Search Results for: workplace

Daylight exposure has ‘remarkable’ effect on office workers’ health

by • Architecture, Facilities management, Lighting, News, Workplace, Workplace design

The architectural design of office environments should take into consideration how natural daylight exposure contributes to employee wellness say the authors of a new study which observes a strong relationship between workplace daylight exposure and office workers’ health. Compared to workers in offices without windows, those with windows in the workplace received 173 per cent more white light exposure during work hours and slept an average of 46 minutes more per night. Workers without windows reported poorer scores than their counterparts on quality of life measures related to physical problems and vitality, as well as poorer outcomes on measures of overall sleep quality, sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances and daytime dysfunction. (more…)

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

by • 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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UK employers are global leaders in flexible working and secure BYOD policies

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Technology, Workplace

 

The UK’s small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) lead the world in flexible working and ensuring staff work securely in the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) era, with 34 per cent saying they have policies, procedures and/or IT systems in place to manage the use of personal communications devices for business purposes. This compares to an average of 28 per cent in Europe and the rest of the world, and only 19 per cent in the US. This is not before time, as the global survey by YouGov of senior executives and managers in more than 1,250 small and medium businesses across Europe, North America and Australia on behalf of Citrix, found that nearly half of UK employees now routinely use personal devices at work.

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The future of retail – High Street Bladerunners and Apple in Wonderland

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

AT&T Flagship Chicago

AT&T’s flagship Chicago store

I was going to write this week on the manifesto from MANTOWNHUMAN – subtitled “TOWARDS A NEW HUMANISM IN ARCHITECTURE” but frankly the dystopian visions it conjured up drove such a bulldozer through any human sensibility as to prove thoroughly depressing. You can find it here if you’re that way inclined. I’d be interested in your views. Instead I’m following up on a faintly hagiographic article in Adweek which recently hailed a new frontier in physical retail spaces, building on the success of Apple’s uber-cool high street playgrounds for bored teenagers and husbands. The store in question and an example of what many are hailing as the future of retail is AT&T’s new flagship on the self-styled Magnificent Mile in Chicago.

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Applications for UK commercial property developments continue to fall

by • Knowledge, News, Property

Commercial property constructionAccording to law firm EMW LLP, the number of planning applications submitted for commercial property developments in the UK has fallen for a second successive year. The firm claims that the around 4 percent fall is down to declining demand from tenants. However there are stark contrasts between London and the rest of the UK measured both in terms of market activity and the number of tower cranes on the skyline, with London now having more than the rest of the UK combined for the third consecutive year according to the Health and Safety Executive. The report echoes the findings of the latest Markit/CIPS report on construction activity which saw a fall in construction activity, although total activity increased on the back of an increase in housebuilding.

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Time to apply flexible working to harness women’s untapped potential

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Public Sector, Workplace

Recommendations made on how to harness women's untapped potential in the workplace

Encouraging flexible working and understanding how best to support working parents in the second stage of their career is just one of the findings of a major report published today by the Women’s Business Council (WBC) on improving women’s contribution to economic growth. The WBC, which is chaired by Ruby McGregor Smith CBE, chief executive of MITIE, is an independent working group established by the government in 2012 to explore the untapped potential of the female workforce. Maximising women’s contribution to future economic growth looks into addressing the obstacles at all stages of women’s careers, such as broadening career choices, helping to access childcare and providing the necessary skills to start new businesses. (more…)

Audio: the history and state of the open plan office

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, Workplace design

Frank DuffyEarlier this year, the BBC World Service became the latest media outlet to discuss the growing backlash against the recent hegemony of open plan offices looking at its history, rationale, implications and our current love-hate relationship with the idea, including contributions from  Franklin Becker, Frank Duffy (pictured), Julian Treasure and Alexi Marmot  and drawing on several case studies. The programme is available to listen to here.

US Govt to encourage wellness programmes, even though they don’t do anything

by • Knowledge, Legal news, Workplace

Darts missIn spite of the evidence from a report published last week that confirmed workplace wellness programmes don’t achieve what they set out to do, American employees will be eligible for significantly lower premiums on any health insurance they buy through employers if they participate in the schemes. The Affordable Care Act, signed into law in 2010, will allow US employers to increase the rewards they offer employees who participate in workplace wellness programs. The goal is to improve employees’ health by helping them give up smoking or lose weight in a bid to curb medical costs and absenteeism. Under the rules issued last week, employers must structure programmes so that  every individual participating can receive the full amount of any reward or incentive, regardless of any health factor.

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Facebook shares details of New York office design by Frank Gehry

by • Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

Facebook has announced details of its new headquarters in New York.  The social media giant has signed a ten year lease on a 100,00 sq. ft. space over two floors of a building on Broadway. The office design will be carried out by no less a figure than Frank Gehry who is already masterminding the development of the company’s global HQ in California. From next year, the new building will be home to Facebook’s regional engineering, design, sales and marketing functions who will move from the current office on Madison Avenue to the new site which is reportedly on the fringes of Manhattan’s ‘Silicon Alley’. The new building dates from 1906 when it was designed as a department store.  It is already home to AOL and the Huffington Post.

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Whitehall savings boosted by property and procurement efficiencies

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Public Sector

The joint Cabinet Office and Treasury initiative the Efficiency and Reform Group has exceeded the Government’s savings target by 25 per cent to make an overall saving of £10 billion, Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude announced today. The savings made include; £1.1 billion made by boosting online services and selling empty buildings and exiting expensive rentals in sought-after locations; £1.7 billion by reviewing large scale projects including construction, and stripping out inefficiencies; and a further £3.8 billion was saved in procurement, by linking together departments to buy goods and services.

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Infographic: how work related social media use varies by country, gender and sector

by • Knowledge, Technology, Workplace

A new survey from Microsoft has highlighted a widespread mismatch in the use of social media in a business context across regions and between gender and age groups. It also claims that firms should be more open to social media use and that their unwillingness to adopt them more openly is hampering personal productivity. In the survey conducted in conjunction with Ipsos, nearly half of employees report that social tools at work help increase their productivity, but more than 30 percent of companies underestimate the value of these tools and often restrict their use. An infographic of the survey’s main results can be found here.

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RIBA and CIBSE call for collaboration in CarbonBuzz initiative

by • Environment, Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property, Public Sector, Technology

RIBA and CIBSE call for pan-industry collaboration in CarbonBuzz initiative

The CarbonBuzz energy benchmarking initiative, backed jointly by the RIBA and CIBSE gets a new online platform next week. The CarbonBuzz project allows users to record, share and compare the real energy use of building projects and to shed light on the differences between predicted and operational performance. Now RIBA and CIBSE are calling on architects and building services engineers to upload their projects to CarbonBuzz and re-energise the industry’s benchmarking database, which was first launched in 2008. Both institutes have spearheaded the publication of energy data in their annual awards schemes and point out that CarbonBuzz is the best way to demonstrate energy credentials. (more…)

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