Search Results for: productivity green building

December 15, 2015

Seven essential workplace design trends to keep an eye on during 2016 ⁰

by Dan Callegari • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

What has become increasingly apparent over recent years is that the office isn’t just a place to work, but also a driver of competitive advantage. We’ve always known this to a greater or lesser extent, but the dynamic and ever shifting nature of the modern world is presenting organisations with new and evolving challenges that they must address with all of the tools at their disposal. At the heart of this complexity is the physical workspace. Its design touches on every aspect of the changing workplace and the objectives organisations set for themselves and their employees. Although it has lots its primacy as the main place of work, you could also argue that the focus on the office’s key strengths makes it more important than ever within the context of overall working cultures. So, with that in mind, here are ten of the most important current trends in workplace design and management we foresee for 2016.

November 23, 2015

The benefits of peeling back the layers of the workplace onion ⁰

by Darren Bilsborough • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

The onion metaphor is normally used to describe the layers which must be peeled away to get to the all-important “core” of a problem or issue. The biggest question that is normally asked with respect to choosing office space based on the promise of improved productivity, is quantifying the value of the various initiatives that might be contemplated or proposed. I can’t help but think of how complex that question is due to the many “layers” there are to work through to get to a final quantifiable answer. In its most simple form the question of productivity in the workplace, is confined to how staff utilise their time to undertake the tasks or duties that correspond to expected output. But of course it is not only their use of time, but the environmental influences associated their environment, both in the workplace, its surroundings (the actual building and the precinct in which it is located) and their method of travel to the office.

September 21, 2015

Five essential office design trends to look for in the near future ⁰

by Tom Brialey • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace design

Since the early Twentieth Century, business leaders have been experimenting with office design in an attempt to improve productivity. From the sea of forward-facing desks imagined by Frederick Taylor, to the infamous cubicle of the late 1960s, to today’s open-plan office, each innovation has said something about our changing relationship to work. In a Gensler survey with more than 2,000 participants, 90 percent of respondents indicated that better workplace design and layout result in better overall performance. The greatest developments of recent times have emerged from the tech giants of Silicon Valley, where businesses have blended playfulness, company culture and the collaborative benefits of open layouts to craft unique and engaging spaces. So where are we headed? Here are five major trends that are likely to have a lasting impact on the way we work.

July 21, 2015

Neocon highlights four of the world’s most important office design trends

by Neil Franklin • Comment, Events, Workplace design

We live in the Global Village, Marshall McLuhan’s idea from 1962 of an electronically contracted world in which attitudes, cultures and our political, business and legislative framework begin to pull together. Yet each nation is shaped by little differences. That is why the comedy programme The Office found an audience on both sides of the pond, but one that needed Wernham Hogg in Slough to become Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania for it to work for the local audience. The central idea of the show has a universal appeal but needs a local voice. And what is true for The Office with a big O is also true for the office with a small o. This was the takeaway conclusion of a series of events staged in London and Manchester last week by Milliken and Humanscale. The touchstone for these events was a debate about the main conclusions of of June’s Neocon.

July 7, 2015

‘World’s healthiest workplace’ is unveiled in Melbourne

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Environment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

For some time now, the most talked about workplace issue has been wellbeing. Where once firms sought ways of using office design to solve a productivity puzzle, they are now increasingly concerned with the mental, psychological and physical health of employees. This is the case for most organisations but doubly so for those whose business is directly related to those issues, such as Melbourne based health insurance firm Medibank. The firm, Australia’s largest health insurer has moved to a new headquarters building in the Docklands district of the city and took the opportunity to create a space which it claims should be hardwired with the proactive principles of personal wellbeing and health with which its business is associated. The building has been designed by Hassell to meet these principles and includes a facility with outdoor sporting facilities, an edible garden and other green spaces.

July 6, 2015

Humans will remain at the heart of the emerging digital workplace

by Maciej Markowski • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

The speed of technological development over the last 30 years has been pretty mind blowing. Of course, some technologies came and went, for instance you would struggle finding fax machines in your office nowadays or people using Pagers to contact one another. It’s no wonder that in the early nineties futurologists predicted the death of the office. Technology was shaping the way we worked and was leading us away from office buildings towards a digital workplace. Yet videoconferencing hasn’t destroyed the need for business travel. Team meetings haven’t been abandoned because of messaging services like Yammer, Slack, Lync and Webex. We still do a lot of business face to face over coffee in a meeting room. Although technological advances have greatly improved the way we connect and do business, companies still appear to value human interaction.

