May 17, 2019
There are 374,000 more employees working from home than 10 years ago, new TUC analysis published today to mark Work Wise UK’s National Work from Home Day implies. The analysis suggests a 27.7 percent increase in the number of homeworkers in the last decade. But not enough bosses are giving their workers the option of homeworking, which could help people to see more of their family and improve work-life balance. More →
May 17, 2019
Paid leave for new parents is a financial and operational challenge for 90 percent of UK SMEs, according to the findings of new research into the challenges faced by working women and their employers. The first ever Women in Business survey also claims that offering flexible working and covering the cost and resource of maternity and paternity leave is an even bigger concern for SMEs, with 96 percent of board level executives saying it’s a significant challenge for their business. More →
May 16, 2019
EU member States must require employers to set up a system to measure daily working hours for each employee, according to a new ruling from the European Court of Justice. The decision came following a case brought by the Spanish trade union, Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) which initially brought an action before the Audiencia Nacional (National High Court, Spain), seeking a judgement declaring Deutsche Bank SAE to be under an obligation to set up a system for recording the time worked each day by its members of staff. The union considered that such a system would make it possible to verify compliance with the stipulated working times and the obligation, laid down in national law, to provide union representatives with information on overtime worked each month.
May 16, 2019
Employers need to better understand the needs of younger candidates, particularly that of flexible working, says Gartner, after its latest Global Labor Market Survey claims that a rise in Gen Z candidate’s regrets is leading to high turnover, low engagement and low productivity. According to the survey, 40 percent of Gen Z respondents reported that they would not repeat their decision to accept the job offer they had accepted and only 51 percent said they could see themselves having a long career at their organisation. More than one-third of candidates who regret their decision intend to leave their position within 12 months.
May 10, 2019
A 334,000 (63 percent) rise in highly-skilled female freelancers has driven the UK’s freelance revolution over the last 10 years according to new research from IPSE, the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed. The increase takes the number of senior-level women freelancing in the UK to 863,000. The professions that saw the largest rises since 2008 were health, the arts and media, and functional directors within companies. Alongside the increase in senior-level women, the number of mothers freelancing increased by 80 per cent. More →
May 8, 2019
Almost half of UK workers would take a 20 percent pay cut if it meant they could spend more time at home with their families, according to new research from www.Hillarys.co.uk. Over 2,000 workers were asked if they were happy with their work-life balance and almost two thirds (64 percent) stated they were not and would like some form of flexible working to help them. More →
May 7, 2019
Working Families and Bright Horizons have launched a new report which focuses on flexible working and the reality of flexible jobs from the perspective of working parents in the UK. According to the report, the experience of parents shows that flexible working is widespread, although patchy in some sectors and for some workers. It is beneficial in helping parents get a better work life fit, although it is not a panacea. Issues around job design, workloads and organisational culture undermine some of the benefits of flexibility, and proper management of flexibility to ensure it works is, for many parents, missing. More →
May 1, 2019
The tech sector is facing high departure rates as employees’ complain of work impinging on their home life, coupled with a lack of learning & development opportunities. It’s been estimated that vacancies already outweigh skilled talent in the UK tech industry, where there are an estimated 600,000 vacancies. Yet nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of tech workers say they would quit their job to achieve a better work-life balance. The research from CWJobs of over 1,000 IT workers also discovered that this is even more important to Gen Z (aged 16-24), where seven in 10 (72 percent) would leave a company if this was compromised.
April 26, 2019
Employees feel expectations at work are playing an integral role in diminishing their mental health a new report suggests, which includes increasing pressures to work outside of office hours, through annual leave and even on sick days. Westfield Health’s inaugural Wellbeing Index, which claims to shine a spotlight on stress, found 61 percent of HR professionals identified mental health related issues as the main reasons for absences within their workforces, with over half (51 percent) noticing an overall increase in sick days. ‘Leavism’ – working outside of contracted hours and on annual leave days – is also prevalent throughout the British workforce, with 67 percent in HR saying it’s a very real issue for them.
April 25, 2019
There are lots of reasons to worry about where the World might be taking us, or perhaps where we are taking it. You can take your pick but for me one of the most worrying aspects of contemporary discourse is the obvious dearth of empathy. We might like to think of this as an innate characteristic of human beings, but it really isn’t. It’s something that we also need to learn. This idea is explored in this piece by Hanna Rosin who centres her argument around an analysis by Sara Konrath, an associate professor and researcher at Indiana University who has discovered that our willingness to empathise with people is eroding rapidly, especially for those who we see as ‘other’ or irrelevant. If you want an example of lack of empathy, you can see it in this footage of a banker being taken to task for it in a US committee hearing.
April 24, 2019
The concept of coworking has only been with us for a short time, but there are already signs that it is evolving into something rather different. The most common misperception about the way evolution works is that it is based on some steady progression, driven by the merciless principle of survival of the fittest, with the best adapted climbing towards the top of an evolutionary tree. This gives rise to one of the most common questions posed by sceptics: if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
May 16, 2019
Working from home and the future of work. How quaint 0
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Technology
More →