Level of wellbeing higher for those who ‘wind-down’ into retirement

Level of wellbeing higher for those who ‘wind-down’ into retirement 0

New research into the effect of retirement on wellbeing commissioned by The What Works Centre for Wellbeing claims that those who gradually reduce their working time with more flexible hours improve their levels of wellbeing. The study looked at all existing research and found that part-time working towards the end of our careers improves life satisfaction. It advises that employers should support older workers to ‘wind-down’ into retirement with bridging jobs or reduce their working hours to avoid poor wellbeing, a new international study reveals. However, the research highlights that this depends on whether employees had control over when they retired, rather than being forced out through ill health or restructuring. If people take up bridging jobs because of financial strain, their wellbeing drops. Even after accounting for income and health, wellbeing is higher for those who have control over the timing or plan for their retirement, and voluntary retirees derive greater pleasure from free time in retirement. On the contrary, wellbeing is lower for those who are involuntarily retired, especially due to health reasons.

More →

Gender pay gap for Millennials is closing, but for the wrong reasons

Gender pay gap for Millennials is closing, but for the wrong reasons 0

Gender pay gap for Millennials is closing, but for the wrong reasons

Millennial men are earning less than Generation Y did in their earlier careers reflecting a shift towards young men doing low paid work traditionally carried out by women. In his Grigor McClelland lecture on 21st century inequality to Manchester Business School yesterday, Resolution Foundation Director Torsten Bell drew on upcoming research for the Foundation’s Intergenerational Commission on the labour market prospects for younger generations, which highlights the stark gender differences on inter-generational progress on pay. According to the data, Millennial men have earned less than Generation X men in every year between the ages of 22 and 30, resulting in a cumulative pay deficit during their 20s of £12,500. In contrast millennial women have experienced neither generational pay progress or decline. This has narrowed the gender pay gap for millennials, but for the wrong reasons, a shift towards lower-skilled jobs, often part-time, which have stunted the pay progress of young men.

More →

Take up of flexible space confirms London’s status as a global coworking pioneer

Take up of flexible space confirms London’s status as a global coworking pioneer 0

The ‘gig economy’ continues to drive London’s thriving flexible workplace sector which accounted for 8.8 percent of total office take-up in 2016, according to a new study from Cushman & Wakefield. The report claims that the pace of development will continue for the foreseeable future, not least because of the number of corporate occupiers taking on coworking space. Flexible office space accounted for more than 4.5m sq ft of take up in London over the past five years as the capital has cemented its place as the leading global market for coworking, according to the research. In 2016, flexible office take-up amounted to 842,888 sq ft across Central London, representing 8.8 percent of total take-up – slightly above the five-year average of 8.4 percent.

More →

Employers urged to create age friendly workplaces to help retain older workers

Employers urged to create age friendly workplaces to help retain older workers 0

Employers urged create age friendly workplaces to help retain older workers

Employers should provide full and equal access to flexible working arrangements, occupational health support and appropriate workplace adaptations to help older workers to manage health conditions at work. This is according to a new report from the Centre for Ageing Better, Fulfilling work: what do older workers value about work and why? which identifies the characteristics of work that are important to people aged 50 and over, and explores actions employers can take to attract and retain them. Understanding what older workers want is the first step in helping employers, policy makers and others create age-friendly workplaces. By 2020, one in three workers will be over 50 but while the employment rate for all working age adults remains at a record high of nearly 75%, for people over 60, this falls to around 50%. and there are currently 12 million people heading towards an insufficient retirement income. Ageing Better commissioned the Institute of Employment Studies to carry out the study as to ways of helping people stay at work and the report finds that health is the most important factor affecting older workers’ decisions to continue in work, ahead of job satisfaction and job quality.

More →

1 in 10 UK workers has already ‘pulled a sickie’ and had a duvet day this year

1 in 10 UK workers has already ‘pulled a sickie’ and had a duvet day this year 0

1 in 10 UK workers has already had a duvet day this yearWe’re only just out of January but new research claims that one in ten employed Britons in the UK has already pulled a sickie from work in 2017. The poll by online travel agency www.sunshine.co.uk also looked into previous bogus sick leave and found that 21 percent of grown adults have had a parent, partner or friend call in sick for them so that they didn’t have to on a past occasion. Respondents answered questions about any time they’d taken off sick from work in the last 12 months, were asked ‘How frequently have you taken sick days from work over the past year?’, the majority (57 percent) said ‘once a month’. 22 percent said ‘hardly ever’ and 16 percent said ‘only once or twice’. Everyone was then asked how many of the sick days they took were false (i.e. they weren’t genuinely unwell when they called in sick). From this, the research suggests approximately 1 in every 4 sick days taken by Britons is a false ‘sickie’.

More →

Flexible hours is main reason self-employed are happier than traditional workers

Flexible hours is main reason self-employed are happier than traditional workers 0

Self-employed happier than traditional workers due to flexible workingFlexible working hours and being their own boss makes the UK’s self-employed much happier than those in traditional employment a new survey claims. According to the latest set of findings from the ‘Definitive Study of the Self-Employed,’ commissioned by Intuit QuickBooks, the self-employed generated mean annual revenues of £32,623 (£5,000 more than the average UK salary), despite working 10 hours less per week. Of those who have been a salaried worker, two thirds (66 percent) claim to be financially better off or the same and 65 percent also feel better off in terms of ‘life satisfaction’. When the research considered nuanced reasons for choosing to work for oneself ;control of schedule (77 percent), more flexibility to work to one’s own terms (68 percent) and liking being one’s own boss (65 percent) were leading reasons, with not worrying about workplace politics (47 percent) also regularly referenced.

