Search Results for: society

September 13, 2016

How climate change may be affecting us in more ways than we suppose ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Wellbeing

Just how affected we all are by what is going on in our surroundings is confirmed by a new academic studies which links the environment to to our moods, physical wellbeing and performance. Although we are increasingly aware of the impact the working environment has on our productivity and wellbeing, the new study from researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute suggests we are more influenced by the global environment and climate than we might suppose. The meta-analysis of over 200 papers published in Science magazine concludes that while climate change concerns are largely focussed on its long term and worldwide effects, we should also pay attention to the effects over the short term and at local level because of the impact on individuals, businesses, society and the national economy. As well as slowing the global economy by 0.25 percent each year, it also has a profound additional effect at local levels.

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September 2, 2016

Learning with a stranger as effective as learning with a close friend or relation ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A partner helps you learn – even if you don’t know them. That is the conclusion of research being presented today by Catherine Crompton from the University of Edinburgh to the annual conference of the British Psychological Society’s Cognitive Psychology Section in Barcelona. In the research for her PhD, Catherine carried out two studies that each paired 48 people and asked them to learn an unfamiliar task. In both studies, half the pairs knew each other and half did not. Both older and younger participants were tested, each paired with a partner of similar age. In the first study, the pairs were asked to arrange abstract tangram shapes in a specific order on a grid. In the second, the pairs were asked to learn a route on a map and then recall it one hour and one week later. The first study showed that the pairs got better at the task with practice, whether or not the pairs had known each other before the study. The effects were the same, regardless of age.

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September 1, 2016

Android users perceived to be nicer people than iPhone users, research suggests ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Technology, Wellbeing

Our choice of smartphone may provide valuable information about our personalities. That is one of the findings of a doctoral study conducted by Heather Shaw from University of Lincoln’s School of Psychology. She is presenting her work today to the British Psychological Society Social Psychology Section annual conference in Cardiff. Heather and her fellow researchers conducted two studies of personality differences between iPhone and Android smartphone users. In the first study the researchers asked 240 participants to complete a questionnaire about characteristics they associate with users of each smartphone brand. In the second study they tested these stereotypes against actual personality traits of 530 Android and iPhone smartphone users. The results from the first study showed that Android users are perceived to have greater levels of honesty and humility, agreeableness and openness personality traits but are seen as less extroverted than iPhone users.

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September 1, 2016

Commuting is making us more stressed and more fat, claims study ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

The average UK commuter adds almost 800 calories to their diet every week as a result of their journey to and from work, according to our new report, Health in a Hurry, from the UK’s Royal Society for Public Health. The study of around 1,500 people claims that the average time spent commuting in the UK has increased in recent years to almost an hour a day, and suggests longer commutes are therefore potentially shortening lives. The report highlights the impact of travelling to and from work caused by forms of passive commuting including rail, bus and car. It says that this part of the daily routine has a huge impact on the public’s health and wellbeing with longer commute times associated with increased stress, higher blood pressure and BMI, and reduced time available for health-promoting activities such as cooking, exercising and sleeping. Commuters in London have an average journey of 79 minutes while it is just under 45 minutes for people living in Wales.

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August 17, 2016

Do people really matter when we design workplaces? ⁰

by Steve Maslin • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Workplace design

Some may think this is a daft question. They’ll argue that of course people matter when we design workplaces. Granted, there are those for whom the human experience of the built environment is really important. They demonstrate this it in their attitudes and actions. However, based on some of the attitudes and actions I have observed over the years, I would suggest that the belief that people really matter when some designers design workplaces for them is quite frankly all too often skin deep. How do we know this? And if we accept that it is true, it then begs the secondary question of why this should be the case. Is it entirely our fault? What might we do to address the issues? In part, we know that people haven’t really mattered enough in design because of mistakes of the past. Meanwhile, society is facing many pressing challenges, ranging from health to housing, work to economy and climate change to resource depletion.

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August 11, 2016

Disabled workers continue to face barriers in the workplace ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, Wellbeing, Workplace

A series of reports published in the past few days highlight the challenges faced by Britain’s disabled workers. The studies claim separately that disabled workers are keen to work but are less likely to be in employment and may be hiding disabilities from employers, are paid less when they are in work and that many employers do not feel they are well equipped to deal with the needs of disabled staff. The first study from Reed in Partnership and Disability Rights UK found that one in ten employers do not feel able to support a disabled employee. Meanwhile research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found that employees who experience mental ill-health earn up to 42 per cent less than colleagues. A third report from Citizen’s Advice found that 40 percent of disabled people would like to work but can’t find a job. And finally a report from RIDI claims that many people applying for jobs may be hiding their disability from employers.

