Search Results for: employee

I’m a Luddite. You should be one too

I’m a Luddite. You should be one too

The leader of the Luddite movementI’m a Luddite. This is not a hesitant confession, but a proud proclamation. I’m also a social scientist who studies how new technologies affect politics, economics and society. For me, Luddism is not a naïve feeling, but a considered position. And once you know what Luddism actually stands for, I’m willing to bet you will be one too — or at least much more sympathetic to the Luddite cause than you think. More →

Working from home: how far we’ve come and where we might be headed

Working from home: how far we’ve come and where we might be headed

working from home furnitureWe’ve all learnt a great deal about working from home over the past eighteen months. We’ve seen how for some, it can be incredibly beneficial to employees, enabling them to better balance their work and personal lives and can also benefit the company, enabling business as usual during the Covid-19 pandemic, even improving efficiency. It’s also prompted some important conversations about mental health that simply hadn’t been had, normalising the challenges that we all face, especially during lockdowns. More →

Over half of UK employers say their staff work additional unpaid hours every day

Over half of UK employers say their staff work additional unpaid hours every day

unpaid hoursIn its latest whitepaper, Cendex, part of XpertHR, claims that staff at over half (53 percent) of UK organisations are working additional unpaid hours every day. A quarter (24 percent) of employers put this down to the pandemic and its resultant uptick in remote working, as they believe working from home blurs the line between work life and home life. More →

Executives think work should be split 70:30 between office and home

Executives think work should be split 70:30 between office and home

A new survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit backs up the most commonly cited form of ‘hybrid working’ by claiming that business executives on average think work should be split 70 percent / 30 percent between the office and home respectively.  In A changed workplace after covid-19, published  by The Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Kyocera Document Solutions, the authors argue that Covid-19 was a watershed moment in the way we work. More →

Gig economy could lead to a labour shortage…but better off workers

Gig economy could lead to a labour shortage…but better off workers

gig economy workerThe long-term impact of COVID-19 on the economy (and the gig economy) will not be clear for some time. But in the UK, the easing of pandemic related restrictions has coincided with significant labour shortages and the driving up of wages. Statistics show that wages have risen 7.4 percent in the past year, and the number of job vacancies has continued to rise (up to 953,000 in July 2021). Those vacancies have appeared amid continued travel restrictions from abroad, and the prolonged furlough scheme, which is keeping over 1 million people tied to employers that don’t have work available for them. More →

Over two-thirds of employers are considering pay cuts for remote workers

Over two-thirds of employers are considering pay cuts for remote workers

pay cutsA new survey by CIPHR claims that over two-thirds (68 percent) of British businesses are contemplating pay cuts for staff who opt to work from home, despite many (53 percent) saying they’ve actually saved money by having more remote workers. More →

Nearly half of British business leaders fear losing the UK’s best talent abroad

Nearly half of British business leaders fear losing the UK’s best talent abroad

businessMovePlan in partnership with Hanson Search, claims that 40 percent of business leaders fear that the combination of the pandemic and Brexit will see their best talent disappear abroad, making hiring more challenging, just as the country begins to return to the ‘new normal’. More →

Workplace technology helped meet short term lockdown challenges, but its real impact is yet to come

Workplace technology helped meet short term lockdown challenges, but its real impact is yet to come

the future of workplace technologyThinking back to the fast pace of life 18 months ago, the working day looked very different. COVID-19 forced a significant adjustment in how many workforces operate, including the enforced use of multiple workplace technology tools to collaborate. How will our use of collaboration tools change as we go through pandemic recovery? How can businesses ensure they continue to transform their workflows in a way that gives them maximum efficiency and productivity? More →

Majority of UK firms do not believe their mental health support is fit for modern-day needs

Majority of UK firms do not believe their mental health support is fit for modern-day needs

UK firmsNew research from Aon plc (NYSE: AON), claims that fewer than four in ten UK firms (39 percent) believe their employee mental health support is fit for modern-day purposes. More →

Return to office doesn’t mean occupiers have lost sight of flexibility, claims report

Return to office doesn’t mean occupiers have lost sight of flexibility, claims report

return to office is underway

Offices will repopulate over the remainder of this year, led by small companies – those with fewer than 100 employees, according to the EMEA Occupier Survey of 130 companies from real estate advisor CBRE. The survey found that small companies are further advanced in their return to office. Over 80 percent of small companies report all locations are now open. This compares with only a third of the largest companies, although a majority of them have opened more than half of their sites. More →

Right to disconnect should be enshrined in law, says report

Right to disconnect should be enshrined in law, says report

right to disconnectAn overtime “epidemic” driven by the rise in home working during the pandemic must be curtailed with new right to disconnect laws, according to a report from think-tank Autonomy. The authors claim that unpaid labour is a growing problem in the UK, exacerbated by home working during the pandemic. They say employees are frequently contacted by their employers after the working day has finished officially to complete tasks, which impacts their mental health. The report proposes draft legislation to implement a ‘right to disconnect’ based on French law, which ensures respect for employee rest periods and allows them to ignore work calls and emails outside of working hours. More →

Castaway workers have forgotten the art of small talk, getting dressed and colleagues’ names

Castaway workers have forgotten the art of small talk, getting dressed and colleagues’ names

castaway workersA third of UK workers admit they’ve forgotten the password to their computer, office entrance or locker, one in five workers have forgotten a colleague’s name or called them by the wrong name and say their small talk skills have been impacted by working from home. Those are some of the findings of a new report from Michael Page into the effects of a year and a half of lockdown and workplace disruption. More →