News & Views

Coughs and sniffles are commonplace at this time of the year as our bodies adjust to the cold and wet autumnal weather. But recently I fell victim to a more modern virus.

A few days ago, a friend of a friend tweeted to say he’d heard something funny about me. What could it be? That I’d been walking around all day with loo roll on my shoe? Intrigued, I clicked on the link at the bottom of his tweet. And just like that, less the ACHOO!, the virus spread to all my followers.

A few hours later Cathy, out of the office visiting a client, sent me a direct message saying that my Twitter account had been hacked. “It just sent me random msg to log onto a fake Twitter site,” she wrote. Great, I thought. She had obviously opened the link, and the virus would soon be winging its way to all of Magenta’s followers. Infecting my boss; a great start to my third week on the job.

But it would seem that I’m not alone in bringing social media viruses into the workplace, according to new research. A Ponemon Institute survey of 4,640 global organisations found that virus and malware attacks against them have increased because of employees using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media in the workplace. More than half of these organisations said these computer attacks grew as a result of workers using social networks. About a quarter of those respondents said the attacks rose by more than 50 per cent. Many organisations also feel they are ill equipped to handle the security risks of social media. Of those surveyed, only 35 per cent had a policy on using social media at work. Of those, just 35 per cent enforce it. Also intriguing is the study’s finding that in the US workers spend an average of 62 minutes each day using social media for personal reasons, compared with 37 minutes for business purposes. Not unrelated, 60 per cent of the organisations surveyed have increased their Internet bandwidth in the past 12 months to accommodate employees’ use of social media.

Social media is essential to business

But for all the risks and work hours wasted, social media has undoubtedly changed our lives and the business landscape. Not only has it changed the way we chat with friends and family and the way we consume information, it has also changed how companies sell, how they serve their customers and how they communicate with everyone. Some 67 per cent of respondents of the Ponemon Institute survey said that social media is essential or very important to meeting business objectives.

This is why at Magenta Associates we use social media every day. Cathy uses Twitter to tweet trends, statistics, facts, figures and stories in the press, and has conversations with clients, users and friends in the industry. We update our Facebook page regularly, and we keep a watchful eye on LinkedIn for networking opportunities. Elsewhere in the FM community, the uptake of social media has been somewhat slow and even reluctant. The FM trade press have Twitter accounts as do a smallish number of FM businesses. But the marketplace is still young, and FM businesses that establish a strong social media presence now will really gain an advantage over their competitors.

Back at Magenta, fortunately Cathy took the news that I had infected her Twitter account in her usual good-natured way, and she immediately sent out a tweet to stop anyone opening the link. A few days later, another friend tweeted saying that she had come across a really interesting blog about me. No doubt it would have been very interesting indeed, but I never found out. Like in the real world where you can’t catch the same virus twice, in the social media stratosphere you open a dodgy tweet once – and you (hopefully) never do it again.

Here are Magenta’s top common sense tips on how to avoid being infected by social media viruses:

1. Use caution when clicking on links from people you don’t know well and even from friends. Does the language used sound professional or like that of your contact?
2. If in doubt, email or DM your contact to check that the link is safe to open.
3. If you click on a suspect link, immediately notify your followers by DM or email not to open the link. Reset your password. But be sure to do so via the social media site directly rather than clicking on a link in an email, which could take you to a page that looks like the Twitter or Facebook reset password page. Once you’ve entered your password on the fake site you’ve just given the thief access to your account.
4. For the same reason, type the address of your social networking site directly into your browser or use bookmarks.
5. Be selective about your friends on your social networks. Identity thieves are known to create fake profiles in order to get information from you. Also be careful what you post about yourself. Hackers can break into financial and other accounts by clicking the “Forgot your password?” link, especially if they’ve found online the answers to common security questions, such as your birthday or mother’s middle name.

How do you use social media, and have you fallen victim to any social media viruses recently? We would love to hear from you.

