Search Results for: people

Might a lack of joined-up thinking undermine UK high-tech ambitions?

by • Comment, News, Property, Technology

Old Street: the UK's tech epicentre

Old Street: the UK’s tech epicentre

Over the past week both Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson have offered up visions of economic success founded on new technology. Yet, as the CBI points out in a new report pinpointing the dearth of talent needed to  make such dreams a reality, politicians often appear to ignore the realities of a situation. In its new report, Engineering our Future,  the CBI calls for significant action to make a career in the key disciplines of science, technology, engineering and maths more attractive and easier to pursue. The report points out that these are the skills needed to underpin the Government’s stated focus on the tech, environmental, engineering and manufacturing industries that will shape the country’s future and is calling for a cut in tuition fees, new courses and inter-disciplinary qualifications to allow those skills to flourish.

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Research finds the treadmill desk improves wellness and productivity

by • Facilities management, News, Workplace

Workplace fitness

Despite employers offering staff access to a gym to help promote wellness, actually getting people to use the fitness facilities is another matter. The answer could be to bring the fitness equipment directly to their office; as new research shows that employees who use treadmill workstations as they work not only receive physical benefits but also are more productive. According to a recently published study by researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, sedentary employees from a non-profit financial service company who had their current cubicles and offices outfitted with treadmill desks were found to burn an average of 74 more calories per day than they did before they received the treadmill workstation. They were also found to be more productive. (more…)

Employees have spent average of £500 on BYOD, claims European survey

by • News, Technology

Iphone-5It’s not so long ago that companies were looking to ban employees from using social media and their own phones during work hours, or at least introducing policies to make it a disciplinary issue. Oh, we can LOL about it now but at the time it was routinely compared to the smoking ban, forcing educated adults to huddle outside fire escapes for a quick Facebook fix while their old-school colleagues sat in the warmth, offline but manning the phones. Of course, all this was before firms worked out they could actually get employees to pay for their own stuff and save themselves the expense. All they had to do was label it BYOD and talk about empowerment and people would cheerfully fork out what turns out to be a reasonable amount of money so the firm doesn’t have to.

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Building Futures Group announced following merger of FM bodies

by • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

Building Futures Group new name for FM bodies' mergerThe name of the new organisation resulting from the merger of Asset Skills, the CSSA and the FMA is the Building Futures Group. Talks regarding the merger of the groups began last May, and despite the BIFM pulling out of the discussions in August the rest of the groups have gone ahead to form the new representative organisation for the Housing, Property, Planning, Cleaning, Parking and Facilities Management sectors. The new group has also announced Sarah Bentley of Asset Skills as its Chief Executive. She said: “The rationale for the merger was that the industry lacked a consolidated, unified voice. The Building Futures Group will coordinate the sector’s voice and provide a platform that has been so sadly missing.  We are fully committed to raising the profile of the industry and transforming the sector”. (more…)

A field guide to workplace terminology (part 2)

by • Comment, Facilities management

devils-dictionaryA year ago we published the first part of Simon Heath’s acid lexicon of the terms people use to obscure the reality of what it is they actually mean. Part One can still be read here. While much has changed over the past year, we are fortunate that Simon’s corrosive, witty and informed take on corporate bullshit, and especially that applied to the parochial field of workplace design and management remains constant. He’s part of a long tradition of those who apply satire to skewer logorrhea, doublethink and obfuscation, the best example of which remains Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary which is quite remarkably caustic and spares no one. First published in 1881 it maintains much of it power and topicality, for example in its definition of Conservative as:  “a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”

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The workplace of the future is one founded on uncertainty

by • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

workplace of the futureWe now know for a fact that the good people at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills take heed of what they read on Workplace Insight. After Simon Heath recently eviscerated the idea of the year 2020 as a useful marker for the ‘future’, a new report from the UKCES draws its line in the sand a bit further on in 2030. It means they can’t have a ‘2020 Vision’ and for that we should be very thankful.  Yet the report still falls into the same traps that are always liable to ensnare any prognosis about the workplace of the future, notably that some of the things of which they talk have happened or are happening already. Then there’s the whole messy business of deciding what will emerge from the chaos; a bit like predicting the flavour of the soup you are making when a hundred other cooks are secretly adding their own ingredients.

