Search Results for: workplace

Half of workers claim they are more productive while listening to music, Come on Eileen is their unlikely song of choice

by • Workplace

Dexys Midnight Runners has shaken off Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber to top the list of songs most likely to make Brits ‘work faster’, a new study claims. With 20 percent of the nation saying that they listen to music at work every day, the study from Trade Direct Insurance set out to discover what effect this is having on the work environment and the level of work employees can complete during working hours. The study’s findings claim that over half (53 percent) of the 1,007 British workers who took part think they are more productive when listening to music at work.

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People who work in coworking spaces believe they are more productive

People who work in coworking spaces believe they are more productive

by • Coworking, Flexible working, News

People who work in so-called coworking spaces claim they are more motivated and have more positive interactions with others, according to a new report. The report by Staples Solutions, called Collaboration Generation: The Rise of Millennials in the Workplace, details the trend in collaborative working, in addition to what attracts the millennial generation to business. Since 2010, co-working spaces worldwide have increased by 5,519 percent as the average office space per employee has decreased by 2.9 percent, the research reveals, with London seeing a reduction in traditional office space by 8.8 percent.

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Sexual harassment by colleagues may be associated with more severe depression

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employees who experience sexual harassment by supervisors, colleagues or subordinates in the workplace may develop more severe symptoms of depression than employees who experience harassment by clients or customers, according to a study involving 7603 employees from across 1041 organisations in Denmark. The research is published in the open access journal BMC Public Health.

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An inability to develop skills at all ages leaves people unprepared for the future of work

An inability to develop skills at all ages leaves people unprepared for the future of work

by • News, Workplace

Efforts to fully realise people’s economic potential in countries at all stages of development are falling short due to ineffective deployment of skills throughout the workforce, development of skills appropriate for the future of work and adequate promotion of ongoing learning for those already in employment. These failures to translate investment in education during the formative years into opportunities for higher-quality work during the working lifetime contributes to income inequality by blocking the two pathways to social inclusion, education and work, according to the World Economic Forum’s Human Capital Report 2017. The report measures 130 countries against four key areas of human capital development; Capacity, largely determined by past investment in formal education; Deployment, the application and accumulation of skills through work; Development, the formal education of the next generation workforce and continued upskilling and reskilling of existing workers; and Know-how, the breadth and depth of specialised skills-use at work. Countries’ performance is also measured across five distinct age groups or generations: 0-14 years; 15-24 years; 25-54 years; 55-64 years; and 65 years and over.

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Groundbreaking White Collar Factory building opens in London

by • Company news, Property, Workplace design

Derwent London has announced the opening of White Collar Factory. The firm claims that the project is one of the most visionary developments of recent years, White Collar Factory combines the look of a well-built industrial space with modern office design. Located near Old Street Roundabout in North East London and designed by architectural practice Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), the features of the White Colla Factory include 3.5m high ceilings, concrete core cooling, a 150m rooftop running track, communal roof terrace, a new landscaped public space and the ability to accommodate flexible occupation. The 293,000 sq ft mixed-use development includes a 237,000 sq ft office tower, where the first tenants are already in occupation. Tenants include Adobe, AKTII, BGL, Box.com, Capital One, Runpath, Spark44, The Office Group and Workshop Coffee. The tower forms part of a new urban campus with a further 56,000 sq ft of offices, studios, incubator space, restaurants and apartments, set around a new landscaped area of public realm, ‘Old Street Yard’.

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The government announces a major new office for public servants in the West Midlands

The government announces a major new office for public servants in the West Midlands

by • News, Property

Thousands of public servants in the West Midlands will move to a new building in central Birmingham, as the government continues its drive to modernise its office estate. HMRC working with the Cabinet Office has signed a 25 year lease to take 238,988 sq ft at 3 Arena Central, which is a new office development in the centre of Birmingham. The building will see around 3,600 public servants from several government departments move there from 2020, including from HMRC and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The hub will be the base for one of HMRC’s regional centres. DWP plans to move staff into the hub from existing offices in the city. The move is part of the Government Hubs Programme, which will reduce the number of isolated and under-used offices that the government has by co-locating departments in shared buildings across the UK. Departments moving to hubs will need less space as they adopt smart working principles, which will reduce their operating costs. Providing modern, flexible office space will further deliver value for money by improving staff wellbeing and productivity

