Today is the final day of Walk to Work Week, an initiative organised by the national charity Living Streets, to encourage more people to travel to work on foot to improve their health, help the environment, save money and reduce congestion. During last year’s Walk to Work Week workers logged 25,336 walks, totalling more than 71,255 miles on the Living Streets website, which encourages people to record their walking efforts.

As part of the event, the charity commissioned a survey by YouGov, which showed walkers are happier than those who commute by car or using public transport. The poll found 88% of people who usually walk most of the route to work felt their journey made them happy, more than those who travelled by other methods.

Boost team morale

Not all employees will be able to walk to work, but companies can do their bit to encourage staff to get out and about in the fresh air by organising walking meetings.  These can help to boost staff morale and staff productivity, while reducing stress levels.

Walking with your colleagues can help foster a positive team spirit as well as helping keep employees fit and healthy, making them less likely to miss work due to sickness. It can also help clear people’s heads, which could make staff more likely to come up with innovative new ideas for the business. Walking is also good for boosting energy levels, so could help avoid the post-lunch slowdown which often occurs in offices, when employees start to feel tired and sluggish in the afternoon.

Tony Armstrong, Chief Executive of Living Streets, said: “It’s fantastic news that walkers are amongst the happiest of commuters, with 88% of those walkers who commute 10 miles or less rating top of the happy poll. Here at Living Streets, we help employers improve the health and productivity of their workforce by helping them create travel plans and encourage their staff to get more active.

“Walking can help to reduce stress, aid motivation and improve the general health and wellbeing of employees.”

Create healthy competition

Living Streets encourages workplaces to record the number of miles walked by staff using its online walking calculator and perhaps create a bit of healthy competition by setting up teams. Other ideas include setting challenges, which could include sponsored walks to raise money for charity.

As well as helping staff stay healthy and motivated, walking initiatives can also form part of a company’s sustainability policy as it helps demonstrate their commitment to the environment.

Are any of your staff committed to walking to work?  Tell us about them by leaving us a comment.

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Despite the increasing importance for companies and organisations to adopt greener policies, 40% of office workers would still not rate their company as environmentally-friendly and less than 30% feel they are encouraged to implement green practices at work.

The survey also revealed that small businesses are lagging behind larger organisations when it comes to encouraging green office practices. Individuals working at companies with more than 250 employees say they are twice as likely (40%) to be encouraged to be green at work than employees at smaller companies (21%).  This is despite the cost-saving and efficiency benefits on offer to businesses adopting greener working practices.

Making your workplace greener

Monday 13 –  17 May is the fifth Avery Green Office Week, championing environmentally friendly office practices and challenging office workers to make small, practical differences to their green routines.

Today’s focus is on purchasing. Could your office benefit from the following tips?

1. Organise a stationery amnesty day and pool together surplus stationery supplies. You will probably find you stock re-orders reduce dramatically! Co-ordinate your stationery orders with others in your company to reduce the number of deliveries.
2. Choose recycled paper and/or items sourced from sustainable sources when ordering your stationery.
3. Try re-manufactured ink and toner cartridges – most offer the same quality as new.
4. When choosing electrical products, choose items with energy star ratings which are more efficient and economical to run. 
5. Switch to a green energy tariff which will help towards investment in clean energy from renewable sources.

 Environmental irritations

The survey of office workers also revealed the UK’s top green office bugbears:

1. Throwing away paper
2. Not putting recycling in the recycling bin
3. Throwing away food packaging
4. Printing out things that don’t need to be
5. Leaving the computer switched on overnight
6. Leaving electronic devices on standby
7. Not turning off the lights
8. Not printing double sided
9. Boiling a full kettle
10. Leaving things on charge all day
11. Using plastic cups
12. Not reusing envelopes and parcels
13. Using non-environmentally-friendly products
14. Throwing out printer cartridges
15. Traveling by car too much

By aiming to change just a few of these things in our own workplaces, we can help to protect the environment.

Gregg Corbett, Marketing Director at Avery, said: “We’re nearly four times more likely to consider ourselves greener at home than we are at work. This is largely due to the fact that we don’t feel we can make a big enough difference at work, where we often lack the right equipment and encouragement. Green Office Week sets out to change this by demonstrating the power of working together, highlighting the key issues that we can all look to address to make our workplaces more sustainable.”

What are your top tips for a greener office?  Leave us a comment below.

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Mrs Bishop’s Doggy Deli has been based at our Byron Industrial Estate  in Arnold, Nottingham, for almost a year and has won a host of new private and retail customers after visiting the UK’s premier dog show.

Owner Paula Cassady-Bishop founded the dog bakery three years ago, after discovering a flair for creating hand-crafted treats for her sister’s pooch. The quirky start-up business grew quickly and has grown from its birth in Paula’s kitchen to a former café at Byron Industrial Estate.

