Search Results for: working lives

Indoor air quality and the quest for a breath of fresh air in the workplace

by • Comment, Facilities management, Knowledge, Legal news, Workplace design

indoor air quality

Edward Hopper, Office in a Small City, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

The modern workplace has to work harder than ever before. It must reflect corporate values, express something of the organisation’s brand, allow people to work to the best of their ability as well as look after their wellbeing, keep touch with the pace of changing technology and meet the demands of an ever changing legislative environment and keep costs down. All of these issues conflate around the challenge of providing a sustainable, comfortable and productive working environment in buildings that are filled with an increasing number of people and computers. It is estimated by the Building Research Establishment that even in a typical office each person and their technology will generate some 1500 W of energy per hour, the equivalent of the sort of fan heater that the EU is now keen to ban outright.

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The CIPD is right to focus on the multi-generational workplace

by • Comment, Workplace, Workplace design

Multi-generational workplaceAmongst all the talk about Generation Y and its impact on the world of work, it can be easy to miss the fact that the modern workplace is not defined by one particular generation, but a number of them. The multi-generational workplace has significant implications for the way we design and manage offices. While we must avoid the more obvious stereotypes about the needs of different age groups, we must still offer spaces that can meet a wide range of cultural, physical and technological needs if we are to create productive workplaces.The latest organisation to bang the drum for the multi-generational workplace is the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. It has published new research together with the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives into the experiences and attitudes of SMEs towards age diversity at work.

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Global executives value work-life balance benefits of connected workplace

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Global executives value work-life balance that technology allowsSenior global executives are working more hours and in more locations now ever, but advances in workplace connectivity mean they are far more satisfied with their work-life balance. According to the 2014 BlueSteps Work-Life Balance Report, by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC), over half (52%) are satisfied or very satisfied with their work-life balance. In comparison, four years ago, 55 per cent did not believe their current work-life balance was satisfactory. Global executives work an average of 58.5 hours per week, with 39 per cent working over 60 hours per week; but the majority (81%) of those polled consider work-life balance when deciding on whether or not to accept a new position.Over one quarter (28%) rate their work-life ratio as more important than their potential earnings and 31 per cent would refuse a promotion or new job offer if it negatively affected their preferred work-life balance ratio. (more…)

Three ways in which politicians display their ignorance of the workplace

by • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Workplace bubbleThe recent Cabinet reshuffle in the UK Government won’t alter one fact; politicians simply don’t get it when it comes to technology, the workplace, the way people work and the needs of small businesses. Once you dismiss the paranoid idea that they DO get it but don’t care because they’re too busy looking out for The Man, you have to conclude that one of the big problems they have (this won’t go where you think) is that they don’t understand anything about technology and work, especially when it comes to emerging technology, the working lives of individuals, the needs and functions of small businesses and the fact the self-employed exist at all. These things exist outside the bubble. This is obviously a problem because they are implementing policies and making big, uninformed and anachronistic decisions about the things that shape every aspect of our lives, help to define us as people and determine how companies and individuals function. Here are just three examples.

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Older workers’ employment champion appointed to challenge age perceptions

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Following the Government’s publication last month of Fuller Working Lives – A Framework For Action, which set out the benefits to individuals, business and the economy as a whole of people aged over 50 staying in work; economist, policy expert and consumer champion Dr Ros Altmann CBE has been appointed by the Government as its new Business Champion for Older Workers. Dr Altmann – a former director-general of Saga and independent expert on later life issues – will be tasked with making the case for older workers within the business community and challenging outdated perceptions. In the next 10 years, there will be 700,000 fewer people aged 16-49 in the UK labour market but 3.7m more people aged between 50 and state pension age. The Government believes employers need to harness the benefits of taking on older staff, as too many continue to believe they can rely solely on a young workforce. (more…)

Breathing space? Why our office air could be harming us

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Why our office air could be harming usAs reported last week, the vast majority of office workers might prefer to work outdoors; but the office is where we spend most of our working lives. Indeed, for an average of eight hours a day, five days a week, office workers can reliably be found in the same surroundings – at a familiar desk, with familiar colleagues, within a familiar building. Perhaps as a result of this, too few of us stop to consider the risks of working indoors, assuming that the danger of serious harm is the sole preserve of outdoor working sites. Nonetheless, office work contains risks which are entirely its own. For example, while outdoor workers benefit from physical exercise, sunshine (occasionally), and fresh air, office workers perform their daily duties in a space where air is continuously recirculated, posing numerous dangers.  Indeed, indoor air pollution is actually a major public health problem, posing a myriad of risks as dangerous particles accumulate in office air.