Why not connect with Magenta Associates on social media:

Connect through LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cathyhayward
Follow us on Twitter: @cathy_magenta
Follow us on Facebook: Magenta Associates

Our productivity at work is ruined by small things – the light which is just a little too bright, or dim; the office being too hot or cold; the noisy colleague the other side of the floor; or the printer not being filled up with paper (and no paper being in sight). Yes, there are bigger things too. Organisations failing to provide the right type of workspace, for example not enough quiet rooms to do some one-to-one or reflective work or not enough space to collaborate with colleagues we might see only occasionally.

These are what Tim Oldman, founder of Leesman, the opensource index which measures the performance and effectiveness of office environments, describes as “productivity toxins”. Oldman was speaking at the Federation of Corporate Real Estate’s autumn seminar looking at some of the key issues involved in creating an efficient workplace.

Sometimes it’s good to go back to basics. Meirion Anderson, MD of workplace project and change management specialists Aberley argued that “At its most basic, a workplace is there to protect us from the elements”. And another great one-liner: “A desk is just there to stop your laptop falling on the floor.”

New ways of working is now so established that at the seminar it was given its very own acronym (NWOW) – sounds very Now. But despite this, people are still getting it badly wrong. The 100 or so delegates heard about offices being turned into ghost towns by flexible working taking off. Businesses which had no culture because everyone was dispersed or NWOW being DONE too, and organisation rather than being drawn out of the business. And while the key driver of introducing flexible working is saving on real estate costs, there is also much additional value creation that comes with it (increased productivity and staff wellbeing for example).

Perhaps the most interesting session was the break out debate on NWOW where a group of subject enthusiasts were given the task of seeing which aspects of the workplace prevented NWOW. Naturally when a group is set free from the constrains of a formal seminar, the first thing to do is break the rules. After much debate, it was agreed we couldn’t answer the question. New ways of working and productivity at work, while it might be hampered by a lack of WiFi or quiet rooms, it will fall at the first hurdle if management trust is not intrinsic to the process (it’s all about Marx and infrastructures and superstructures – read more at Neil Usher’s fabulous blog)

Read tweets from the event.

Read our blog about changes in the workplace. 

More about the Federation of Corporate Real Estate

The news that the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is set to use churches, and other places of worship, to provide face-to-face advice in the local community, after cuts in their funding meant their own property portfolio has been rationalised, got me thinking what other buildings could become multi-use.

People already use coffee shops, parks, museums and galleries to perch with their laptops and catch up on emails. Meanwhile many home-based knowledge workers, disillusioned with (or lacking the discipline to) work from home pop to libraries or use their local serviced office (which are springing up all over the place and not just from the likes of Regus and MWB) occasionally.

How about schools outside of term times? Colleges and universities hire out their facilities to organisations for conferences, is there a role for schools to become mini drop-in centres for advice, get-togethers or even a local hub for workers (although the chairs can be on the small side sometimes…).

The gym is a perfect place for a bit of post-workout working – a decent café with healthy juices and WiFi would attract a professional clientele.

Churches hosting non-religious community groups is nothing new. Previous guidelines have encouraged churches to host post offices and community shops and many have already started accommodating the Citizens Advice Bureaux. Spilsby Methodist Church in Lincolnshire, for example, secured funding to develop part of the church as a community centre with interview rooms, a community area, kitchen area, toilets, and is now being used by the East Lindsey CAB. The upstairs of the church was also converted into a “Bunk Barn” offering basic accommodation to tourists as part of the project, which also involved partnering with the Church of England and Age UK.

Citizens Advice are well versed in providing their services in different facilities – they currently operate from more than 3,500 locations including high streets, community centres, doctors’ surgeries, courts and prisons.

But there are downsides – my local parish priest went apoplectic when he discovered that what he thought was an exercise class in the parish hall turned out to be yoga which he felt went against Catholic teaching. Following on from the local youth group holding a halowe’en party in the facility, he was feeling a little sensitive about his parishioners’ more subversive activities. Perhaps anticipating these concerns, Citizens Advice has produced Faithful Advice, a guide for places of worships in setting up advice sessions in their buildings.

