Wes McGregor, director at workplace consultant Advance Workplace Associates, said 24-hour workers would demand greater control over how, when and where they worked. He said new contracts and service level agreements would be required to cope with the demand. He also questioned whether service providers could meet the changing demand.
'Facilities managers will find they are going to be working in a more pressured environment and the workplace is going to have to perform at that level,' he told The Facilities Business. 'Is the supply side geared up to deal with it? You will find that some are and some are not.'
His comments follow the publication of the Work-Life Balance Survey in December, which highlights the move away from the standard working week towards 24-hour, seven-day-a-week working patterns.
The study – published by the Department for Education and Employment and based on interviews carried out by research bodies the IER, the University of Warwick and IFF Research with 10,000 businesses and employees – finds that 11 per cent of workplaces – covering 19 per cent of employees in the UK – operate 24 hours a day and never close.
It also finds that while the overwhelming majority of employees (83%) actually work from Monday to Friday, only 35 per cent of employees now work a standard 9am-5pm working day.
James Woudhuysen, director at Seymour Powell Forecasting, said the rise of the 24-hour workplace would effect the provision of facilities management across the board. 'Food servicing will become more important, as will security, transport and lighting,' he said. 'IT systems will also become more vulnerable.'
Tim Allen, consultant at DEGW said many businesses were already starting to look at how office space could be made more flexible to cope with 24-hour demand.
He said businesses would need to consider a switch away from allocated desks and have more space that could be used for meeting and collaborating ideas when staff got together.
Source
The Facilities Business
