Because of this lack of knowledge the consequences of a property change on business productivity are rarely quantified or analysed and, at worst, are entirely ignored. By investing management attention on the impact of environment on business performance, shareholder value can be increased for the occupying business, and consequently for their property and facilities suppliers. The OPN provides a Network to facilitate the exchange of information between practitioners and researchers, identify and disseminate best practice and campaign for the greater appreciation of the importance of office environments to business productivity. It will argue for public funding to support this.
There is currently one class of membership:
See the Members pages for a full list of current members.
The OPN
is run by SBS Business Solutions. For more information and details
on how to become a member contact Paul Bartlett at email paulbartlett@sbssol.co.uk
or phone 01379 678899.
Working objectives for 2005/6 are:
• To encourage and support the generation of data on the impact of buildings on workforce performance, including knowledge on maximising the intensity of use of floor space.
• To provide an exchange on the impact of all aspects of the indoor environment on office worker productivity, involving Human Resource, IT and Facilities management focussed on the output from buildings.
• To generate knowledge of the flexible operation of office buildings and how their occupation can be rapidly and cost-effectively attuned to changing occupant business needs.
• To disseminate office productivity best practice to key decision-makers in property, facilities, human resource, IT and general management and the building design community.
• To create a focus on how offices are communicated internally and tuned to present the right internal branding.
In addition to the intrinsic networking benefits, Core Members received during 2004/5 the following benefits:
• Privileged access to leading practitioners at exclusive discussion seminars, including :
• Sebastian Macmillan, Martin Centre University of Cambridge on research valuing intangibles.
• Prof Ken Parsons of Loughborough University on his work on thermal comfort and performance
• Prof Martin Gill and Dr Tim Pascoe of Leicester University on aspects of the business impact of security and crime
• Phillip Ross, Cordless Group and Ben Eaton, BT Retail Business Mobility on scenarios for the adoption of wireless communications technology.
• The opportunity to tour Visa’s European HQ, BT Wholesale’s Gatwick HQ, and PricewaterhouseCooper’s leading-edge, award winning buildings and have a dialogue with their designers and managers.
• One OPNI building survey and advice on the application and interpretation of the checklist to their own or clients stock.
• Input to direction of the Network programme through a seat on the Advisory Board, particularly the development of the ground breaking OPN Index and its 34 site database.
• Free licence to use OPN material for in house purposes including customisation of the Checklist and its reference in corporate publicity literature.
Programme
The work programme for 2005/6 will consist of:
• Development of a 2005 update of the OPN Index for evaluating whether environments are optimising staff performance. Members will be entitled to one free survey and in-house training, and priviledged access to the expanded database for benchmarking.
• Quarterly workshops at best practice, exemplar buildings including tours. Venues will demonstrate successful implementation of productivity enhancements; in 2005 prospective on site workshops include Swiss Re’s new London building and the MOD’s HQ refurbishment.
• Quarterly half-day seminars, for Core Members, on key productivity themes with leading speakers. Future issues include: the Work Foundation’s programme of holistic productivity assessment, sustaining effective new ways of working, new technologies’, evaluating macro (floor-plate) and micro (desk-space) studies of what constitutes productive workplace/space, strategic interaction between HR, IT and FM, implementation and change management techniques.
• Two business meetings combined with the above seminars; restricted to Core Members;
|