British organisations must step up to the challenges of artificial intelligence, robotics and automation

by • AI, News, Technology

A report published by the RSA think-tank has encouraged UK businesses to embrace artificial intelligence, automation and robotics. arguing that new technology has the potential to raise productivity levels, boost flagging living standards, and phase out ‘dull, dirty and dangerous’ tasks in favour of more purposeful and human-centric work. The Age of Automation report warns, however, that the UK is fast becoming a ‘laggard’ in the adoption of new machines and called on UK business leaders to accelerate their take-up of technology. The RSA found that sales of robots to the UK decreased over 2014-15, with British firms falling behind the US, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. A YouGov poll of UK business leaders, commissioned by the RSA, found that UK business leaders are currently wary of adopting AI and robotics, with just fourteen percent of firms currently investing in this technology or soon planning to. Twenty-nine percent of businesses believe AI & robotics to be too expensive or not yet proven and twenty percent want to invest but believe it will take several years to ‘seriously adopt’ the new technology.

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Majority of employers fail to support workers’ efforts to lead an active lifestyle

Majority of employers fail to support workers’ efforts to lead an active lifestyle

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Majority of employers fail to support workers’ efforts to lead an active lifestyleThe majority of UK employees (61 percent) do not feel encouraged by their employer to lead an active lifestyle, despite most managers agreeing that exercise positively impacts employees’ productivity (78 percent) and their ability to handle stress (82 percent) claims new research from AXA PPP healthcare. Of those British employees who do exercise after work, nearly half (46 percent) would prefer to do so before work but 79 percent blame a lack of time in the morning; yet for those who find time to be physically active before work, three quarters (75 percent) feel it spurs them on to be more effective in the morning while 69 percent feel more productive. More worryingly, nearly half of employees (45 percent) of employees admit they do not do the NHS recommended 30 minutes of daily exercise, five times a week, but finding time to be physically active during the working day can be difficult, or undesirable. Sixty?two percent of employees with good intentions to exercise at work find they’re cancelling their lunchtime exercise plans due to workload or work commitments.

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Brexit having a significant impact on London firms, but tech and media sectors growing

Brexit having a significant impact on London firms, but tech and media sectors growing

by • Cities, Facilities management, News, Workplace

With the overwhelming majority of London businesses employing staff from the EU (88 percent), Brexit is having a significant impact on the capital’s companies, according to the latest CBI/CBRE London Business Survey. Just under three quarters of firms (73 percent) view uncertainty over the UK’s role in Europe as their top concern, whilst a similar number (69 percent) have developed, or are developing, a contingency plan for when the UK leaves the EU. Indeed, over a quarter of respondents (27 percent) indicated they are planning to move part of their operations overseas. Close to two thirds (62 percent) have, or are developing, a strategy to address skill shortages that could be incurred if restrictions are placed on EU nationals working in the UK. However, two thirds of the 271 respondents to the Survey (65 percent) said that the tech and creative sectors were the principal sectors for the capital’s economic growth over the next five years, followed by professional services (49 percent) and FinTech (47 percent).

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Not enough being done to tackle work-related ill-health, say business leaders

by • News, Wellbeing

Almost half of Britain’s industry leaders do not feel enough is being done across industry to tackle cases of work-related ill-health, according to new research from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The research also found more than two-fifths of businesses are reporting a rise in cases of long-term ill-health with the majority (80 percent) stating tackling this growing problem is a priority within their organisation. This news comes as HSE figures show that work-related ill-health is costing the economy more than £9bn with 26 million working days being lost, making it a priority for HSE as the Government’s chief occupational health adviser.

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Employers unable to meet growing demand for flexible working, claims study

by • Flexible working, News

A growing number of employees are frustrated in their attempts to adopt flexible working by the inability of employers to offer it, a new study claims. Based on the survey of 3,001 British employees, recruitment firm Timewise and consultancy EY claims that fewer than a tenth of jobs offering more than £20,000 per year pro rata are advertised with a flexible working option. This puts employers at a disadvantage because around two fifths of people claim they would prefer some form of flexible working, according to the report Flexible Working: A Talent Imperative.

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London faces potentially large loss of office stock under office-to-residential conversion rights

London faces potentially large loss of office stock under office-to-residential conversion rights

by • News, Property

A total of 13.3 million square feet of London office space could be lost to office-to-residential conversions carried out under new Permitted Development Rights introduced in 2013, according to new research published by the British Council for Offices (BCO). This figure comprises of 7.5 million ft² of office space in London which has already been converted to homes since the introduction of the rights, with a further 5.7 million ft² of conversions in the capital having approval. An average of 2 million ft²/year has been converted each year since the rights were introduced in 2013, or 0.7 percent of the total London office stock.

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