Search Results for: social media

Much anticipated BCO Specification Guide update for 2014 launched

by • Architecture, Facilities management, Knowledge, Property, Workplace design

BCO specification guideThe British Council for Offices (BCO) has launched the much awaited new edition of its Specification Guide. Last updated in 2009, the 2014 issue aims to cement the publication’s position as the ‘definitive guide to office development in the UK’. As well as its traditional subjects of occupier density and building infrastructure and services, the latest edition covers topics such as building information modelling (BIM) rights to light, updates to BREEAM and amended planning law and building regulations as well as topical issues such as the inexorable rise of the ‘coffee shop workplace’ and the provision of cycle parks.  Richard Kauntze, chief executive, claims the revised BCO Specification Guide represents a greater focus on the needs of end users.

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Business leaders seem powerless to stem tide of always on working, claims report

by • News, Technology, Workplace

Always on workingAmongst the reported findings in the latest edition of the annual Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey is a growing belief amongst business leaders that information overload and the always on working culture are significantly undermining personal wellbeing, engagement and productivity. This challenge has been identified before in the same report, but the latest edition perhaps signals that despite the high level of awareness of the issue at both a personal and general level, little is being achieved in terms of stemming the inexorable erosion of personal time. The report is based on a survey of more than 2,500 business leaders. It found that over a third think that constant access to work is undermining employee productivity and engagement and fewer than one in ten feel they are dealing with the problem adequately. (more…)

Flexible work arrangements are leading component of wellness policies globally

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Flexible working policies leading component of wellness policies globallyIn the midst of the August summer holidays; it’s now more than ever that flexible working policies can benefit both employees and employers, so that those who need to get stuff done can get on with it without having to sit in a near empty office for form’s sake. So it comes as little surprise that in a new global survey, polices related to flexible work arrangements and paid time off rank as the number one component of wellness programs globally. According to “Working Well: A Global Survey of Health Promotion and Workplace Wellness Strategies,” the concept of wellness at work has evolved over the last seven years, moving from a focus on basic health promotion activities to a culture where seventy-eight per cent of the world’s employers are strongly committed to creating a workplace culture of health, to boost individual engagement and organizational performance. (more…)

Flexible working might help firms to deal with World Cup fever, claims ACAS

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Technology, Workplace

Flexible working and the World CupWhile FIFA works out whether it wants to dig itself in deeper or climb out of its own hole in addressing the World Cup bribery scandal, thoughts in the business world about this Summer’s quadrennial festival of football turn, yet again, to the matter of how to deal with it all. One of the first up with suggestions this time is the UK employment conciliation service agency ACAS which thinks the answer no longer lies in turning a blind eye to what people get up to, but instead working around it. They are urging firms to allow staff to work flexibly during the World Cup so they can watch games with minimal disruption to business. ACAS last month issued new guidance on flexible working in advance of a change in the rights of workers to request flexible working at the end of June, and is now suggesting that flexible working will help to reduce absenteeism and disruption during the tournament in Brazil which begins on June 12.

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Money alone isn’t enough to attract and hold on to Gen Y employees

by • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

Gen YThe retention of Gen Y employees is key for all organisations. No organisation wants to invest in their next generation of management only to find that they leave, and someone new needs to be trained. But the 20-30 year old workers of Gen Y exhibit a new-found job mobility. Which makes for a ticking time-bomb of potential cost and disruption to their employers. The iOpener Institute has gathered and studied questionnaire responses from over 30,000 professionals across the world, gaining insights into how employers can retain their Gen Y talent. The research clearly shows that while pay and financial rewards are important to Gen Y (i.e. they are not prepared to be under-paid for their work), there is no significant correlation between increased levels of pay and greater talent retention.