Paula’s husband Alan now helps her run the business, which specialises in high quality, natural dog treats.  The products are given the seal of approval by the couple’s own pooches, Irish wolfhound Bryn and Jack Russell-Chihuahua cross Eddie. Cats are not left out either, with a special range for felines including purr-fiteroles.

Quality shines through

“We try to use local ingredients wherever possible, as we are supporting the Keep Trade Local campaign,” Paula says.

“We don’t use any salt or sugar, or anything which is not natural. Our philosophy is to keep our products at high quality but as low price as possible.”

The Doggy Deli’s speciality is the Cherry Barkwell, which the firm has trademarked. The canine confection looks just like a cherry Bakewell tart, but is made from a chicken biscuit, white dog chocolate and a dried cranberry. Customers can also buy birthday cakes and treats for sensitive diets.

Paula says the development of the business has been a huge learning curve, as it requires knowledge not only of doggy-safe ingredients, but also a raft of pet food legislation and EU regulations.

“Crufts was a great event for us and we have learnt a lot from the experience that will help us at future exhibitions,” Paula says.

“We had a lot of interest and gained new custom from individuals and pet shops alike.  We are hoping the business growth will enable us to recruit later in the year.”

Ideal business space

Mrs Bishop’s Doggy Deli products are available to buy online, through retailers and directly from Unit C21B at Byron Industrial Estate, where they are also created.

“We love it here at Bizspace.  I had been looking for a unit here for a while, but had to wait for one with running water in it to become available. This is ideal and has just the right amount of space for us,” Paula says.

Business Centre Manager Jamie Douglas adds: “It is a real talking point for us to have such an unusual business within the centre. The Doggy Deli treats are really popular and dog lovers in the area are lucky to have the shop on their doorstep.”

Byron Industrial Estate centre features a variety of commercial premises including:

• offices
• studio space
• light industrial units  and
• storage units.

For more information contact Jamie Douglas on 0115 959 8808.

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At the moment just one in five British companies export, but Export Week, which runs until Friday, is part of a drive to increase this to at least one in four and generate an extra £36 billion for the UK economy. Events and seminars have been organised to give firms advice on how to do business abroad, particularly emerging markets like China and India, which are growing quickly.

So what should you do if you want to start exporting

1. Get advice. Do your homework and find out about the market you want to sell to, and get as much advice and support as you can. UK Trade & Investment offers a range of support for exporters, including helping companies looking to export for the first time
2. Choose your partners carefully. If you’re going to work with another business as a distributor in your target market, make sure you pick them wisely as they will be representing you and it is your company’s reputation at stake.
3. Register a website in your target country. Don’t just rely on your UK website if you are exporting to another country, make sure you establish a web presence in your target market. For example, if you want to break into the Chinese market, your website needs to be registered in China with an ICP licence and hosted within the Chinese government’s firewall.
4. Protect your intellectual property. Take legal advice to make sure any patents you have are valid in the country you want to export in to guard yourself against any cheap copies of your products.
5. Consider taking on native staff. Employing people based in the country you want to export to will make the process easier and you will be able to use their local knowledge to understand your potential customers better.

Trade and Investment Minister Lord Green said: “Companies of all sizes are increasingly winning business abroad proving that exporting is not just for the large firms. Research conclusively shows businesses that export become more innovative, more productive and achieve a level of growth that would not otherwise be possible. Our future prosperity rests on UK companies doing business abroad. I hope that Export Week will encourage companies not already doing so to think about trading abroad.”

Growing your business

The Government is aiming to get 100,000 more British SMEs exporting over the next five years. Exporting is a good way of expanding your business as it opens up what you do to a much larger number of customers. This business growth could lead to you needing more space for your company or simply storage facilities to keep extra materials and stock safe, dry and secure.

If you do find yourself needing more room for your expanding business or a base in a new location, Bizspace has a wide range of flexible and affordable business accommodation across the UK.

The post Is exporting right for your business? appeared first on Bizspace Blog.

The week will culminate with National Work from Home Day on Friday 17 May 2013.

Organised by Work Wise UK, a national not-for-profit initiative, the awareness week is backed by the TUC, CBI, RAC Foundation and British Chambers of Commerce.

Innovative ways of working

David Lennan, founding director of StaffShare, a Work Wise UK strategic partner, commented: “There are a range of innovative business management practices that have emerged which have changed the way we work. Smarter working practices have developed as a result of technological advancement and enable a far better use of limited resources and time.

“Secondment and skill sharing is another innovative business practice which is just emerging. During these difficult times, this new smarter way of managing staff is proving an effective alternative to redundancy in many cases, and provides the flexibility to allow organisations to react when the upturn comes.”

