The vast majority of employees say flexible working is important when considering a job, according to new research from workplace advisory body Acas. The YouGov survey found that 78 percent of employees considered flexible working important, compared with 20 percent who said it was not. The findings come ahead of changes to flexible working rules under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Under the new provisions, employers considering turning down a flexible working request will be required to consult the employee before reaching a decision, and will only be able to reject the request where it is reasonable to do so. More →

A widening divide between workers who are benefiting from artificial intelligence and those being left behind is emerging as AI use accelerates, according to a global study by PwC. The consultancy’s 2026 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey found that 64 percent of workers had used AI at work during the previous 12 months, up 10 percentage points from last year. Daily use of generative AI increased from 14 percent to 22 percent, while 59 percent expect their use of AI tools to increase over the coming year. More →

A new poll from measurement tech firm Hexagon suggests that younger people have very different ideas to older generations about the idea of working with robots. According to the report, across nine countries, children are growing up with fundamentally different expectations of robotics than today’s adults, shaped by growing up with AI and new experiences of intelligent technology. Four in five children (80 percent) say they are excited about robots, compared with 59 percent of adults. However, that generation gap varies dramatically around the world. More →

Ask anyone who has managed a poorly executed office move and they will describe it in similar terms: it took longer than expected, disrupted more than it should have, and the final cost bore little resemblance to the original estimate. What tends to be harder to quantify — but is often the most significant expense — is the productivity lost during and after the move. Office relocations are among the most disruptive events in the working life of an organisation. When they go well, barely anyone notices. When they go badly, the effects ripple through the business for weeks. More →

Men working from home for most of the week may face a greater career penalty than women when being considered for jobs and promotions, according to new research into attitudes towards remote workers in the UK and Germany. The study found that people described as working from home were rated less favourably than otherwise comparable office-based workers, with the penalty increasing significantly for those working remotely three or four days a week rather than one or two. Fathers and workers without children generally experienced larger declines in their ratings than mothers. However, the researchers cautioned that this should not be interpreted as an advantage for mothers. In the UK, mothers already received relatively low ratings when candidates were described as working entirely in the office. The research, led by King’s Business School at King’s College London, analysed almost 13,000 assessments made by around 5,300 employed people in the UK and Germany. More →