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Information overload is a big problem for ‘infobese’ UK workers

by • Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

Information overloadWe all know –or should – that we have a real problem with information. We are not only deluged with the stuff, we appear increasingly willing to wallow in it voluntarily, even when we know it’s bad for us. The full extent of the challenge we face managing information is laid bare in a new report from Microsoft called ‘Defying Digital Distraction’.  The study is based on a survey carried out by YouGov which found that 55 per cent of 2,000 British office staff experience some form of information overload at work. A similar proportion feel they are distracted by information, just under half (43 per cent) experience stress as a result, a third (34 per cent) feel overwhelmed by it and 28 per cent believe it affects their personal wellbeing. The report is fronted by Dave Coplin, the Chief Envisioning Officer of Microsoft UK who we interviewed last year and coincides with the publication of Dave’s new book called The Rise of the Humans: how to outsmart the digital deluge.

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Workplace design, Facebook likes and the need of companies to be your friend

by • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Facebook_like_thumbCompanies put an awful lot of time and money into getting people to like them on social media these days. While it would be easy to see the like button on Facebook as the primary conduit for this corporate neediness, but it cuts across many aspects of the ways in which companies work, including their relationships with employees and the ways in which they develop new forms of workplace design and management. This is most evident in the tech palaces which are aimed at the same digital natives that firms habitually target with their online marketing, but the need to make customers and employees friends of the business cuts across a wide range of sectors. The workplace is yet another channel of communicating chumminess, and it offers many of the same challenges as social media.

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CIBSE’s new website inspired by iconic new City of London building

by • Company news, Facilities management, Property

5 Broadgate

5 Broadgate in the City of London

The look and feel of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers’ (CIBSE) new website, which was unveiled this week, has been inspired by a building. According to CIBSE the modular, precise design of 5 Broadgate, designed by Make Architects is echoed in the modern new design, improved user navigation and optimisation for mobile and smart devices of its new website. 5 Broadgate, the new City headquarters for financial services firm UBS, is a 700,000 sq ft, 12 storey building based on a single block form, featuring deep reveals to windows and openings that are designed to add to its overall feeling of substance. The new building will include up to four trading floors, each able to accommodate approximately 750 traders, allowing UBS to consolidate its London trading operations into one building, when fully occupied in 2016. (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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Business continuity report confirms technology still biggest threat to firms

by • News, Technology

Lock backgroundForget the recent UK floods. When it comes to risks to their businesses, it’s still tech that keeps business leaders awake at night, according to the latest annual Business Continuity Institute Horizon Scan report. Technology related threats continue to rank higher than natural disasters, security and industrial action according to the report which gauges the threats that organisations consider to be their biggest concerns. Nearly four-fifths of business leaders fear that an unplanned technological event, cyber attack or data breach will harm their business. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) consider malicious attacks through the Internet a major threat that needs to be managed closely, while nearly two-thirds (63 percent) think that social media remains a challenge. Meanwhile, one of last year’s threats – supply chain resilience – dropped out of the top ten completely.

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The nine enduring workplace tensions to keep an eye on in the year ahead

by • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace

The nine enduring workplace tensions to keep an eye on in the year aheadThere were a number of workplace issues that wouldn’t go away during 2013. And there’s no reason to believe we will resolve many of them during 2014 either. We can try to explain the recalcitrance of such things by referring to the enveloping fog that emanates from the commercial interests who promote problems to their customers so they can provide the solutions, but many are more deep-rooted. Technology and its constant radicalising effects is almost invariably the major driver of change, but it is only one thread in a complex web of social, professional, demographic, cultural and commercial changes. So here, in no particular order, are the issues we expect to spend the most time talking about on Insight over the next year. (more…)

US employees name top 50 firms to work for in 2014

by • News, Workplace

American flag cakeConsultancy firm Bain & Company has topped the list of the 50 best places to work in the US. The top five companies in the annual Employees’ Choice Awards, compiled by careers specialist Glassdoor includes the three leading social media companies, Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook, which came in fifth, just behind Eastman Chemical. The Employees’ Choice Awards rely solely on the input of employees who elect to provide feedback about their job, work environment and company, via Glassdoor’s anonymous online company review survey. Employees are asked to rate how satisfied they are with their company overall, how they feel their CEO is leading the company, as well as key workplace attributes like career opportunities, compensation and benefits, culture and values, senior management and work-life balance.

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