magazine
08
agenda
Flexible working boost to UK economy
Citrix claims that greater flexible working allowances could add £11.5 billion
annually to the UK economy.
A Citrix-sponsored survey of 1,200 individuals by the Centre for Economics and
Business Research found that 96% of the UK knowledge worker population would take
advantage of flexible working if it was made available to them.
This could potentially add an extra £11.5bn per year to the UK economy through the
more productive use of available working hours, the equivalent of 0.7% of GDP.
In addition, increased use of flexible working could save UK workers £7.1 billion in
reduced commuting costs when you take into account the cost of the half billion hours
people spend travelling.
An improved flexible working culture also has the potential to encourage the
economically inactive or unemployed to return to work, potentially boosting GDP by up to
4.7% (£78.5 billion) and helping to ease the skills shortage.
The evidence linking office design to the
health, well-being and productivity of
employees is overwhelming, theWorld
Green Building Council (WorldGBC)
claims in a new report,
Health, wellbeing
and productivity in offices: The next
chapter for green building
.
The report sponsored by JLL, Lend Lease
and Skanska finds that building design
features, from air quality and daylight levels
to views of nature and the interior layout,
can affect the health and performance of
office workers.
Some of the key findings include:
Indoor air quality:
Better indoor air
quality (low concentrations of CO2 and
pollutants and high ventilation rates) can
lead to productivity improvements of 8-11%;
Thermal comfort:
Thermal comfort
has a significant impact on workplace
satisfaction and modest degrees of personal
control over thermal comfort can return
single digit improvements in productivity;
Lighting and views of nature:
Several
studies have estimated productivity gains
as a result of proximity to windows, with
experts now thinking that views from
windows are probably the more significant
factor, particularly where the view offers a
connection to nature;
Noise and acoustics:
Being productive
in the modern knowledge-based office is
practically impossible when noise provides
an unwanted distraction;
Interior layout:
The way the interior
of an office is configured (including
workstation density and configuration
of work space, breakout space and social
space) has been found to have an impact on
concentration, collaboration, confidentiality
and creativity;
Active design and exercise:
Active
design within a building, and access to
services and amenities, such as gyms,
bicycle storage and green space, can help to
encourage healthier lifestyles for building
occupants;
TheWorldGBC says that with salaries
and benefits typically responsible for 90%
of an organisation’s expenditure, any higher
construction or occupation costs are far
outweighed by even small improvements in
staff performance.
Jane Henley, CEO of theWorld Green
Building Council, said: “The evidence linking
good office design and improved health,
well-being and productivity of staff is now
overwhelming. There is unquestionably a clear
business case for investing in, developing and
occupying healthier, greener buildings.
“This is something that office occupiers
can demonstrate for themselves. Most
businesses are already sitting on a treasure
trove of information that may yield
immediate improvement strategies for
their two biggest expenses – people and
buildings. Understanding the relationship
between the two can help businesses
achieve significant competitive advantage.”
To help them do this, the report provides
a simple toolkit that businesses can use
to assess staff health, well-being and
productivity based on levels of absenteeism,
staff turnover, medical complaints and
revenue.
Co-location good for small firms
Co-location is good for entrepreneurship, so
says flexible workspace provider Regus. To mark
November’s Global EntrepreneurshipWeek, it
released the results of a poll in which three fifths of
small firms said co-location inspired entrepreneurial
thinking (61%) and innovation (60%). A big
majority of respondents agreed that collaborative
workplaces provide better value for money (91%),
help to scale a businesses rapidly (82%) and create
valuable business connections (75%).
Richard Morris, UK CEO at Regus, said: “Co-locating
with other businesses is an increasingly popular solution
and our research corroborates our own customer
feedback that working under the same roof (or even
in the same office) as other firms breeds dynamism,
entrepreneurship and valuable opportunities to learn
from others.”
New BREEAM rating
BRE Global has introduced a new BREEAM rating
scheme for building refurbishment and fit-out projects.
BREEAM Refurbishment and Fit-Out 2014 has a range
of certification options: Part One deals with the building
fabric and structure; Part Two is concerned with core
services (e.g. centralised M&E plant); Part Three deals
with local services; and Part Four with interior design.
Refurbishment and fit-out projects can be assessed
against one or all of the four parts, or any combination,
depending on which are relevant to a particular project.
Link between office design and
well-being is ‘overwhelming’
Sit or stand
New from Humanscale, the QuickStand height-
adjustable workstation encourages users to alternate
between sitting and standing postures. Available for
single or dual monitor configurations, QuickStand
securely attaches to the back of a fixed-height surface.
Monitor and keyboard platforms can be independently
adjusted.
