Employers still not doing enough to support working parents

Employers still not doing enough to support working parents

by • Flexible working, News

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…)

Tech workers would quit jobs for better work-life balance

Tech workers would quit jobs for better work-life balance

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Tech workers quit jobs for better work-life balanceThe 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.

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Great expectations at work causing stress and rise in mental ill health

Great expectations at work causing stress and rise in mental ill health

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

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.

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Lies about work, the limits of wellness programmes, sleepwalking architects and some other shoes

Lies about work, the limits of wellness programmes, sleepwalking architects and some other shoes

by • Architecture, Features, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design

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.

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The meteor strike of coworking and the beasts that will remain

The meteor strike of coworking and the beasts that will remain

by • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Workplace design

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?

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The flexible solution to workplace loneliness

The flexible solution to workplace loneliness

by • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design

For years, the word ‘office’ would doubtless conjure images of the traditional individual cubicle. However, times have changed, and where the cubicle once ruled the roost, a flexible working revolution is already disrupting the office market and reshaping the world of work.

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Work-life balance and workload are the biggest drivers of stress

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Half of today’s workers are stressed by their job with one in five (17 percent) finding their work very stressful, according to new global research from LinkedIn. The research showed that millennial workers are more concerned than their seniors about having a sense of purpose and belonging in the workplace, but overall they’re the generation that’s least stressed at work. Both Gen X and the Baby Boomer generation proved to be more stressed at work, with a fifth (19 percent) of Gen X finding work very stressful. The data showed that the top five cause of stress at work are work/life balance and workload; confidence in job future; a sense of purpose and direction; colleagues and work politics; and access to tools to do your job.

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Shining a light on remote work at Google, willing slaves to tech, why design matters and some other stuff

Shining a light on remote work at Google, willing slaves to tech, why design matters and some other stuff

by • Features, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Away from you know what, one of the most talked about issues this week was the news that the smart devices we’re voluntarily incorporating into our homes are not just obeying us but acting as microphones on our lives. This is happening in the context of growing mistrust of the world’s tech giants, uncertainty about our relationship with technology and taps into a primal fear about control and surveillance. All of this is complicated by the fact that these systems of surveillance are not the telescreens of 1984 but the products of private sector firms who currently often exhibit ‘power without responsibility’, as Kipling once said about the media. (more…)

CIPD warns stress related absence is a growing problem for UK workplaces

CIPD warns stress related absence is a growing problem for UK workplaces

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

CIPD warns stress related absence is a growing problem in UK workplaces

Heavy workloads and poor management styles are behind the increase of nearly two-fifths (37 percent) in stress-related absences over the past year, according to a new report from the CIPD and Simplyhealth. Respondents say having heavy workloads (62 percent), which can be attributed to poor management, is the top cause of stress-related absence. The second biggest contributing factor is management style which has risen from 32 percent to 43 percent in the last year. The annual Health and Well-Being at Work Survey Report found that more than four-fifths (83 percent) of respondents have observed ‘presenteeism’ (going to work when ill) in their organisation and a quarter (25 percent) say the problem has got worse since the previous year.

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Overhaul of shared parental leave is already overdue, claims TUC

Overhaul of shared parental leave is already overdue, claims TUC

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Father and son walk on beach showing need for shared parental leaveThe TUC is calling for an overhaul of shared parental leave legislation just four years after its introduction. Last year only 9,200 new parents took shared parental leave – just 1 percent of those eligible to do so. The TUC believes take-up is low because the scheme is so low-paid (£145.18 per week) making it unaffordable for most fathers. It claims that large numbers of dads in insecure work, such as agency workers and those on zero-hours contracts, are not eligible for it. And currently men and women who are self-employed don’t get any shared leave rights at all. (more…)

Remote working boosts self-employed flexibility and productivity

Remote working boosts self-employed flexibility and productivity

by • Flexible working, News

Remote working man with laptop beside lakeRemote working boosts flexibility and productivity among the self-employed, new research by IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed) and People Per Hour claims. The report suggests that freelancers overwhelmingly viewed remote working positively, with nine out of ten (87 percent) working remotely at some point in the last year. (more…)

Millions more people say they would like to work as freelancers

Millions more people say they would like to work as freelancers

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

gig workerThe so-called gig economy is likely to increase dramatically over the next few years, new research suggests. Along with over 8 million people who currently work on a freelance basis, over 5 million more say they would like to go freelance. The data collated by Direct Line for Business claims that 5.3 million people (10 per cent) dream of becoming their own boss in the future, by embracing a career as a freelancer. This is in addition to the 8.6 million (16 per cent) who currently freelance and are either full time self-employed or carry out contract work alongside their main jobs.

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