demands of buyers but also the way we address workplace issues as a sector. Most tellingly, there is one common factor at the heart of each of the concerns addressed in the designs on show; people.

This marks a profound shift from the old hierarchical constraints that used to define office design. The idea that a building should be carved up and shared out semi-permanently between individuals based on their job and status for set periods of time now looks more and more archaic as each day passes. The modern workplace can be pretty much anything it wants to be and we should not take that for granted just because it’s been said before.

Boss Design

Boss Design

Encapsulating these ideas was a brand new range from Boss Design called Atom designed by Simon Pengelly. The business model of Boss has always meant it found itself at the intersection of various forms of design with a portfolio of products that could be used in a variety of settings, but Atom offers a fully resolved menu of elements that make the idea explicit.

Where once modularity in furniture design meant that parts fixed and tessellated, it now refers to a more freeform interpretation. This isn’t Lego modularity but something more organic, ingredients rather than parts.

The designs are very much focussed on people. These are the sorts of products that invite people to work in the ways that suit them best. Designers and office buyers are given the elements needed to offer employees choices but without any sense that solutions are prescriptive. As Simon Pengelly explained, it’s all very well having collaborative space but it only works if you’ve then got a space to do something with the ideas you’ve just shared. This was the best resolved system of products at the show and one very finely attuned to 21st Century office life.

Boss Design

Steelcase

The world’s largest office furniture manufacturer was pursuing similar themes while also sharing the stage with Microsoft, a firm with which it has just announced a global partnership agreement, focussed in large part on the forthcoming Surface Hub, previews of which were available at the event. The main focus of the firms’ approach was how work settings can be integrated with technology to produce working environments that foster creativity. In the accompanying presentation, we were told not only that this will be the main focus of office design in the coming years as machines take on most of our process driven work, but also that if office furniture firms want to survive the century, they’ll need to be talking about far more than office furniture which is perfectly true and equally applies to the whole workplace sector. This is not a time for one trick ponies.

Appropriately Steelcase offered up a number of settings to give people the chance to work creatively including a Respite Room. Offices may exist to bring people together but we always need time away from them.

Steelcase (and top)

Connection

Connection was one firm that made the link between wellbeing and domestic and commercial design explicit with a soft seating system called Hygge. This is a reference to the modish Scandinavian practice of hygge, which cleverly taps into our ongoing fixation with all things Nordic and our belief that they have a unique insight into how to achieve a work life balance and look after themselves. The firm was also on point with its new co.table which again expresses the overlap between domestic and commercial design as well as the increasing adoption of agile working models. Connection was also addressing the issue of acoustics and privacy with its elegant system of rooms, now a well-established requirement for shared spaces.

Connection

Spacestor

Another firm characterising the intersection of domestic and commercial design as well as the creation of room settings, Spacestor launched their new Palisades room divider system. Not screens but the sort of dividers used to break up space, as well as store and display objects. Spacestor were also showing their work pods, including options defined as railway carriage and phone booth.

Spacestor

Sit/stand workstations

Now almost as ubiquitous as the bench desk, sit/stand workstations have become mainstream in the UK as they have been for quite some time in parts of Scandinavia. In part this is down to the medicalisation of sitting down as a result of some well thought out but – in my view – slightly off the point PR. But it is also a signifier that firms are interested in the wellbeing of their staff, an issue about which it is impossible to be cynical.

So Staverton, Humanscale and others had nice products on show, but it is evident that as is true with bench desks (and toilets, come to that), the product itself exists in pretty much its purest form as it is. It is a worksurface with an actuator to make it rise and fall. It’s a good product, but one which you can hardly expect to see evolve.

Staverton

Task seating

Conversely, the design of task chairs has actually returned to a simpler form. Over the past 20 or more years, there had been a race to see who could offer users the most adjustments. So, where once the chair merely went up and down and rocked, every part of it had to be adjustable in at least one dimension and preferably three. An arms race, if you will. The result was a proliferation of controls around and underneath the seat.

Over the past few years, we have seen a reversal of this in favour of something more intuitive. Typical of this new generation of chairs are the se:joy from Sedus, Trinetic from Boss Design, various designs from Humanscale (who, it could be said, catalysed the development of chairs that work with the body rather than an instruction manual) and, new this year, the EVA chair from Orangebox which claims that by ‘refining the chair to just a few controls has allowed us to focus on maximising the range of adjustment it offers’. Counter-intuitive maybe but they’re right.

Orangebox

Flooring

Innovation in carpet design tends to come about as a result of the interrelationship of new materials and manufacturing technology and the designs each manufacturer can derive from them. There are some great products on the market, and each one has a separate narrative woven around it, if you’ll forgive the pun. These can range from the use of colour and trends forecasting, to environmental concerns, the crafts movement, biophilia and printing techniques.

In typical fashion, the major flooring showrooms at Clerkenwell Design Week had lively events programmes that highlighted trends in the market and are perhaps somewhat less product focussed than furniture showrooms. So, Interface focussed on the positive effects that design can have on people, Milliken hosted a series of events including a Design in Education debate with Jay Osgerby and Annie Warburton and Shaw Contract hosted several CPD accredited talks including one rejoicing in the title “Using virtual reality as a participatory approach for evolving spaces in our cities”.

Porcelanosa

Socialising

And, of course an event like Clerkenwell Design Week would be nothing without the chance to have a drink and a chat with friends and colleagues. The event this year was blessed with blue skies and temperatures in the high twenties, which is a mixed blessing if you’re hosting parties at one of the showrooms. Despite concerns that the warm weather would mean people swapping bars for studios, all the events seemed incredibly well attended, including those at Vitra and KI.

This is, of course one of the main aims of such exhibitions, to bring an industry together as one and with one voice, at least this year with regard to the aims and concerns of workplace occupiers and the people who work for them. In all senses, an event about people.