One in three line managers admit they would struggle to detect mental health issues

One in three line managers admit they would struggle to detect mental health issues

by • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Over a third of line managers would struggle to detect mental health issuesA third of line managers have admitted they would struggle to identify mental health issues and a similar percentage wouldn’t know what to do if a team member had a mental health problem. This is according to new data from Bupa which argues that while mental health and wellbeing support in the workplace has significantly improved in recent years, and employer support is gaining attention with two in five managers being trained; line managers would still benefit from support and advice to identify mental health issues within their teams. These findings come at a time when NHS figures identify that almost a third of fit notes issued by GPs are for mental health problems – making it the most common reason for people to be signed off from work. Recognition of the role employer support plays in helping colleagues with mental health conditions is clear as two in five (41 percent) line managers have already received related training from their employer.  And conversations around mental health at work are being reframed as more than a third (35 percent) of employees feel more comfortable talking to their manager about their mental health than before.

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Over a third of UK office staff admit they would rather avoid working from home

Over a third of UK office staff admit they would rather avoid working from home

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Over a third of UK office workers admit they would rather avoid working from home

The idea that the younger generation of workers would be big drivers behind a trend for home working is easily debunked as just another millennial myth. A sizeable number of people under 35 who struggle to buy or rent their own home would find the workplace much more appealing when faced with the prospect of working from cramped, often shared accommodation. Of nearly one-third (31.4 percent) of British office workers who avoid working from home, according to a survey by Crucial, those 45 years old and above have a significantly more positive view on the option than millennials (18- to 34-year-olds). While 40 percent of the 45 and above age group said nothing would keep them from working from home – only 11 percent of millennials felt the same way. The survey  of 2,000 British office workers found that the most common reasons UK workers avoid working from home are the lack of human interaction (21 percent), the inability to connect to their company’s IT system (21 percent), having their children at home (18 percent) and a slow or old home PC (18 percent).

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Ethnic minority leaders believe institutional prejudice still rife in UK workforce

by • Legal news, News, Workplace

The majority (82 percent) of ethnic minority leaders believe there is institutional prejudice against minorities in the workforce in the UK; and almost one in five (18 percent) of these leaders have personally experienced workplace discrimination in the last two years. A report from Green Park, ‘Changing the Face of Tomorrow’s Leaders:  Increasing Ethnic Minority Representation in Leadership’ claims that while 60 percent of ethnic minority leaders believe institutional racism has moved up the organisational agenda in recent months, two thirds of these respondents say the language is emotive and makes people uncomfortable.  When tackling the issue of racism many firms are struggling to find an appropriate dialogue and language.  When it comes to ethnic minority board level representation, just 2 percent of companies surveyed are meeting their identified targets.  Over a fifth (22 percent) of firms admitted being unaware of current progress towards diversity targets and 18 percent did not know there to start.  More than one in ten (13 percent) have a ethnic diversity target but no strategy, while 9 percent are simply replicating their gender diversity strategy.

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Majority of US office workers demand technology that allows them to work anywhere

Majority of US office workers demand technology that allows them to work anywhere

by • Facilities management, News, Technology, Workplace

Majority of US office workers demand technology that allows them to work anywhereThe majority of North American office workers expect their employers to provide technology that allows them to work from wherever they choose and three quarter of employees (74 percent) would rather leave their job to work for an organisation that would allow them to work remotely more often, even if their salary stayed the same. This is because working remotely has moved from being a work perk to a necessity of 21st century living, claims a new study by Softchoice. Collaboration Unleashed: Empowering Individuals to Work Together from Anywhere, found that 85 percent of North American office workers expect their employers to provide technology that allows them to work from their desk, in a meeting room, at home, or the coffee shop down the street.

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Third of staff are too frightened to approach their line manager with a work problem

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Third of staff don't trust that their managers to help them with work problems

Nearly a third (30 percent) of the working population have a manager they feel they can’t approach with a problem, while two in five employees describe their manager as ‘temperamental’, one third say their manager makes them feel ‘uncomfortable’, and one in 10 labels their manager as ‘scary’. This is according to data compiled by Citation, which probed the working nation to gather some exclusive intel into the traits of bad managers, and the ramifications employers could face. The results suggest that three in 10 employees have unapproachable managers, with employees aged between 18 and 24 least likely to feel comfortable approaching their manager, and those aged 65+ most likely. However, employees aged 65+ were significantly more likely to label their manager as unreasonable than any other age group. Geographically, it looks like Londoners are faced with the least forthcoming bosses, with Northern Ireland a close second.

