November 21, 2018
Organisations with supportive approach most likely to attract talent
Employers must raise their offering to meet the demands of millennials, as they reach a pivotal time in their careers and demand their employers stand for a purpose. This is according to the 2018 Organisational Wellbeing & Talent Insights Report from Gallagher which finds that to have any impact with this audience, organisations must demonstrate a strong employer value proposition. This is essentially, ‘how you want to be seen’; a set of values lived by workers, driven from the top down. The best organisations match these goals by becoming ‘destination employers’ that are able to win over talent with a more supportive approach. (more…)
Business leaders have called today for the Government to update health and safety legislation to protect mental health in the workplace. In an 
The vast majority (97 percent) of office workers in UK feel frustrated by their workplace environments, with many feeling the need to escape office life as a result. A new report from Staples has discovered that one-in-five (22 percent) end up browsing LinkedIn job ads for something better when they’re frustrated. As a result, job-hopping is prolific, with workers now predicted to have 11.7 jobs between the ages of 18 and 48. The expectation that the grass must be greener elsewhere is leaving most thinking about switching jobs. However, when they do end up jumping ship, many just experience a short-term fix. According to the study, a third (37 percent) get frustrated in their new office before the end of their first six months. The majority of office workers say they seek fulfilment (89 percent) at work, and for most (77 percent), the quality of their office workspace is a contributing factor in how fulfilled they feel.
Over a quarter of businesses plan to hire temporary or contract staff in the next 12 months to help plug skills shortages created by digitalisation as more than half of CEOs are concerned about a lack of digital skills within their organisation. This is according to the Robert Half 2019 Salary Guide which argues that technology is reshaping businesses; with two in five UK organisations (38 percent) considering digitalisation as the main evolving force in the workplace today. This shift has created demand for a new set of skills, such as DevOps, data visualisation, data management and analytics. While softer skills such as resilience, adaptability and critical thinking remain key characteristics in potential employees, a third (31 percent) of employers state that a candidate’s technical skillset is their most important consideration when making a new hire. Around 1.6 million1 (28 percent) UK businesses plan to hire temporary or contract staff in the next twelve months, to combat the lack available talent required, which is creating a critical skills gaps in the workplace.
Only one in four organisations have adapted performance management processes to consider staff with disabilities and special needs, including conditions such as dyslexia and autism. These are the findings of research carried out by Acas which has today published new advice to address the issue. The research report entitled ‘Improvement required?’ included a survey, which asked employers about performance management systems within their workplaces. The study found that one in ten employers said that their performance management system was demotivating for staff; and only one in ten employers said that their systems were used for planning and monitoring training and development.
A sudden reversal in the growth in the number of both EU and non-EU migrants in employment in the UK could hit employer plans to take on more staff and worsen skills and labour shortages, according to the latest quarterly Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD and The Adecco Group. While the net employment balance – a measure of the difference between the proportion of employers who expect to increase staff levels and those who expect to decrease staff levels – has remained extremely positive at +22 (compared to +23 in Q3 2018), among employers which currently have vacancies, seven in ten (70 percent) report that at least some of their vacancies are proving hard-to-fill, higher than in Summer 2018 (66 percent) and Spring 2018 (61 percent). 
A new survey of professional, mainly management-level women has revealed a lack of support for maternity returners by employers. According to the survey by working parents website 
November 18, 2018
What The Midwich Cuckoos can teach us about Millennials
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace
John Wyndham’s 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos is the story of a fictional English village in which, following an unexplained event that causes everybody within Midwich to fall unconscious, all of the women in the village fall pregnant and 61 children are subsequently born all at the same time. The children bear absolutely no physical resemblance to their parents, with pale skin, blond hair and piercing eyes. As they grow older it also becomes apparent that they are strange, emotionless and have a telepathic bond with each other. It’s not much of a spoiler to tell you that things don’t go well. The only rationale for what had happened to create the children in the first place is an unexplained incident of xenogenesis – the birth of offspring unlike their parents. Something similar must have happened on a global scale from the beginning of the 1980s onwards, at least based on what we are told about Millennials.
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