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Innovate or die? Why facilities management must embrace change to survive

by • Comment, Facilities management

Innovate

According to recent reports on workplace, facilities management and corporate real estate, the support services sector needs to change. Some even say it needs to innovate or die. That might be a little harsh, but the current model that the majority of FM service providers work to and that their clients take for granted is tired and has not kept pace with the evolving business environment. Zurich Insurance’s report of late 2012 into CRE & FM said the sector was at a cross roads; in 2013 Jones Lang LaSalle said something similar and picked out five global trends to which CRE and FM had to respond. IFMA & CBRE have taken a similar line, but are more specific – namely FM had to embrace its softer side, focus on people skills and develop them to ensure success. (more…)

New data suggests that London no longer belongs to the UK, but the World

by • Comment, News, Property

One of the subjects touched on in the first episode of Evan Davis’s BBC documentary series about the economic distinctions between London and the rest of the UK Mind the Gap was the impact of investment by the global super-rich into London property. At one point he asked the Malaysian investor behind the £8 billion Battersea Power Station redevelopment whether he’d considered investing in other cities in the UK. The response was a straight no, but the accompanying glance said rather more. London is no  longer a British city but one that belongs to the world, it said, so any comparison with Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh is meaningless. You might disagree with this point of view, but a raft of new data appears to make it very evident indeed that London is now shaped by global plutocrats in a way that cannot be mirrored in the rest of the UK.

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By 2030 your colleagues could be old enough to be your great-grandparents

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

By 2030 your colleagues could be old enough to be your great-grandparentsBy 2030 four-generation or “4G” workplaces – will become increasingly common as people delay retiring, even into their 80s. Although the role of women in the workplace will strengthen, an increasing divide will mean that while highly-skilled, highly-paid professionals will push for a better work-life balance, others will experience job and income insecurity. Technology will continue to evolve, pervading work environments everywhere, with many routine tasks becoming the domain of the smart algorithm. Multi media “virtual” work presences will become the norm, and as businesses seek additional flexibility, they will decrease the size of their core workforces, instead relying on networks of project-based workers. This is all according to the Future of Work, published this week by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES). (more…)

Flexible working mothers often resented by colleagues and worry about career

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

TightropeWorking women who are offered flexibility to help them balance their jobs and childcare are often resented by their colleagues, according to a new report from  campaign group Opportunity Now. The survey of 25,000 working women aged between 28 and 40 found that two thirds of those surveyed believe they are expected to work longer hours than mothers. Conversely, working mothers are often perceived by their colleagues as less committed according to around half of respondents and there was a general feeling across all those surveyed that flexible working can be detrimental to careers. The report is the latest which highlights the problems many people encounter in working flexibly as a way of achieving a work-life balance.

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New guidance published to help close the health and safety gap

by • Facilities management, News

Guidance on closing the health and safety gapThere is nothing more welcome to the ‘elf n safety’ hating tabloid press than tales of health and safety over-zealousness. So they must have rejoiced today at the publication of a new survey which reveals the extreme lengths some small firms mistakenly go to trying to comply. This included completing a risk assessment for using a tape measure or introducing written guidelines for walking up stairs. However, these examples were actually uncovered by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), itself, which is encouraging small and medium sized employers to use its free online tools and guidance, specifically designed to help them get their risk management right. The H&S ABC is full of straightforward information to help small firms save time, effort and money by identifying the things they really do and don’t need to do. (more…)

Not just about the money. Higher wages do not improve employee retention

by • News, Workplace

Money not the motivator, as higher wages does not improve employee retention

Employers that take a broader view of the employee experience beyond pay are more likely to retain talented employees. new research suggests. In a study of European economies by Towers Watson, countries with higher GDP growth tend also to have higher levels of employee attrition, The General Industry Compensation Survey Report findings also show little evidence to suggest that countries with high real-wage growth (i.e. salary increases minus inflation) are able to use that to secure higher levels of employee retention. The research proves that with the emergence of a strengthening employment market means employers will have to work harder to ensure that non-pay related benefits such as an attractive working environment and plenty of opportunities for career advancement are available to attract and retain talent. (more…)

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