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Growing numbers of people remain in employment past retirement age

by • News, Workplace

Both men and women are increasingly staying at work beyond the state pension age, UK government figures show. Data published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reveals that the average retirement age for men has now risen to 65.1 and for women 63.6. Over a twenty year period, this marks an increase of around two years for men and nearly three years for women. In both cases the average retirement age is now higher than the state retirement age. Some 10 percent of over-65s are currently in employment, according to the DWP data. However, the data also suggests that men are still retiring at an earlier age than they were in the 1950s, which is the starting point for the study.

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Urgent action needed to boost small business workplace productivity says CIPD

by • News, Workplace

The CIPD is calling on Government to invest £13m a year to provide HR support to small businesses, as new research shows that it could be a key part of efforts to resolve the UK’s workplace productivity puzzle. The call is based on the evaluation of year-long People Skills pilots providing HR support for SMEs in Hackney, Stoke-on-Trent and Glasgow. People Skills was developed by the CIPD, with support from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. It provided up to two days’ worth of free HR support to small firms, including face-to-face advice, a telephone helpline, online information and templates, as well as group training events.

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Economic gains from digitisation, robotics and AI must benefit workers says TUC

Economic gains from digitisation, robotics and AI must benefit workers says TUC

by • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

In the same week that Gartner offered some useful insights into the building blocks for a successful digital workplace, the TUC has published its views on the impact of digitisation, arguing that the economic gains from digitisation, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) should be used to benefit working people. This would include reversing policies to raise the state pension age. The report Shaping Our Digital Future explores how the next technological revolution will impact on jobs and wages. Previous waves of technological change have not led to an overall loss of jobs, but have disrupted the types of job people do. And with the most recent wave of industrial change, rewards from higher productivity have gone predominantly to business owners, rather than being shared across the workforce through better wages and working conditions.

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Remote workers perceived as less valued by management than office based staff

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Remote workers perceived as less valued to workplace by office based staffAmerican office workers think it’s twice as difficult for remote workers to build relationships with the boss, make work friends, collaborate with their team and navigate the workplace culture than in-office workers, according to recent research. The “Reality of the Remote Worker Report,” claims that remote workers tend to have their presence go by unnoticed, with 43 percent of office workers believing it’s harder for remote workers to be seen in the workplace than those non-remote. The report, conducted online amongst over 1,500 US workers by YouGov for CyberLink, found a number of disadvantages for remote workers; with nearly 1 in 6 (15 percent) of office colleagues thinking that remote workers are less valued by a company, 20 percent believing they’re promoted less often and 8 percent even viewing them as less trustworthy. And office workers who were asked about their own concerns about working remotely expressed a range of potential frustrations.

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Quarter of women on maternity leave offered less training opportunities than colleagues

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Quarter of women on maternity leave not offered same training opportunities as colleagues

One fifth of women (20 percent) feel overlooked by their employer during maternity leave and though three quarters (75 percent) see training as a key way to prepare for their return to work, nearly a quarter (24 percent) are not offered the same training opportunities as their colleagues. According to the new research from AVADO almost a third of women (32 percent) who’ve been on maternity leave in the past three years say they’d have felt more prepared to return to the workforce if they’d had the option to do some training; one in three (29 percent) would have felt better connected with their team members and for a fifth (24 percent), training would have allowed them to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in their industry. During maternity leave, an employee and employer can agree to have up to ten Keeping in Touch (KIT) days, which may include training, but the research found that just one in ten (16 percent) were given the option to use these for training. This is despite the fact that 72 percent of women see it as one of the key ways to help them successfully head back to work after having a family.

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ECHR rules that companies must tell employees of email checks

by • Legal news, Technology, Workplace

Companies must tell employees in advance if their work email accounts are being monitored without unduly infringing their privacy, the European Court of Human Rights said in a ruling that defining the scope of corporate email monitoring. In a judgement in the case of a man fired 10 years ago for using a work messaging account to communicate with his family, the judges found that Romanian courts failed to protect the man’s private correspondence on the account because his employer had not given him prior notice it was monitoring his communications.

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Third of firms concerned unexplained gender pay figures could damage their reputation

Third of firms concerned unexplained gender pay figures could damage their reputation

by • Legal news, News, Workplace

Third of companies concerned about impact gender pay report will have on reputation

While a third of companies have already completed their gender pay gap reports, many remain reluctant to publish the figures; and a majority (70 percent) want to include an explanatory narrative to help support their findings. According to the new survey by Mercer, although perceptions of the regulations have improved since being made final, companies find the regulations complex (41 percent), confusing (29 percent) and misleading (28 percent). The result is, while a third of companies completed their analysis at the end of May, most (44 percent) plan on leaving it to later in the year (Oct 2017-Jan 2018) to report; and 28 percent don’t know when they will report. When looking for root causes of the pay gaps, 54 percent of respondents have conducted some sort of analysis (e.g. equal pay audits and bonus programme analysis) in the last three years. Looking ahead there is a dramatic change in the attention being given by organisations to actions beyond pay, and some leading organisations are addressing this issue already.

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