Search Results for: professionals

July 25, 2013

Show us the money. Increasing pressure for ROI on talent management initiatives

Talent management is an integral part of the Human Resource role, but now HR professionals are being asked to provide some financial evidence. Four out of five (82%) of HR professionals are under increasing pressure to clearly demonstrate the financial return on investment of staff development a global study by Right Management has found. Although two thirds (65%) of UK-based senior HR executives believe that they are already highly effective at measuring the impact of their talent management initiatives, 85 per cent said that they are under rising pressure to demonstrate the outcome of these initiatives in monetary terms. (more…)

July 23, 2013

RIBA announces formal link with US-based community

by Sara Bean • Architecture, News

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RIBA-USA, an international community of the RIBA operation in the USA. Speaking about the agreement, RIBA President Angela Brady said: “The RIBA welcomes and encourages members in communities that enhance and develop the RIBA’s presence and help achieve its strategic aims in an international territory. Our agreement with RIBA-USA formalises a long and successful relationship. This is an exciting opportunity to further develop RIBA membership in the USA and advance the RIBA’s purpose of championing better buildings, communities and the environment through architecture and our members.”

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July 22, 2013

Active Building Design initiatives announced by New York Mayor

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

The Mayor of New York Michael Bloomburg has announced a series of initiatives to promote physical activity through the design of buildings and public spaces to encourage architects, planners and urban designers help combat obesity in the City. The Center for Active Design, a non-profit organization that promotes changes to the built environment to improve wellness is being created, and the Mayor has issued an Executive Order requiring City agencies use active design strategies when performing new construction and major renovation projects. Two pieces of legislation will promote stairway access in all buildings, with measures such as making stairways more visible to encourage use. (more…)

July 19, 2013

FMs must overcome engagement barriers to sustainability implementation

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News

There is overwhelming support for sustainability to be embedded into business operations, but still some challenges in its successful delivery, according to the 7th annual Sustainability in Facilities Management survey from the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM). Of the top five barriers to implementation success, three related to engagement; engagement overall, amongst senior management and middle management. The report also found that many FMs are not targeting the areas of highest priority relating to behaviours or processes which have the highest impact, but tend to focus on technologies. (more…)

July 9, 2013

BIFM partnership with DWP may prove an ill-advised and short-lived union

by Simon Heath • Comment, Facilities management

Rather like someone who collects friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter with the obsessiveness of the avid lepidopterist completist, news reaches us from the British Institute of Facilities Management concerning yet another partnership. Not content with the recently announced merger with Asset Skills, the Facilities Management Association and the Cleaning and Support Services Association, this time it’s the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) that is the object of BIFM’s affections. Not that BIFM are considering moving in to Caxton House and a run for Parliament in 2015 (at least not that we are aware of). But while BIFM are, understandably, trumpeting the signing of this joint agreement, the DWP are not. In fact, if one searches on www.gov.uk using the search terms “BIFM” or “British Institute of Facilities Management” no results are returned.

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July 3, 2013

Hours and pay are not key factors for work-life balance finds survey

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The key to a better work-life balance is not simply to work shorter hours or earn more money and working shorter hours does not necessarily make people happier. According to a new survey by recruiter Randstad those in the South East and Yorkshire & The Humber are most happy with their work-life balance, with 64 per cent saying they are content, despite those in the South East having one of the longest average working weeks in the UK. The survey also found that those working in property and construction (88%) were amongst the happiest with their work-life balance, coming third after the utilities and insurance sectors. Those least happy with their work-life balance were the East of England (51 per cent) and South West (55 per cent) – yet those in the South West have a shorter average working week than most of the UK. (more…)

June 18, 2013

The democratisation of the workplace is changing how we work

by Andrew Brown • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Furniture, Workplace

Work. We all, with some noticeable exceptions, are obliged to do some. If we are lucky we receive remuneration for our labour. This for me is at the heart of work. We are professionals. specialists, generalists, doers, thinkers, strategists or the people on the front line – but we all go to work. So, shouldn’t the people in charge – and just as importantly, the consultants they talk to about us workers – find out what makes us tick? Obviously, that is exactly the argument that many workplace consultants are making via Office Insight, via Twitter and in the property and FM media. Engaging with employees, via workshops forums or surveys such as Leesman or the more intelligently crafted employee surveys – I agree with all of it, but I think we might be missing something. We need to get back to what work is about.

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June 13, 2013

Consultation opens on facilities management to ‘enhance organisational performance’

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

Facilities and property managers worldwide are being asked to help shape a ‘Strategic Facilities Management Guidance Note’. Once established, the note – spearheaded by a RICS-led working group – aims to help drive professionalism and enable benchmarking across the sector by creating greater consistency in the delivery of FM services. The guidance forms a key part of RICS’ wider campaign to improve understanding and recognition from businesses for the performance efficiencies that strategic FM can deliver. The call for global feedback follows RICS’ initial UK consultation last year which has resulted in the publication of the draft guidance, ‘Managing facilities to enhance organisational performance’.

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June 10, 2013

NeoCon and ThinkFM offer two different views of the facilities management elephant

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

This week sees two events taking place on opposite sides of the pond that should hold a mirror up to the way we currently design and manage workplaces. In Chicago, it’s time for NeoCon, the annual office furniture behemoth held in the vast Merchandise Mart and attracting some 40,000 visitors, while in London it’s the distinctly low-key Think FM conference from the BIFM held at the Royal College of Physicians – for today only, as they say. While these are two very different events in terms of scale, content and format and both are nakedly commercial, only one strikes me as particularly meaningful. And even that is only about the meaning of one part of the facilities management elephant.

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May 30, 2013

UK public sector leading the way in procurement and sustainable building

by Paul Statham • Comment, Facilities management, Public Sector, Technology

Nottingham City Council’s Loxley Building

Over the last few years, the UK Government has grown increasingly interested in finding ways of making its £30 billion property portfolio more efficient. Both the last Labour government and the current Coalition administration have been driven by the opportunities offered them with the advent of new technology, new ways of working and new procurement models. They’ve pursued these issues to cut costs by reducing and changing the way property is designed and managed but have also found how that can also help to establish best practice in sustainable building. What is increasingly apparent, especially given recent news from the Major Projects Authority about cost savings in procurement is that the public sector is now leading the way as models of good practice.

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May 23, 2013

UK employee engagement and productivity lags behind most of world

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

You might regard the concept of employee engagement as just a new way to describe industrial relations, but there is a growing body of research that UK employers need to do more to keep their employees on side. According to the latest missive, low employee engagement and lagging productivity is the greatest employment challenge facing UK business in 2013. Global research by Right Management found that this was the key concern for one in three (31 per cent ) employers compared to a global average of just one in five (21 per cent ) HR professionals, suggesting that after years of economic uncertainty and doing ‘more with less’, the UK workforce has reached a productivity impasse. (more…)

May 22, 2013

New Centres of Excellence for sustainable building design launched

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

Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design are to be set up at four UK universities in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering. The new centres at Heriot-Watt University, Loughborough University, the University of Sheffield and University College London will form a national network to demonstrate and exchange best practice in teaching and research for a more sustainable built environment. The universities will work closely with the construction industry to develop their engineering and architectural design courses to be as relevant as possible to the work students can expect to do when they graduate. Visiting Professors from industry are a key part of this approach and will be heavily involved in developing the new centres of excellence. (more…)