September 25, 2018

Around half of workers expect to have multiple careers throughout their working life

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Just under half of UK workers (46 percent) expect to have multiple careers throughout their working life, as opposed to one structured and lifelong career, according to a new report from employee benefits firm Unum and researcher The Future Laboratory. The Future Workforce (registration required) sets out to examine the motivations and priorities of UK workers, to understand how the nation’s workforce will change over the next decade. Insights were drawn from a survey of more than 3,000 UK workers, as well as from interviews with a range of industry experts and business leaders.

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September 24, 2018

It is not particularly easy to change human behaviour by design

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

Many of the techniques employed by modern illusionists rely on a thorough grounding in the research of psychologists. They’re not alone in standing on the shoulders of academics to bend people to their will. Many of our beliefs about the workings of our society and workplaces and their design are based on this sort of manipulation. It’s telling that the growth of consumerism in the 20th Century, especially after the War when we first began to move from a needs based economy to one fuelled by desire, was driven by the ideas of Sigmund Freud’s nephew. Edward Bernays became the ‘father of PR’ by popularising his uncle’s theories in the US then applying them to mould the subconscious desires of the American masses. He did this not just in the name of commerce but also in that of politics because he believed that society was becoming increasingly irrational, immoral and dangerous.

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September 21, 2018

When workplace strategy builds bridges between people and place

by Chris Kane • Features, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

The world of work is changing rapidly and profoundly in a way that we haven’t seen since the time of the industrial revolution. Yet even as we stand at a momentous, game-changing inflexion point, the 21st century workplace strategy sector is still dithering about whether to join in the revolution. They are like the industrial mill owners of 19th century England who adopted a ‘make do and mend’ approach to business and failed to invest in new technology only to be forced out of business by foreign competitors who had invested in radical new, state of the art technology.Today the technological game changer is digital technology rather than weaving technology, but the effect is the same. Unless the workplace strategy sector embraces change and builds bridges between the ‘people’ side of the business and the ‘place’ side with other workplace specialists, their industry will become as dead as a dodo.

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September 21, 2018

Generations divide on the role of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace

by Sara Bean • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

We try to avoid generalisations when describing the multi-generational workforce, but there’s no denying that younger workers who’ve grown up with digital communications appear less comfortable communicating face to face or on the phone. This is why it comes as no surprise to find that new research by ABBYY claims millennials would prefer to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to avoid speaking to colleagues and customers. While one in 10 millennials would hand over speaking to customers to robot colleagues, older generations are less keen, with only 4 percent of over-55s feeling the same. (more…)

September 18, 2018

Report finds negative impact of gender and age on confidence of managers

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A fifth (20 percent) of female managers admit they would rather be managed by a male colleague and unsurprisingly given that opinion, the same proportion worry their gender hinders people’s confidence in them. The data, commissioned by AVADO also revealed that age played a part in management attitudes, with 68 percent of young leaders (20-24) saying they felt their age hindered colleague’s confidence in them as a manager. However, when asked about who they perceive to make the better managers, respondents said it would be the person who was most qualified to do the job (44 percent. By contrast almost half of men (48 percent) said that they were very confident in their management skills, compared to 30 percent of women.

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September 18, 2018

Employees often too busy keeping up with workloads to innovate

by Sara Bean • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

The majority of workers say their workplace regularly asks them to innovate, but a full 65 percent say they’re so swamped with day-to-day work that they don’t have time to think about the future, a new report by Workfront claims. Yet their work remains important to employees, as over half (57 percent) says what they do matters to them personally. The report also found that UK workers rate their own contributions higher than those of their colleagues. On average, most workers scored their productivity at 7.84/10, compared with 7.05 for co-workers and 6.28 for company leadership. Most do believe though that automation will boost personal productivity, as seventy-seven percent thought that the rise of automation will help people and teams think of work in new and innovative ways. There are concerns too regarding too many time wasting activities, with staff spending only 39 per cent of their workday on their primary tasks. Emails and pointless meetings topped the list of things that keep knowledge workers from getting work done.