March 17, 2015

How facilities management brings organisational values to life. Or not

by Alan Williams • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace

We have used stories to pass on information for thousands of years and they remain the most powerful way we know to communicate. Indeed, the power of story is magnified in today’s super-connected, transparent world – the truth gets out fast and can be widely communicated – to millions of people all over the world – in such a short space of time. Here is a story which illustrates how employees’ “felt experience” every day strongly shapes their perception of an organisation and how the impact compares to official “corporate messaging”. This, in turn, highlights the critical (often under appreciated) role played by facilities management in reinforcing organisation brand and values. What are the implications for the role of FM and the wider HR agenda?

November 19, 2014

Worktech 14 London focuses on wellbeing, wherever we choose to work

by Sara Bean • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Flexible working, Wellbeing

The variety of ways in which technology can help us thrive at work was one of the key themes of the first day of Worktech 14, which also provided yet more evidence that the workplace is no longer based in any one place. There were some interesting ruminations on the changing values of the workplace, which included the challenges of managing mobile working and its wider effects on our wellbeing; a topic that merited a whole series of sessions, including, how office design can aide brain function; analysing the psychological effects of the ‘always on’ culture and the role of the employer in combating the rise in western obesity. Meeting room no-shows run at around 35% for most companies and in an illuminating co-presentation on estates utilisation with Condeco, Bruce Everest of Vodafone described how the mobile giant has transformed its offices into collaborative space. There were also some thought provoking sessions that peered into the future, including the statement by a speaker from none other than Intel that ‘technology alone is not our salvation’ and a fascinating glimpse into the workplace of 2040 provided by Marie Puybaraud of Johnson Controls. More →

September 29, 2014

The weekly Insight newsletter is now available to view online

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Work&Place, Workplace design

In the latest edition of the weekly Insight newsletter, now available to view online; Mark Eltringham describes some of the most readily identifiable themes at this year’s 100% design, while Sara Bean hails Richard Branson’s adoption of a flexible working policy for his personal staff. The British Council for Offices (BCO) launches the much awaited new edition of its Specification Guide; a new report from the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) claims “overwhelming evidence” that office design significantly impacts the health, wellbeing and productivity of staff; and research by Steelcase discovers nearly a third (31%) of occupants now routinely leave the office to get work done in private. Justin Miller discusses the challenge of balancing sustainable building design with the need to ensure a comfortable workplace; and from the latest issue of Work&Place, the journal we publish in partnership with Occupiers Journal, Dr. Agustin Chevez lists the thirteen ways the physical environment shapes knowledge management .

July 22, 2014

BCO study finds office remains the best place to do business

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

The challenge for the typical office is that it is meant to satisfy a broad range of individuals and a variety of working practices; which means what some may describe as a distracting open-plan layout, others would view as a busy collaborative workspace. These conflicts are highlighted in a new study by the British Council for Offices (BCO), Morgan Lovell and Hatch, which surveyed 2,000 UK office workers’ working conditions, attitudes and expectations. For example while over two thirds were critical of the distractions of the open-plan office, nine out of ten employees believe that support from colleagues enhances their wellbeing. Putting aside the open-plan debate, the study espouses the continued importance of the office as the best place to do business and comes up with three key starting points to help employers create a culture of wellbeing: care; control and collaboration. More →

June 20, 2014

Where office workers would really like to work? Outdoors.

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Furniture, Workplace design

Last year, we shared research from Overbury which suggested that what most people really wanted from their offices was for them to be a lot more like Starbucks. Now new research from Steelcase Solutions claims that what people would really like is to be working in bucolic splendour, or at least an indoor approximation of it. The survey of around 800 UK based office workers carried out by IPSOS claims that people would feel more optimistic about their work if natural light, more control of temperatures and informal, dynamic spaces were core elements of their working environments, which coincidentally are also important factors in fostering wellness and productivity. In addition, the authors of the report claim that more offices in future will apply biophilic design principles to offer staff a daily glimpse (or illusion) of the great outdoors. More →

May 21, 2014

Homeworking has environmental benefits, says Carbon Trust

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, Flexible working, News

There have been some doubts cast recently on the environmental benefits of flexible working. At the recent ThinkFM conference, Lord Rupert Redesdale, the CEO Energy Managers Association said that keeping buildings open for longer to accommodate flexible workers could become unfeasible for many businesses. But what if you simply increase the numbers of home workers instead? Homeworking reduces employee commuting, resulting in carbon, money and time savings. If office space is properly rationalised to reflect this, homeworking can also significantly reduce office energy consumption and rental costs. This is according to new research from the Carbon Trust, which found that if adopted and encouraged by employers across the country, homeworking could result in annual savings of over 3 million tonnes of carbon and cut costs by £3 billion.