October 4, 2018
Majority of staff would quit if employer failed to meet their learning needs
The vast majority (98 percent) of UK employees think learning is essential in deciding to stay or leave their employer, yet new research claims that three quarters (75 percent) of companies don’t have a learning culture and 66 percent don’t have a digital learning strategy. The research from Bridge in collaboration with Two Heads Consulting, finds that most businesses in the UK are struggling to engender a culture that prioritises learning and development with only 25 percent of HR staff saying their organisations have a learning culture. In comparison, three quarters of companies don’t have one at all (11 percent), are still trying to establish one (59 percent) or report it is not a priority (5 percent). Furthermore, despite recognising its importance, 60 percent of UK companies don’t measure the impact of learning on business performance. Employees also complain that their performance reviews are ill thought out and infrequent.
Almost half (49 percent) of UK workers are in jobs they are either under- or over-skilled for, according to new research from the CIPD. Its report ‘Over-skilled and underused: Investigating the untapped potential of UK skills’ surveyed 3,700 UK employees and found that more than a third (37 percent) of workers have the skills to cope with more demanding duties than they currently have. At the opposite end of the scale, one in ten (12 percent) employees said they lacked all the skills needed to carry out their job effectively. This means that as many as half (49 percent) of UK workers could be in the wrong job, based on their skill level. The UK has one of most skilled workforces in the world, with 42 percent of workers qualified to degree level, yet it also has the highest proportion of jobs within the OECD which require no qualifications at all.
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Serviced offices dominated office take-up in London’s West End in August, mainly due to three big transactions resulting in a 44 percent market share, but the Tech and media sector continues to be the main driver for space. According to figures from Savills just shy of a third (31 percent) of take-up for office space this year has been to Tech and media sector occupiers. Similarly, West End and Central London requirements almost mirror demand from this sector, with the Tech and media sector accounting for 35 percent of the 4.3m sq ft of active requirements.
National Work Life Week (1st – 5th October 2018) starts today with the aim of encouraging companies to think about their employees’ wellbeing and happiness. To mark the week new research asked British workers about the things they most want from their work. The YouGov survey of 2,000 adults, commissioned by the Oxford Open Learning Trust, found that while money is predictably the biggest motivator behind career choice (64 percent), over half of the respondents cited working hours and flexible working as an important factor (55 percent). 
The majority (86 percent) of UK office workers claim they are more likely to be told off for forgetting to do menial tasks, like emptying or loading the dishwater and keeping their workplace tidy, than complying with GDPR policies, according to a new poll which assessed whether GDPR is being taken seriously by UK office workers since its introduction in May of this year. The study from Fellowes found that only 14 percent of workers have been given a ticking off about careless handling of confidential data, while 25 percent claim office chores, like emptying or filling the dishwasher, has landed them in the hottest water. The data, collected from over 1,000 UK office workers in July 2018, also reveals that many are more likely to be challenged about missing deadlines and being late (17 percent) than ensuring they are compliant with GDPR.
