The Quiet room on the second floor is now fully operational following a few technical hitches with the p.c.’s. The room is designed for people who may want to work quietly at certain times, when you need to carry out concentrated work or report writing for example. As the name suggests the room will be a quiet area, so please do not use telephones or disturb other people working there.

We are busy setting up a booking system on outlook, but in the  meantime please feel free to use the room for quiet working when you need to.

Outlook

Are you using outlook for all your appointments, can everyone see your calendar and are you colour coding your appointments. If not it’s easy to set up and everyone as well yourself will be able to benefit from being able to see where you are and arrange appointments with you directly.

Telephones

So as not to disturb other people please keep mobile phone ring tones to low volume or preferably vibrate, and ensure that desk phones are kept to low volume.

 Workstations

Remember the 90 minute rule….If you are planning to be away from your workstation for more than 90 minutes please ensure that you clear the workstation of papers and log off the p.c.

There will be teething problems and  a settling in period for everyone as we move into the Agriculture building. We are collecting a list of items, queries, things we don’t know how to do, the usual defects with a new building and suggestions together in one spreadsheet.

This will will visible on this blog for the time being and discussed with the relocation group at our regular meeting.

If there is anything you don’t know please ask or anything you want to suggest post a comment on this blog site or email me david.watt@ncl.ac.uk and we will have a look at it for you and get back to you. Progress will be posted on the spreadsheet.

There will be space on the first and second floors where certain furniture has not yet been installed to allow boxes to be stored whilst people unpack. These spaces are only temporary and it is in everyone’s best interest to unpack as quickly as possible to allow the remainder of the furniture to be installed. The spaces are shown on the drawings below.

Smart working handbook has now been updated with a section on flexible working hours.

Update No. 5 has now been published and is available on our website.

All workstations will have brand new computers installed, but not every work station will  have the same monitor configuration. Some will have twin screens which are necessary for carrying out certain tasks. About half the workstations will have AutoCAD design software and all the workstation will have AutoCAD viewing software.

All staff can use any of the workstations within the office spaces.

You can have a cup of tea, coffee, or cold drinks at any of the work stations, collaborative spaces or meeting rooms.

The following areas are available for having sandwiches and snacks.

First floor break out space, ground floor common room and fist floor annexe meeting room between before 9am and 12 till 2pm.

Hot food can be prepared or eaten in the ground floor common room area only.

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There are 5 meeting rooms within the ESS office spaces available for booking through our customer and admin team. There is a large meeting room on the first floor entrance, a meeting room in the annexe first floor and one medium size and two small rooms on the ground floor. There are also a number of collaborative spaces as well as the break out space and the reception which can be used for general meetings and collaborative work. There is a further large meeting room on the second floor which we can share with AFRD and can be booked out again through our customer service and admin team.

New suspended ceilings nearing completion.