September 17, 2015
Growth of on demand economy is transforming work and workplaces 0
Some of the key characteristics of the workplace of the near future are starting to crystallise pretty rapidly. In many ways, employees are aware of this to a greater extent than employers, legislators and politicians. For example, this week and over recent weeks Uber has been arguing in courts around the world that its drivers are not employees but are in fact self-employed. This is the shape of things to come. In the UK, around a fifth of the workforce is already freelance or self-employed, something which politicians like to misinterpret as small business, possibly because it makes them look better because they associate it with entrepreneurialism and the prospects of these firms employing other people. The idea this is simply not the case is supported by a new report from software provider Intuit which claims that just 13 percent of British workers think they will be in traditional employment in 2025.
One of the most typical claims that suppliers in this sector make about their products is that they will make people more productive at work. Many go so far as to put numbers on what this means, and usually not just 0.4 percent or whatever but something far more. We can understand why they do this because they are seeking to link workplace productivity to whatever it is they have to sell. This is often tenuous for at least two reasons. The first is that even when such a causal link is demonstrably true, it still assumes that all other things at work are equal, whereas they never are because there are so many factors involved. That is why you will find some people cheerfully working in shabby, cluttered, underlit offices while others mope around unhappily in gilded cages with expensive chairs, soaring daylit atria and olive groves. The second is that such claims simply ignore what makes people tick.
A new meta analysis compiled by researchers from Harvard Business School and Stanford University raises questions about the way Government and organisational policies designed to tackle the problems of work related health costs in the United States have largely ignored the health effects of ‘psychosocial workplace stressors’ such as high job demands, economic insecurity, and long work hours. The analysis of 228 existing studies assessed the effects of ten workplace stressors on four specific health outcomes. The researchers claims that job insecurity increases the odds of reporting poor health by about 50 percent, high job demands raise the odds of having a diagnosed illness by 35 percent, and long work hours increase mortality by almost 20 percent. They argue that any policies designed to address these issues should account for the health effects of the workplace environment.
September 21, 2015
Five essential office design trends to look for in the near future 0
by Tom Brialey • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace design
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