More →

Global workforce fears it won’t adapt fast enough to the digital workplace

Global workforce fears it won’t adapt fast enough to the digital workplace 0

Workers across the globe are excited by the potential for technology to enhance their work lives and create new career opportunities, but over a third (40 percent) fear that they won’t be able to keep up with the rate of change required by digital business, claims a new survey. Across Europe 77 percent of workers acknowledge that disruption and increased competition will require more people with digital skills in order to compete on a global scale; however, the level of encouragement employees believe they are currently receiving to drive change in the workplace varies greatly throughout the world. Only 64 percent of respondents in the US saying they feel empowered by their company culture to lead innovation, whereas 90 percent of employees in Mexico feel their workplaces encourages them to drive change. The BMC study of over 3,200 office workers in 12 countries worldwide found that 88 percent of office workers across the world strongly believe that employers must create an innovative culture to retain staff and enable them to be successful with increasingly digital roles and responsibilities.

More →

The office of the future should be defined by the age of its inhabitants. But not in the way you think

The office of the future should be defined by the age of its inhabitants. But not in the way you think 0

The office of the future is most commonly seen as the habitat of Millennials. But there are all sorts of flaws in this assumption. Apart from the casual stereotyping of a diverse demographic of people, the most glaring is the fact that the workforce is ageing rather than getting younger, and that most offices must now meet the needs of a wider range of age groups than at any time in their history. A new report from Totaljobs seeks to redress the balance in this regard. It suggests that some of the key features of the office of the future will not be slides and ping pong tables but flexible working areas, quiet spaces, spas and private medical rooms. The study claims that the fixation with Millennials means that a large number of older workers now feel that the design of offices does not meet their needs.

More →

Physical spaces should be designed to support the digital workplace

Physical spaces should be designed to support the digital workplace 0

Designing physical spaces that support the digital workplace brings success

In an era in which the digital workplace is just as prevalent as the physical office, organisations that create spaces, technologies and social networks specifically focused on enabling more collaborative work, perform above their direct competitors in their respective industries – in employee connectedness and responsive leadership. This is according to research conducted by Nick van der Meulen of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and MIT’s Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). The report assessed on a basis of five indicators, including growth in market share, profit growth and employee satisfaction, and found that trusting employees by giving them autonomy is the key to making a success of the digital workplace. The survey of 313 organisations showed that the high-performing organisations have an integrated and company-wide approach to greater employee connectedness.

More →

Just one in five UK workers still take the traditional lunch hour

Just one in five UK workers still take the traditional lunch hour 0

Just one in five UK workers still take the traditional lunch hourOnly one in five workers in the UK still take the traditional lunch hour break; a stark contrast to France, which sees the lunch hour as a key part of the working day, a new survey by commercial property agency Savoystewart.co.uk claims. Digital marketers take the shortest breaks, taking a meagre average of 14-minutes, followed by recruiters and those in telesales. At the opposite end of the spectrum are media & communication professionals, who take almost their whole hour at 55 minutes. Some of the reasons cited for the shorter break were to please the boss, too much work to do, other colleagues don’t take lunch, there’s nowhere to go or one hour is too long. Half of those polled work right through their lunch break, 30 percent will take under 30 minutes off, 52 percent admit to eating over their desk most days and 27 percent deliberately take a shorter break to please their boss. Yet UK legislation actually allows for a 1 hour interrupted 20-minute rest break after working 6 hours+, and those who are under 18 are entitled to 30 minutes if working above 4.5 hours. Some work contracts may even allow for additional breaks alongside lunch, like tea breaks.

More →

Over half of workforce feel physically sick due to workplace pressures

Over half of workforce feel physically sick due to workplace pressures 0

Over half of workforce feel physically sick due to workplace pressures

More than half of the workforce (53 percent) report that they have felt physically unwell due to a poor work-life balance, and a similar number (52 percent) go so far as to say that work makes them more unwell than anything in their personal lives, claims new research from Bupa UK. In addition to physical sickness, work stress is keeping half (51 percent) of employees awake at night. Two fifths (42 percent) even state it is ‘ruining their life’.The research revealed that people find workplace demands such as presenting at an important meeting (71 percent) or managing a project (65 percent) just as stressful as buying a first house (69 percent) or getting married (66 percent). The research indicated that there is a pressing business need for organisations to better understand and address the wellbeing needs of their employees, as it is impacting profitability.

More →

Employers should offer flexible working to solve recruitment crisis in EMEA

Employers should offer flexible working to solve recruitment crisis in EMEA 0

Employers must offer flexible working to solve recruitment crisis in EMEAEmployers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are facing an increasingly competitive recruitment landscape in 2017, but what might help candidates choose one organisation over another will be more opportunities for flexible working, claims a new global study by the Futurestep division of Korn Ferry. Specifying which qualities they thought would entice candidates to choose one organisation over another in five-years-time, respondents reflected that flexible working (27 percent) would likely lead the charge. In Part One of Talent Forecast Futurestep’s global survey of more than 1,100 hiring professionals almost half (48 percent) of EMEA respondents report that it has become harder to source qualified candidates over the past 12 months. Additional findings compiled for the report suggest that ongoing disruption and changing candidate demands will combine to create an increasingly volatile market for talent in 2017.

More →