Search Results for: home working

October 1, 2015

US sees biggest jump in working from home since 2008, claims study ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Wellbeing

According to an analysis of the just-released 2014 American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com, approximately 3.7 million US employees (2.5 percent of the workforce) called home their primary place of work in 2014. This represents a 6.5 percent increase and the largest year over year growth in the number of people working from home since before the recession. The ACS data is based on a nationwide survey of answers to the question “What was your primary means of travel to work during the survey week—’Worked at Home’ is one of the choices. The count only includes those who work at home at least half of the time. According to Global Workplace Analytics far more people work at home on a less frequent basis and many work in “third places” such as coffee shops, co-working facilities, libraries, and just about anywhere there’s an internet connection.

September 28, 2015

More people are working from home, but they can end up feeling lonely ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

More and more British workers are working remotely, from home and other locations, but they are growing increasingly disconnected from their colleagues. Those are the findings of two studies into new ways of working conducted independently by Plantronics and Regus. According to the Plantronics survey of 2,500 staff, flexible working was given another boost over this Summer in response to the (intermittent) good weather and industrial action by London public transport staff. During August, more than half (55 percent) of the workforce chose to work from home or remotely more convenient to them, the audio communications firm’s study found. On the flipside, the survey of 4,000 workers by serviced office provider Regus claims that almost two-thirds of employees who work from home miss mixing with colleagues and can feel lonely as a result.

May 21, 2014

Homeworking has environmental benefits, says Carbon Trust

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, Flexible working, News

There have been some doubts cast recently on the environmental benefits of flexible working. At the recent ThinkFM conference, Lord Rupert Redesdale, the CEO Energy Managers Association said that keeping buildings open for longer to accommodate flexible workers could become unfeasible for many businesses. But what if you simply increase the numbers of home workers instead? Homeworking reduces employee commuting, resulting in carbon, money and time savings. If office space is properly rationalised to reflect this, homeworking can also significantly reduce office energy consumption and rental costs. This is according to new research from the Carbon Trust, which found that if adopted and encouraged by employers across the country, homeworking could result in annual savings of over 3 million tonnes of carbon and cut costs by £3 billion.

January 21, 2014

Working from Home Week: good idea, but it doesn’t suit everyone

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

Yesterday was hyped as the most depressing day of the year, but it also marked the beginning of Working from Home Week (20-26 January 2014). The idea will resonate with anyone struggling to get out of bed and join the January commute. There are many advantages to home working; but depending on your personality and personal circumstances there are also disadvantages. Yes, you’ll avoid traffic jams/crowded trains, take the dog for a walk when you fancy and can concentrate on a project without annoying interruptions. But working from home has its disadvantages too; including feeling isolated and finding it difficult to remain motivated. Rather like those who decide to move to the country but find it’s too quiet – for some people the buzz of the workplace is vital to their productivity and wellbeing. More →

April 2, 2013

New research from China highlights benefits of working from home

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

A new report from researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Guanghua Management School at Beijing University looking into the experience of working from home at one large Chinese firm has found that the practice led to a 13 per cent increase in productivity. The research also found that workers reported increased levels of job satisfaction and half elected to continue working from home when the choice was given to them at the end of the study period even though it was evident that their chances of promotion on the basis of performance had reduced as a result of the experiment.

February 25, 2013

Are you working or shirking from home?

by Sara Bean • Comment, Legal news, Technology, Workplace

Staff ill health

During recent weather-related travel disruption, I was inundated with various pieces of information on software that spies on home based employees to check that they really are working, not shirking from home. As Acas opens a consultation on a draft Code of Practice regarding the extended right to request flexible working; and figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show the number of people working from home in the UK has risen to over 10 per cent – the advent of these systems begs the question: do employers really trust their staff enough to let them work remotely?

September 23, 2024

GenAI will change the nature of work and encourage people to spend more time working together

by Neil Franklin • AI, Flexible working, News

UK chief executives see implementing Generative AI (GenAI) as an opportunity to change the nature of work and create highly skilled workforces without reducing the number of jobs in the market, according to KPMG’s 10th annual CEO Outlook survey. KPMG surveyed more than 1,300 CEOs around the world – 150 in the UK – in July and August, revealing that two thirds of UK CEOs (65 percent and 76 percent globally) see GenAI as a positive disruptor with 68 percent (65 percent globally) agreeing that GenAI remains a top investment priority. More →

September 6, 2024

A brief history of the working week

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working

There’s a lot to be said for not being slaves to the clock and the screen. Ironically, the way we measure time has its roots in a famous instance of daydreaming. The story goes that in 1583 a young student at the University of Pisa called Galileo Galilei was daydreaming in the pews while his fellow students were dutifully reciting their prayers. He noticed that one of the altar lamps was swaying back and forth and even as its energy dissipated, the arc of each swing slowed so that each took the same amount of time as the last, measured against his own pulse. More →

September 5, 2024

Shared Parental Leave (still) failing to deliver for working dads

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

New research suggests that Shared Parental Leave (SPL) has failed to encourage greater take-up or longer leave by fathers, prompting calls for policy reform. Introduced in April 2015, SPL was designed to let parents share the load of looking after their children, giving fathers a greater role at home and encouraging mothers to get back to work sooner. But new research by economists from the Economics Department and Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath and Cardiff University shows that the policy has fallen flat. Workplace Insight has been tracking the bumpy passage of the legislation over the past nine years. You can see our coverage here. More →

July 8, 2024

Book review – Working Assumptions by Julia Hobsbawm

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

This is almost certainly the most important book about work and workplaces to appear in the first half of this year. Working Assumptions by Julia Hobsbawm will be one of the two most important published this year, as we shall soon discover. It is also one packed with wisdom, knowledge and a central premise that is undoubtedly true. Namely that the events of the past four years have given us the opportunity to rethink how we work and so how we spend our days and our lives more generally. More →

July 4, 2024

What’s so wrong with being slaves to the rhythm of the working week?

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Wellbeing

One of the most familiar ways we measure time has its roots in a famous instance of daydreaming. The story goes that in 1583 a young student at the University of Pisa called Galileo Galilei was daydreaming in the pews while his fellow students were dutifully reciting their prayers. He noticed that one of the altar lamps was swaying back and forth and even as its energy dissipated, the arc of each swing slowed so that each took the same amount of time as the last, measured against his own pulse. More →

July 1, 2024

The rise of supercommuters linked to adoption of flexible and hybrid working

by Jayne Smith • News, Working lives

New research from Trainline claims that the number of UK “supercommuters” using rail to travel longer distances to work has doubled since Covid. Almost half (47 percent) of current supercommuters surveyed made the lifestyle change either during or post-pandemic, and over four in five (84 percent) of these new supercommuters say hybrid working has enabled this switch in their commuting habits. More →