June 29, 2022

The perfect storm shouldn’t force us to jump aboard the wrong ship

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

For all the millions of words written and gabbed about work and its future over the past couple of years, one of the few things we can say with any certainty is that we still don’t know which parts of it all are short-term responses to events, and which are permanent long-term shifts.

June 27, 2022

Two thirds of those working from home suspect their employer thinks they are less productive

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Employers appear to lack trust in their workers to decide where they are the most productive, with more people now returning to the office full-time. Whilst 76 percent of UK respondents said they are more productive working remotely or are just as productive as they are in the office, 65 percent also believe their employer is concerned they are actually less productive when working from home. According to the fifth quarterly Talent Index from Beamery, almost half of workers (44 percent) in the UK say they have been asked to return to the office full-time with almost nine out of ten (88 percent) saying their employer sees staff returning to the office as essential and important. More →

June 24, 2022

Hybrid working now part of life at majority of organisations, but will it last?

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

A new poll from the CIPD suggests that more than three-quarters of organisations have now embraced hybrid working through a mix of formal and informal arrangements. However, employers are split over whether the move to new ways of working will last or if organisations will go back to pre-pandemic ways of working. In response, the CIPD is urging employers to seize the moment to develop and embed new ways of working that will ultimately benefit organisations and their people. More →

June 23, 2022

We need to stop misusing the term ergonomic

by Guy Osmond • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design, Works Magazine

You don’t have to search for long to find the word ergonomic; it pops up everywhere, in connection with every sort of product and device for the workplace (and elsewhere). You can – so the marketeers will tell you – buy an ‘ergonomic’ chair, desk, keyboard or mouse. What’s wrong with that? An awful lot actually. The word ergonomic has a particular meaning. Ergonomics (note the crucial addition of an ‘s’ at the end), from the Greek ‘Ergos’ for work or labour and ‘Nomos’, meaning natural law, is the discipline of designing and arranging an environment to optimise the comfort and performance of the individual. More →

June 22, 2022

People try to claim shared desks by leaving personal stuff on them

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

Workers place personal items such as photographs on their desks in order to resist a change to a shared workstations or hot desking, according to new research from emlyon business school. The research found that employees believed is the most effective approach to show their dissatisfaction and halt the change to a new way of working involving shared desks is by passively utilising their personal items to claim space. These are the findings of research by David Courpasson, Professor of Sociology at emlyon business school, alongside colleagues from Universite Catholique de Louvain and published in Human Relations Journal. More →

June 22, 2022

UK is third most attractive place to work in Europe

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The UK is the third most attractive place to work in Europe and experienced a stronger “brain-gain” than other major economies, according to a report from job site Indeed. It analysed nearly one billion data points including more than 800 million cross-border job searches and over 100 million job postings and found that cross-border searches by European jobseekers are up 13 percent from their pandemic low of -32 percent. At the same time, Europe has become increasingly popular to jobseekers outside of the continent: inbound searches from jobseekers based outside Europe are a staggering 38 percent above the 2017-19 average, up from the pandemic low of -31 percent. More →

June 22, 2022

Four day week demands intensify as workers crave flexibility

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace

According to a new report from ADP exploring employees’ attitudes towards the current world of work, six-in-ten (60 percent) UK workers would like more flexibility as to when they work, such as condensing hours into a four day week. This number increased to two-thirds (67 percent) in Greater London. This desire for great flexibility comes at a time when there is a mental health ticking timebomb happening in offices up and down the land. Over half (51 percent) of men and 45 percent of women admit that their work us suffering due to their poor mental health. This is leading to over a quarter (29 percent) of workers actively trying to change their job and/or move into another industry. More →

June 21, 2022

Flexible working options can support women in the workplace

by Dr Gabriella Rosen Kellerman • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

As of May 2022, more than one hundred years after the passage of the Sex Disqualification Removal Act – legislation which opened the workplace equally to women – more than half of the UK’s female professionals are at risk of leaving their jobs. As a recent study showed, 52 percent of women in the UK say they are either considering leaving or have already left a role due to lack of flexibility. The widespread nature of this “Flexidus” is chilling. The pandemic has already set back women’s participation in the workforce back 22 years behind men. How can businesses respond with the flexible working choices that many women are seeking? More →

June 20, 2022

People working from home feel less sense of belonging to work culture

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Almost half of workers feel working from home has diminished their feeling of ‘belonging’ to an organisation, according to the Employee Job Satisfaction Report [registration] from recruitment firm Morgan Phillips. According to the poll, UK workers feel they are treated well by their employer (58 percent quite well and 27 percent very well), but half are still considering changing their jobs, with 17 percent looking for a change in 2022. More →

June 17, 2022

Coworking secret sauce: Experience unbound with Imogen Privett

by Freddie Steele • Flexible working, Podcasts, Premium Content, Property

Episode 10 of Workplace Geeks sees Chris Moriarty and Ian Ellison talking with workplace innovation consultant and senior research associate at UnWork/WORKTECH Academy, Dr. Imogen Privett, discussing the fascinating content and findings from her recent doctoral thesis, Experience Unbound: The Effects of Coworking on Workplace Design Practice. Imogen’s research offers a cautionary tale for interested organisations – merely adopting the spatial strategies or aesthetics of coworking without acknowledging the careful curation of space and relationships is unlikely to yield positive results. More →

June 15, 2022

How to manage flexible working requests (including turning them down)

by Chris Hadrill • Features, Flexible working

If an employee makes a flexible working request, then employers should have principles and procedures in place setting out how these requests should be dealt with. Avoiding disputes in the workplace generally means adhering to three principles: clarity, consistency, and fairness. So, here’s a brief (non-exhaustive) guide to handling flexible working requests. More →

June 15, 2022

Tech firms now less likely to offer fully remote working

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Fully remote working is no longer viewed as the ‘holy grail’ by tech employers, with hybrid working now viewed as the perfect model for aiding retention and recruitment of talent. That is the main conclusion of Robert Half’s Demand for Tech Talent report, which surveyed 750 tech hiring managers across the UK. The results of the survey suggest that remote working – which the report claims was widely touted as the ‘future of work’ both before and during the pandemic – is now being shunned by companies in favour of a flexible approach. More →