The lesson for facilities managers in these cash-strapped times, must surely be to look at how to get the best out of your facility – what other groups might be keen to use your building or its grounds at little or no cost to you (or even provide an income?)? And if you work in the charity sector, what local businesses might be happy for you to piggyback off their built environment?

Construction and facilities professionals talk a great deal about building new ‘flexible’ buildings which are future proofed for a variety of needs, but it’s important to remember that there are thousands of buildings already out there which could easily be used for different purposes. It’s just a question of opening our eyes to the possibilities.

Do you know of other good examples of multi-use buildings? We’d love to hear from you.

By Marianne Halavage, the newest member of the Magenta Associate’s team

The trend seems to be for workplaces, creative and otherwise, to look increasingly wild and wacky.

For Magenta’s new offices in Brighton we’ve rejected outright wild and wacky and instead opted for flashes of colour to liven the place up. Courtesy of IKEA we’ve added a lovely bold picture of a magenta-coloured flower to the white walls and there’s a vase of pink and white flowers standing in the corner (we prefer to say they’ll live forever than call them fake).

But like many smaller workplaces, we’re constrained by the will of our landlord who, possibly understandably, won’t let us paint our white walls, even the tiny ones beside the fireplace, magenta.

Many bigger companies, on the other hand, have greater reign to create their own wild and wacky universes – and are increasingly doing so.

Take for example the Googleplex, the global headquarters of technology giant Google in Mountain View California, where there are slides, firemen poles, beanbags, replicas of SpaceShipOne and a dinosaur skeleton, not to mention 18 restaurants, a gym, free laundry rooms, two swimming pools and sand volleyball courts.

Then there’s the new Red Bull office in South London, which has a slide between three floors, ping pong table meeting rooms, a modern bar and cafe, and a comfy lounge area, and even a terrace which converts into a bungee jump bridge.

And over in West London, smoothie maker Innocent has a pillar red telephone box, table football, picnic benches and astro turf grass for each floor.

The FM community’s perspective

But despite the trend, the jury in the FM community is still out on whether having these wild and wacky playthings truly add value to the employee and to the business. Or are they just a bad case of keeping up with the creative Joneses?

BIFM chairman Ian Broadbent thinks they add some value: “Gimmicks can help but true creativity has to come from the minds of the leaders of an organisation. Slides and meeting beds would just be an enabler – a creative culture needs to exist in the minds.”

A premises and facilities director at a leading law firm agrees. “I think these wacky ideas can encourage creative thinking but they need to be suitable for the type of business. For example slides may suit media and technology firms with dress down codes but wouldn’t be appropriate in a business suit environment.” Cost is also an issue he points out – what might work in California where there is more space, may not be so cost-effective in central London (or, presumably, Brighton).

Craig Knight, head of the Prism team at the University of Exeter which explores the psychology of working and living space, is all for a bit of wackiness in offices. He argues that thanks to Taylorist principles of consistency, standardisation, and efficiency, offices are increasingly becoming lean with little personalisation or decoration. “A happy rat sits in a luxurious cage, a sad rat in a lean cage, so why do we create lean offices?

But others are more sceptical. A facilities manager at a search engine company says that thinking beds and slides is “just a designer taking the idea to its limit.”

And Principal Consultant at Agents4FM, Lionel Prodgers, says that the wacky examples of slides and bean bags are mostly gimmicks, for PR and to attract staff rather than stimulating creative thinking. “If you go behind the facade of a ‘wacky’ showroom type office environment you will find rows of conventional flat top bench/desk space.”

But one FM in the media sector says that slides add to the ambience – even if no-one uses them, “You are setting your stall out as a creative organisation. People can be proud to work for an organisation which has a slide, even if they don’t use it. It is a physical manifestation of that organisation’s culture and beliefs, a bit like the expensive furniture.