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Government plans encourage employers to appreciate older workers

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Government plans encourage employers to appreciate older workersEmployers must recognise the potential of older workers and help them stay in the workplace. This is the message the Government will stress today at the launch of its new action plan. The new measures set out in Fuller Working Lives – A Framework For Action published today include; the appointment of a new Older Workers’ Employment Champion who will advocate the case for older workers within the business community and wider society; an extension of the right to request flexible working to all employees from the end of this month and the launch of a new Health and Work Service which the Government says will give workers with long-term health problems the support they need to stay in or return to work. Part of the Government’s aim is also to challenge outdated misconceptions and encourage more employers to consider the benefits of older workers.

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A third of UK workers would welcome a digital assistant to free up their time

by • Comment, News, Technology

digital assistant

A vision of the present. © Pixar Studios

In the 2008 Pixar film WALL-E, humans have fled the planet they have destroyed in an orgy of garbage-generating mass-consumerism and been reduced to morbidly obese, sedentary lumps living vicariously through screens and whose every need is catered for by the machines around them. Well, they say the best science fiction is really about the present day and sure enough, it appears that many of us are perfectly happy with the idea of suckling at the galvanised teat of a robot overlord. A new survey carried out by ClickSoftware  claims that a third of UK employees would welcome the idea of having a personal digital assistant to help them carry out everyday tasks. Over half (58 percent) hope that intelligent apps will take on at least a tenth of their workload in the future, especially those tasks considered mundane and repetitive such as administration, work scheduling and planning journeys.

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Benefits of mobile broadband to Australia run to tens of billions, claims report

by • Flexible working, News, Technology

mobile-broadbandWhile the UK Government continues to fuss over the rollout of broadband in the UK, bickering with the notoriously ponderous BT about a dysfunctional monopoly they created themselves, a new report from Australia claims that the economic benefits of mobile broadband in that country came to nearly AU$34 billion (£19 billion) last year. The report commissioned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in partnership with the Centre for International Economics (CIE) and Analysys Mason found that although the mobile telecoms sector only accounts for 0.5 percent of economic activity in Australia, its impact on productivity is profound. Last year it accounted for an additional AU$33.8 billion in activity, 2.28 percent of Australia’s total gross domestic product. The report makes its claim on the basis that between 2006 and 2013, productivity growth was 11.3 percent per year, but would have been only 6.7 percent without mobile broadband.

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The workplace should be designed for (and by) people, not robots

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

Omnicorp logoFrom existential and dystopian fears expressed through books and films, we have long had an uneasy relationship with the idea of automatons and artificial intelligence. The UKCES saw robotics and automation as significant enough to include in it’s recent report on the future of work and the risks to jobs are very real based even on the more widespread adoption of the technologies already available to us. The possibility that many people may cease to have any economic value is a challenge we seem ill-equipped to meet. As ever, the web giants are leading the charge with Amazon prototyping delivery of packages by the kind of drones more commonly used over the tribal badlands of Afghanistan, as well as Google’s recent purchase of Boston Dynamics, makers of military-spec robots. The people behind the algorithms that gave us the unintentional hilarity of Google Suggest are now branching to create the sort of killer robots produced by OmniCorp in the Robocop movies.

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CIPD calls for a budget to address decline in UK productivity

by • News, Workplace

UK productivity requires budget boostThe CIPD has urged the Chancellor to focus on delivering a “Budget for Productivity” when he delivers his 2014 Budget on 19 March. The employment body has today put forward a package of proposals which call for labour market inclusion and the development of more productive, inclusive, and engaging workplaces. It is calling for a fundamental review of UK skills policy, together with a new focus on the workplace, the nature of jobs for the future, and how skills are being utilised. This, the CIPD argues, is critical if the necessary leap in productivity is to be delivered to boost real wages. A recent CIPD report  found that already weak UK productivity has worsened as a result of a slow-down in job turnover during the recession and an extraordinary run of hiring that has preceded the recent return to growth. (more…)

UK workers exhibit split personalities when it comes to energy management

by • Environment, Facilities management, Legal news, News

Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_HydeA new survey has highlighted the disparity between how energy (and hence money) conscious British people are in their domestic and working lives. According to research carried out by Rexel UK we exhibit a ‘split personality’ when it comes to the ways in which we use energy. Just under half (48 percent) of those surveyed describe themselves as energy conscious at home, whereas only a fifth (20 percent) would say the same about themselves in the workplace. Over a third (70 percent) say that they are concerned about wasting energy at home, whilst only two-fifths (43 percent) worry about wasting energy at work. In addition people are actively choosing to charge electronic devices at work in preference to home and, while nearly all turn the lights off at home (93 percent), only 60 percent do so in the office.

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