Practical advice

This year’s Work Wise Week is focusing on giving businesses practical advice on five key themes:

• Smarter travel
• Mobile working
• Virtual meetings
• Working remotely
• National Work From Home Day

Boosting productivity

David Lennan also argues that flexible working can increase staff productivity.  He says: “Employers who have changed their working practices to measure outputs not inputs, have been well rewarded and are now breaking away from their competitors. They realised that it really isn’t about how hard people work, where they work or how loyal and dedicated the staff are, it’s what’s produced and the outputs achieved that really matters.

“This is what productivity is all about. You have to change what people do and how they do it to meet market changes and stay ahead of the game. To stay ahead in business you have to keep pushing the boundaries, developing resources and creating a truly 21st century workplace.”

Flexible services

Bizspace offers a wide range of services to enable any business to adopt smart working practices. Our serviced offices  in locations throughout the country mean staff can have access to high quality furnished office space, complete with telecoms and IT to suit your company’s requirements.

Many of our business centres offer meeting rooms and training rooms which are available to hire by the hour.  These can be an ideal solution to host meetings with clients or colleagues away from your main office, or if you normally work from home.  A wide range of our business centres also offer 24-hour access, so that staff can choose flexible working hours to best suit their lifestyles.

Search online to find your nearest Bizspace business centre.

 Do you have any innovative, smarter ways of working you’d like to share?

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A study by Indiana University shows mums are 52% more likely than childless women to resign from a job where most of their office colleagues are men. The research indicates that women with children are more likely to feel pushed out or unhappy at work in industries where more than 70% of employees are men.

Academics also found male-dominated professions, including law, medicine, engineering and finance, are more likely to involve long hours than those where the gender levels are balanced or there are more women than men. More than one in three men and almost one in five women typically work more than 50 hours a week.

Long hours cause a strain

The report, which has been published in the journal Gender & Society, suggested the long hours could be a reason many mothers walk away from their jobs in male-dominated offices as they struggle with the demands of finding childcare and trying to balance work with family life.

However, women were less likely to leave their jobs if they were working long hours in a profession where the number of females were equal to or more than the number of men.

And the study claimed that of those who did resign, many moved to professions which are less dominated by men.

Gender imbalance is an issue for mothers

Assistant Professor at Indiana University’s Department of Sociology, Youngjoo Cha, who led the research, said that while long hours play a part in causing working mothers to leave certain professions, the gender imbalance in the workplace seemed to be the main problem.

She said: “If it were a case of women’s reticence to work additional hours, we would expect overworking women to be discouraged regardless of whether mainly men or women were at work but the results do not show that.

“In my study, not all women with children leave the labour force. When they work long hours, it is the combination of being a mother, working long hours, and being in a male dominated profession that is discouraging.”

Create a better work-life balance

As an employer, you can work with your employees to find out if there are any issues which are making them feel unhappy at work. Take a look at our guide for ideas on:

• keeping up staff morale
• managing employees effectively
• striking the right tone with workplace relationships

Offering flexible working can also be a way of making it easier for working mothers and fathers to achieve a better work-life balance, improving staff morale and staff productivity.

Many women who have left a job due to stress, long hours and problems with finding affordable childcare, may choose to start their own business, which they can fit in better with their family. Biszpace’s flexible and affordable accommodation is perfect for start-ups with a wide range of workspaces at locations around the country.

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One customer commented: “We have been a client of Bizspace Letchworth for nearly two years now and during this period have enjoyed a professional and thoroughly satisfying relationship with the centre team. When small problems have arisen, we have found them to be quick and efficient in their response with all issues being resolved to our satisfaction. We find all members of the team friendly, courteous and completely approachable at all times…. Keep up the good work guys!”

Another happy customer notes: “I’ve been here for almost a year now and have nothing but positive things to say, everyone on the team is very friendly and helpful. The rates are more than reasonable, I’d thoroughly recommend it.”

 Choose your space

Our Letchworth business centre has a mix of offices and workshops, all available with the flexible terms which Bizspace is famous for. It also offers meeting rooms available to rent by the hour.

It is close to Letchworth Garden City railway station, as well as offering easy access to the A1(M).  Other key benefits of the business centre include:

• 24-hour access
• free car parking facilities
• a goods lift servicing all floors
• a dedicated loading bay and ramp
• on-site CCTV

Serviced office upgrade

Our Pixmore Centre will also be the first to benefit from upgraded ICT and telecoms facilities in our serviced offices, with work due to begin next month. Customers will have access to a flexible, easy to use system with new telephone handsets and up to 100 MB internet speeds.

For more information on our Pixmore Centre, contact Centre Manager Jalpa Braganza on 01462 484 000.

Have you used our Pixmore centre? Why not  review us online? 