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September 17, 2018

Growing gig economy could be behind buoyant ONS employment figures

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Recent ONS figures showing a rising employment rate could be inflated by the growth of zero-hour contracts within the gig economy, as the number of UK workers on zero hour contracts having more than tripled since 2012. This is propping up overall employment levels by accounting for almost a quarter of overall employment growth, new data by Adzuna has suggested. With the employment rate currently at a record high of 75.7 percent according to the ONS, Adzuna’s data compares recent growth in the number of people in work overall to the increasing number of zero hour contracts, to ascertain how much these contracts have contributed to the growth.

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September 14, 2018

Employers still have huge reservations about permitting more flexible working

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Employers considering new flexible working options for their employees are concerned about the security and management implications, according to a recent poll, despite the fact that staff now have the legal right to request flexible arrangements. The survey of medium sized businesses, carried out for RSM by YouGov, found that over the next five years, three quarters of respondents were considering introducing flexible terms of employment, allowing workers to work outside 9 to 5 or increasing the use of remote working.

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September 13, 2018

Majority of staff refuse to admit tiredness is affecting their performance at work

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Almost half of employees regularly turn up to their job feeling too tired to work but according to a new survey the majority (86 percent) are not able to speak openly with their line manager about how tiredness is impacting on performance. The research from Westfield Health has found over one in ten (11 percent) of UK workers have purposefully taken a nap at work, and over a third (34 percent) say their mental wellbeing is reduced due to tiredness and fatigue. Fatigue, which is defined as extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness, is stretching beyond work for UK employees, with 55 percent saying it is affecting them at home too. Almost half (46 percent) said they regularly turn up to their jobs feeling too tired to work, and more than a third (37 percent) say they tend to be more forgetful and make errors as a result of tiredness. This is a worrying concern when it comes to the built environment, particularly construction.

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September 12, 2018

Work&Place new issue showcases most informed and challenging workplace thinking

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Features, Flexible working, News, Premium Content, Property, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

The new issue of Work&Place has been published and is free to read on the journal’s new website. Its overall readership is now around 100,000, including in the new Spanish language edition, so it’s not just more accessible, it is even more influential. The journal continues to explore the most cutting-edge ideas surrounding the physical, digital and cultural domains in which we work. The convergence of these elements of the workplace define the greatest challenges we face in the workplace of the early 21st Century. Some of these are addressed in the features included in this edition.

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September 12, 2018

Quarter of people who work during twilight hours add billions to UK economy

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

New research from Huawei has suggested how much the dusk-to-dawn workforce is significantly boosting the ‘twilight economy’ by contributing an estimated £487 billion annually to the UK economy. The study of more than 2,000 UK workers found that a quarter (25 percent) of us now work outside of the traditional 9 – 5. Looking across the UK, a number of ‘twilight hubs’ have emerged, with Norwich (34 percent) topping the list of cities whose residents work whilst the rest of the nation sleeps, followed closely by London and Manchester (both 31 percent), and Liverpool and Cardiff respectively (both 30 percent). People who spend their working moments in the twilight hours say they feel more inspired and creative (30 percent) during this time, as well as more productive (28 percent). Meanwhile, a fifth of British workers prefer the flexibility that twilight working allows when it comes to balancing time with their kids (19 percent), and 20 percent describe themselves as night owls who find it easier to work later.

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September 12, 2018

Employees more productive when they understand the company goals

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Being made to feel you’re making a positive contribution to your organisation is an important motivator, but a new study suggests over half of employees believe they would be more productive if they knew how their work fitted into overall company objectives. According to the research from Asana this lack of transparency means a third of UK employees believe their business suffers from a lack of direction, with employees complaining that they do not know what their company stands for and are completely unclear of the company’s long term and short-term goals. This unsurprisingly is having a direct impact on employee motivation, with and framed within the context of the UK’s productivity conundrum. A lack of clarity of company goals across businesses is not the sole reason that the UK is experiencing a productivity conundrum, but there is a clear disconnect between strategic goals and the jobs being executed on a day to day basis.