Search Results for: people

September 16, 2013

World Green Building week launches with a breath of fresh air

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

Making sustainability sexy is a tall order. Look up the topic “green building” and you’ll invariably come across in depth descriptions of energy saving schemes and achieving a BREEAM rating. All these considerations are of course very important, but they make it difficult to engage building occupants. With the theme “Greener buildings, better places, healthier people”, World Green Building Week, which begins today (16-20 September), should do just that, by concentrating on the tangible benefits to building occupants of a green office. Paul King, Chief Executive of UK-GBC, said: “We often hear about the environmental and financial benefits of green buildings, but less attention is paid to the impact on those who live and work in them.” More →

September 13, 2013

100% Design: Holding a mirror up to the way we design and manage workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Furniture, Products, Workplace design

Hanging Room at 100% Design

If art holds a mirror up to nature, shouldn’t the design of workplace products hold a mirror up to the way we work? By definition, the things with which we surround ourselves should tell us something about the way we see ourselves and what we do. It should be possible to infer from the design of the products suppliers offer to the market what is changing in the workplace. This isn’t always the case, of course, especially for those firms who see design not so much in terms of putting lipstick on a gorilla as telling you that what you’re looking at isn’t in fact a gorilla at all. It’s Scarlett Johansson.

September 13, 2013

UK staff showing higher levels of happiness – except those in finance sector

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Fresh evidence that those working within the financial sector must be in it for the money as, following the news earlier this week that they get the least amount of sleep, they’re also the most unhappy with their work. A third (32%) describe themselves as unhappy at work compared to the 78 per cent of those working in sales, media, and marketing who class themselves as happy. Overall, the number of British workers who are happy at work has jumped by a fifth (20%) compared to this time last year according to Office Angels’ ‘Happiness at Work’ study. More than half (56%) of workers stated they were happy at work during quarter two 2013, compared to just a third (36%) during quarter two 2012. More →

September 10, 2013

We deserve better than a polarised debate about cellular v open plan offices

by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Jacques Tati’s Playtime

Stimulated by a number of rather unsubtle commercial interests, the ‘in’ workplace discussion seems to have swung from ‘collaboration’ i.e. organisations need more new spaces for formal and informal collaborative interactions, to ‘distraction’ i.e. open plan workplaces are creating a loss of productivity because people whose work requires concentration are impeded by constant interruption. The implication of the latter is that people should keep their ‘cubes’ and open-plan should be avoided at all costs. You can see pretty quickly where the commercial axes are being ground can’t you.

September 9, 2013

FMs show support for BIM, though not all are certain about what it does

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

There is a lack of understanding within the FM community about what Building Information Modelling (BIM) is and its full capabilities, according to the full results of a BIM4FM Group poll. The majority of respondents (61.7%) held the view that BIM can support the delivery of facilities management, but just over a third of respondents (35.3%), do not yet understand the intricacies of how this will be achieved at this stage. While 65 per cent of the individual members of the organisation’s that make up the BIM4FM group which represents institutes, trade associations and professional bodies within the built environment had heard of BIM – there did seem to be some confusion as to what actually constitutes a BIM project. More →

September 8, 2013

Full details of programme confirmed for Workplace Week 2013

by Mark Eltringham • News

Details of Workplace Week in November this year have been announced by the event’s organisers. Workplace Week is, as its name suggests, a week-long showcase of workplace and workforce innovation that’s taking place between 4th and 8th of November 2013. As well as giving people the chance to discuss some of the most topical and progressive ideas relating to the modern workplace, it also aims to raise as much money as possible for Children in Need. Participants this year include AWA, Herman Miller and KPMG with convention speakers from IBM, the I-Opener Institute, BDO and Brother. The website can be found here.

September 7, 2013

New report urges UK Government departments to ditch paper completely by 2020

by Mark Eltringham • News, Products, Public Sector, Technology

A new report from the Think Tank Policy Exchange is claiming that UK Government departments should look to stop using paper by moving from process that are ‘digital-by-default to digital, full stop’ by the year 2020. The report, Smaller, Better, Faster, Stronger: Remaking government for the digital age, claims that the move would make the UK public sector 8 percent more effective and save £24 billion a year by eliminating the paper used by Government departments to communicate and switching to digital processes for all services that don’t require face-to-face interaction with suppliers and members of the public.

September 6, 2013

Mobile apps will dominate workplace communications within next three years

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology

The news this week that Microsoft is to purchase Nokia’s mobile phone business for £4.6bn is a reminder of how rapidly app-based communications tools have transformed mobile phones and computer devices. Within the workplace, fragmentation and lack of standardisation of the technologies have resulted in organisations often using multiple tools, including that of employees’ own consumer smartphones and tablets. According to analysts Gartner most collaboration applications will be equally available on desktops, mobile phones, tablets and browsers by 2016. Over the next three to five years it predicts, every business will be using mobile collaboration tools – boosted by BYOD, personal cloud file sharing and the increasing availability of mobile applications. More →

September 5, 2013

Open-plan office workers need time out from the madding crowd

by Sara Bean • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace design

Open-plan offices are now the most popular workplace layout, primarily because they save on space, enable flexible working and, it’s argued, foster better communication and collaboration between employees. Yet open-plan still has some way to go to convince occupants of its merits. According to a recent study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, of over 42,000 US office workers in 303 office buildings, workers in private offices remain the most satisfied with their surroundings. However, what constitutes a satisfactory workspace differed, according to the employee’s current office layout. So while noise was the most important consideration for open-plan workers, light and ease of interaction topped the satisfaction list for those housed in cellular offices. More →

September 4, 2013

EU Governments urged to maximise the potential of older workers

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

The rise in the number of older workers in the UK has been well documented, and the reason is clear, they are a much needed resource. Over the next ten years there are 13.5 million job vacancies which need to be filled, but only seven million young people predicted to join the job market in that time. And the UK is not alone; the EU faces significant skills gaps due to demographic change. But according to a new International Longevity Centre –UK (ILC-UK) report, Working Longer: An EU perspective, supported by Prudential, EU countries urgently need to skill up the older workforce, support more older women in work and address the particular health issues associated with employing older workers. More →

September 4, 2013

Facilities managers should harness information to show the value of what they do

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management

Of the various myths that plague the facilities management profession, the most pernicious may well be that the role of facilities managers is largely to carry out what the early feminists called shit-work – the kind of job that only becomes visible when it is done badly or isn’t done at all. Conversely, when it is done well, nobody seems to notice or even care that much. The proto-feminists of the 50s and 60s applied the term to housework, but the term is equally apposite for the work of many facilities managers who may only come to the attention of their organisation when the air-conditioning stops working, the toilet floods or there is a problem with the car park.

September 3, 2013

Office environmentalists experiencing “green rage” over apathetic colleagues

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

Facilities managers engaged in efforts to convince apathetic colleagues to adopt greener office working practices may relate to the news of a new workplace affliction – “green rage”. Dr Rebecca Whittle of Lancaster University told delegates at the recent annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society in London that there is a lot of silent conflict at work between people trying to do the right thing environmentally, and those who don’t care. She said that a light being left on in an unoccupied office or a recyclable item put in the wrong bin can provoke emotions as strong as guilt, rage or despair. More →