January 29, 2019

Northern English cities bear brunt of government spending cuts

The UK’s cities, and especially those in the North of England have borne nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of all real-terms local government funding cuts in the last decade despite being home to just 54 percent of the population, according to Centre for Cities’ annual Cities Outlook 2019 report – the Centre’s annual health check on UK city economies. This is equivalent to a reduction of £386 per city dweller since 2009/10, compared to £172 per person living elsewhere. Cities Outlook 2019 reveals a clear geographical divide in where cuts to cities have fallen, with the top five worst affected cities all located in the North of England.

January 29, 2019

Women in work report highlights importance of training and apprenticeships

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

Self-employed women, who earn an average of 16 per cent less than self-employed men, should be supported with greater training and development opportunities, a new report has said. The government should also remove any barriers preventing young women embarking on apprenticeships, according to the report published by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Women and Work. The report, How to Recruit Women for the 21st Century, is the product of a year’s research by the APPG, which is jointly chaired by MPs Jess Phillips and Gillian Keegan.

January 28, 2019

Majority of large UK firms to address climate change in annual reporting

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News

Two-thirds (67 percent) of UK corporations will be disclosing climate change related risks and opportunities in their 2019 annual reporting, according to new figures released by the Carbon Trust. However, fewer than a quarter (23 percent) of companies are expecting to fully report in line with the recommendations of the G20 Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), released in June 2017. More →

January 28, 2019

UK leading the way in digital transformation strategy

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

IT consultancy Infosys has released new research, the Infosys Digital Radar 2019, which it claims reveals the digital transformation maturity of businesses around the world in 2018, and what it takes to navigate the next stage of their journey. Its main claim is that to become digitally advanced, organisations need to run multiple digital initiatives at scale at the same time. It suggests that organisations in the UK are now significantly ahead of the global average when it comes to their digital transformation, including countries like the United States and Germany.

January 25, 2019

People who experience early redundancy have poor health in later life

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

People who involuntarily lose their job early in their career have poorer health in later life, according to new findings from the University of Kent in the UK and the University of Bamberg in Germany. Researchers, including Dr Olena Nizalova from the Centre for Health Service Studies (CHSS) within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) at Kent, set out to establish what the long-term implications of enforced unemployment are on individuals over the course of their life, particularly in later life.

January 25, 2019

Government announces protections for pregnant mums and new parents returning to work

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Pregnant women and new parents returning to work after having children are to be further protected from unfairly losing their jobs under new proposals set out by the UK government. The consultation, launching today (25 January 2019) and running to 5 April, proposes that the legal protection against redundancy for pregnant women and new mothers on maternity leave is extended so that it continues for up to 6 months after they return to work. It will also seek views on affording the same protection to parents returning from adoption leave or shared parental leave.

January 24, 2019

Cambridge continues to attract science and technology firms

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

A new report claims that Cambridgeshire continues to attract science and technology companies despite the current Brexit uncertainty. The analysis (registration required) from Bidwells of the Cambridge office and laboratory market claims that 0.6 million sq ft of new space will be complete during the first half of 2019. This is the highest level of new supply in over a decade. This perhaps sounds alarm bells given the apparent slowdown in demand for labs and offices combined to 1.154 million sq ft at the end of 2018. More →

January 23, 2019

Film series sets out to solve the workplace wellbeing puzzle

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

Recent research by the British Safety Council identified significant levels of uncertainty in the UK about workplace wellbeing. Its report Not just free fruit: wellbeing at work, found that employee wellbeing is often ignored or misunderstood, with employers unsure how to define it or how to improve staff wellbeing, what priority to give it and how to measure the effectiveness of wellbeing interventions and programmes.

January 23, 2019

Most workers think robots could not do their jobs

by Neil Franklin • Automation, News, Technology

Despite regular warnings about the potentially massive displacement of jobs as a result of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ of automation and artificial intelligence, a new, large scale survey of workers around the world suggests that a significant majority of them do not think the technology puts their own role in any kind of danger. The new report from SAP was presented this week at the World Economic Forum Annual Summit in Davos.

January 22, 2019

London remains top gateway city in the world for commercial property investors

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property

London maintained its position as the top city for global real estate investment in 2018, according to research published today by JLL. The report claims that investors continue to favour cities they are familiar with and that have well-established investment markets and high levels of transparency. Well-known, large gateway cities with the world’s deepest concentrations of capital, companies and talent continue to dominate the top ranks. Twelve cities–London, New York, Paris, Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Washington DC, Sydney, Singapore, Toronto and Munich–have appeared in the top 30 ranking every year for the past decade and account for 30 percent of all real estate investment. More →

January 22, 2019

Business leaders lack ethical insight needed to get the best out of AI

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Although executives have high expectations for the impact that AI will have on their businesses according to Cognizant’s new report, ‘Making AI Responsible – and Effective, only half of companies have policies and procedures in place to identify and address the ethical considerations of its applications and implementations. The study analyses the responses of almost 1,000 executives across the financial services, technology, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, insurance and media & entertainment industries in Europe and the US. The research suggests that business leaders are positive about the importance and potential benefits of AI. Roughly two- thirds (63 percent) say that AI is extremely or very important to their companies today, and 84 percent expect this will be the case three years from now. Lower costs, increased revenues and the ability to introduce new products or services, or to diversify were cited as the key advantages for the future.

January 21, 2019

What we have wrong about why some companies are more successful than others

by Mark Eltringham • News

New research published in the Strategic Management Journal suggests a firm’s competitive advantage can last more than three times as long as previously believed. INSEAD Assistant Professor of Strategy Phebo Wibbens found that companies with “higher-order” resources can greatly outlast their competitors. Traditionally, strategy experts have focused on a firm’s operating resources – assets and capabilities that directly affect profit – when analysing its competitive advantage. Based on that assumption, high-performing firms were believed to have a run of success lasting on average about five years. But as IKEA, Apple and other firms have shown, a much longer period of success is available to some companies.