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August 9, 2016

Watercooler moments are the key to workplace wellness claims study ⁰

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

The skills people require to perform at their optimum throughout the working day, such as patience, focus and diplomacy can be fuelled by the food they’ve eaten; while ‘the wrong kind of fuel can derail their whole day,’ a new academic report has found. And the study in the journal Food, Culture & Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research reveals that water is the main redeemer of ‘negative nutrition’ in the workplace; not only because it provides vital hydration for physical wellness but because it encourages people to walk to the watercooler or break out area to drink. According to the researchers, a culture of grabbing something quick to eat amid a mounting pile of to-dos at work often leads to making the wrong decisions when searching for something to eat in the workplace. Unplanned cakes and the emergence of ‘food altars’; central places for leftovers from work meetings or unhealthy snacks present workers with endless choice.

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August 1, 2016

Small firms remain sceptical about next generation technology ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

New research from AXA suggests that small firms are sceptical about the prospects of technologies such as 3D printing, robotics and driverless cars affecting their workplace in the near future. While more than 40 per cent of small businesses still don’t have a website, the study of 898 firms claims that most of these plan to move online in the next twelve months. If these plans are fulfilled, only seven per cent of UK businesses will remain offline by this time next year. However, just one in five plan to migrate to the Cloud and only six per cent say they expect to adopt smart technologies. Driverless cars, which are set to hit UK roads as early as 2020, have an equally low resonance, as just eight per cent of business owners expect they will travel in one. Businesses were also highly sceptical when it comes to 3D printing. Just two per cent of UK businesses who might use the process expect to see it used here ‘during their lifetimes’.

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July 15, 2016

ICE makes the case for infrastructure ahead of Brexit negotiations ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Cities, News, Property, Public Sector

In a new report Brexit – The Case for Infrastructure, the Institution of Civil Engineers has set out the business case for the valuable contribution which infrastructure makes to the economy and argues that the UK should not lose sight of this as it begins negotiations for Brexit as it leaves the European Union. The report claims that high quality, high performing infrastructure is vital for economic growth and improved quality of life. It points to transport, communications, energy and housing as being central to spreading opportunity across the whole country. It also makes the case that infrastructure acts as a catalyst for social and economic inclusion, encouraging greater participation in society from people of all walks of life. In particular, during uncertain or volatile economic times, continued investment in UK infrastructure can help provide economic stability, facilitate inward investment and drive economic growth.

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July 4, 2016

Government should stop using technology to put lipstick on a pig, says report ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Technology

A new report from Brunel University London claims there needs to be a complete turnaround in the way governments and researchers think about how digital technologies can change the public sector. The report was published to coincide with the 11th National Digital Conference in London. The working paper, which invites feedback from practitioners in the field, explains how the only coherent way to achieve any real impact is to embed the potential of technology in the instruments that make governments’ policies real. Policy instruments are the tools that governments use to drive change in the economy and society and include licences, information campaigns and more tangible things like public services and infrastructure. The paper, entitled; Digital Government: Overcoming the Systemic Failure of Transformation, claims that even the most recent approaches still come from the perspective of technology, not the core policy-making functions of government.

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June 20, 2016

What happens when you take transparent office design to extremes ⁰

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

A rigid and unswerving adherence to a principle is rarely a good thing in the long run. This is perhaps doubly so when it comes to office design because the end result is often something that overlooks what offices are really for; namely giving human beings a place to go to be with one another. So, when you take a design dogma to extremes that ignore the human being that should be your core concern, you end up getting something like the office with no chairs, because ‘sitting is the new smoking’. Or you get the office made completely of glass because ‘transparency generates trust’. While it’s true that the Dutch firm MRVDV responsible for the refit of the building in Hong Kong has included some genuinely successful features, not least in the use of natural light and the environmental performance of the building, the interior itself is clearly the end product of meetings in which nobody felt comfortable telling everybody to knock it off.

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June 2, 2016

People are happy at work but yearn for better tech and a second job ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology, Wellbeing

The recent riots across France sparked by mooted reforms to labour laws have been attributed to French workers objecting to the creation of working cultures akin to those in the UK and US. In which case, it would be interesting to see how our Gallic cousins might respond to the findings of a new report from Adobe which suggests that workers in both the UK and US as well as India see technology as the key perk they look for at work and many are perfectly happy to work more than one job and don’t expect long term commitments to (and from) their employers, although many of them also feel defined by what they do for a living and are happy at work. According to The Work in Progress report, a quarter of UK workers already moonlight and over two thirds believe that better technology would be the single most important way of improving their working lives. The same attitudes are also prevalent in responses from workers in both the US and India.