Back in Brighton, I wonder what our landlord will say to our proposition to extend a slide from the window into the garden two floors below and to add a fireman’s pole from our office straight into the kitchen which will, naturally, be stocked with free champagne and cupcakes …

So what do you think about the trend for creative workplaces to look increasingly wild and wacky? Would you like to work in somewhere like the Googleplex? Or would you be too distracted to get on with your work? We’d love to hear from you.

Having moved out of London after 18 years of living in the capital I’m now enjoying (enduring?) the delights of commuting to work. Not five days a week fortunately, but two or three times a week I suffer an hour’s journey on a packed train into London with hardly enough elbow room to type on my laptop.

But, because I’m at the start of the line, I’m one of the lucky ones –I always get a seat (even if it is occasionally an aisle seat facing backwards). Yesterday the train was packed by the time it left Brighton and everybody from Preston Park onwards had to stand all the way into London (unless they were lucky or cunning enough to have positioned themselves next to someone with a suitcase who looked like they were getting out at Gatwick Airport). Commuting, I’ve discovered, comes with its own unique games and strategies (an encyclopediac knowledge of train times, and where the doors open to allow you the speediest exit being just some of them)

An industry colleague who regularly commutes from Haywards Heath (which is still a 45 minute trek into London Victoria) never gets a seat. When renewing her ticket she asked the station office for a ‘standing only ticket’ (as they provide in some theatres and concerts) but was told the season ticket entitled her to travel to the destination  and didn’t guarantee the manner in which she would travel. Caring customer service.

So you’ve driven/ walked or ridden to the station, stood in a cramped carriage for an hour nestled up against people you would never say hello to, let alone virtually cuddle, and then rushed by tube, bus or foot to the office the other end. And then your working day begins and you’re expected to be fully productive, add value to clients and your organisation, be friendly, approachable and above all professional for eight-plus hours and then do the return journey with people who haven’t recently had the benefit of a morning wash.

As I said I’m one of the lucky ones. Doing the journey two to three times a week (and often not in the rush hour) is enjoyable, when it’s broken up by time spent in a local office, or working at home. It also helps the ‘life’ side of the equation. When I work from Brighton I can be home by 6pm rather than 7.30pm. But is a five-day commute to a city office really the ideal way to get the best out of people? Or would working from a mixture of settings: offices in big towns, local offices/ hubs and home offices be preferable to allow people to both be productive and also get pleasure from their working (and home) lives?

What a shame that London mayor Boris Johnson has bowed to pressure and axed two so-called “chill-out” spaces at City Hall. The report in today’s FM World Daily claims that the business lounges where staff can read, eat and hold informal meetings are being removed to make way for more desks.

The “chill-out” spaces have caused controversy because of the big expense to fit them out – about £25,000 (not that much when you consider the building’s overall budget but the Evening Standard kicked up a big fuss at the time). Some chairs apparently cost nearly £900 each, four high tables cost £2,000 each and carpets added another £4,170, according to the FM World report (although that may well be the list price and a substantial discount was achieved). In any case surely setting the spaces up and then demolishing them 12 months later is the real waste of money?

It’s also interesting that according to the FM World report, the original design in 2002 was for 426 desks, on handover there were 570 and this eventually increased to 697. And more to come by the sound of it. It would be interesting to know how many staff the building supports, the desk to person ratio, how many of the staff in the building are encouraged to work flexibly by time or location or whether agile/intelligent working has made it as far as City Hall.

Usually much more can be done to encourage people to work in other locations (either at home, in client sites, local offices, third spaces etc) which then frees up much-needed space in the main head office.  If people were to work in this way, then the business lounges currently being ditched would be the first thing needed to allow staff to drop in to work, meet colleagues informally. Those types of informal spaces can support many more people when they’re set up as business lounges, rather than being covered in desks.