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We have appointed essensys to install new infrastructure at 10 of our business centres by the end of this year. Essensys is the leading supplier of IT and telecommunications to shared workspaces.

Our Pixmore Centre in Letchworth will be the first site to be upgraded to the new business facilities.

Service office customers will benefit from the latest IT for business, including new telephone handsets and wireless internet with up to 100 MB capability. Elements of the service, for example call forwarding, can be controlled through an online login system.  And customers will have the flexibility to change or add to their services at any time, simply by speaking with their business centre manager.

The new ICT system will also have fully-managed support, which our customers can access directly.

Innovative technology

Our business centre managers will use a specially designed interface called JEFF, to quickly and easily manage customer requirements.  JEFF can be accessed remotely and out-of-hours if necessary.

“This is a very sophisticated ICT setup which will give customers what they want, when they want it,” Managing Director of essensys, Michael Guest, says.

Gareth Evans, Managing Director of Bizspace, said: “Moving forward with essensys is a major development for Bizspace as we strive to offer innovative ICT services and deliver an exceptional customer experience.

“essensys’ leading technology is radically different to any other shared workspace ICT provision, positioning Bizspace as an industry trailblazer, and providing our clients with unique and exceptional products and services on a simple and flexible basis.”

Phased upgrades

Work will begin to upgrade cabling in a few weeks’ time.  Existing customers will receive new telephone handsets and will notice a faster internet connection.

Our serviced offices are supplied furnished with telephone and broadband facilities and are all inclusive of utility costs and business rate charges.  Customers simply pay one monthly invoice.

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Research by the Institute of Leadership and Management shows employees also get wound up by colleagues sending them emails when they are close enough to talk to them directly, as well those who eat lunch at their desk and then leave dirty, smelly plates lying around.

More than 2,000 managers were quizzed about what their biggest bugbears were in the workplace. They revealed that their nightmare employee would be someone who is often late, regularly leaves the office to smoke and comes into the office spreading germs when they are unwell.

Lack of discretion winds up colleagues

Other things likely to make staff unpopular with colleagues were gossiping, discussing confidential work matters and bringing children into the workplace. See our tips on how to strike the right tone with office relationships.

Almost two out of three managers said colleagues being late was the thing that annoyed them the most, while 56% said they were irritated by workers who email instead of talking.

Charles Elvin, Chief Executive of the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), said: “When office-based teams work in close proximity for long periods of time, we see that seemingly trivial issues can grow disproportionately, if left unchecked. They can begin to cause upset and resentment.”

One way to try and reduce tension among your workforce is to make sure you have the right kind of work space in a convenient location. Bizspace offers flexible and affordable business space in more than 110 locations nationwide, with everything from offices and studios to industrial units  and virtual offices. We’re sure to have something that will offer the ideal work environment for both you and your staff, giving them one less thing to get wound up about.

Improve communication

The report from the ILM recommends interacting less by email to get on better with colleagues, claiming that face-to-face conversations and speaking over the phone are often more effective ways of communicating.

Professor Cary Cooper, from Lancaster University Management School, blamed the high tension levels in the office on the fact many people spend most of their time in the office.

He said: “The office is our first home, and then we have a place that we go to sleep and wake up to have breakfast with the kids for 20 minutes in the morning. Millions of workers spend more of their waking hours at work than they do at home.”

 What’s your biggest bugbear at work?

The post Workplace bugbears – management jargon tops the list appeared first on Bizspace Blog.

Many people running their own company are not aware of the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), which are aimed at making it easier for small and start-up businesses to get the funding they need for anything from setting up in the right premises or employing staff to buying stock or expanding.

Research by E2Exchange shows more than one in four entrepreneurs have never heard of EIS, while more than one in three said they did not know about the tax relief that the initiative offered to investors. The poll of 1,000 businesspeople found 60% had not used the EIS and a similar number did not know the difference between it and SEIS. More than 40% were unaware of SEIS while almost 90% had not used the scheme.

So what are these schemes and how can they help your business?

What is EIS?

If you run an unquoted company, which is not listed on any exchanges and you have fewer than 250 employees then people who put money into your business may be eligible to tax relief on their investment.

Individuals who invest in small businesses for at least three years can benefit from 30% tax relief on the cost of the shares bought as well as exemption from capital gains tax and inheritance tax.

What is SEIS?

SEIS is a smaller version of EIS to help start-up businesses get funding and it offers investors an even bigger tax break – people who commit to an SEIS for five years get 50% income tax relief on the cost of the shares bought. Individuals can invest up to £100,000 while companies can invest up to £150,000. The scheme was launched in April 2012 in recognition of the difficulties start-up firms often experience in finding business funding.

Do you think either of these schemes could help your business?

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