May 11, 2015

Does declining productivity spell the end for IT and property directors?

by John Blackwell • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Technology, Work&Place

When it comes to increasing organisational output, which in turn directly relates to real wage growth and higher living standards, the only determinant is productivity, measured in terms of output per hour worked. This is at the heart of all businesses and is essential for growth. The basic facts on productivity are clear. For over a decade, productivity has been painfully weak across all the major economies. The UK has performed particularly badly, with productivity having declined by 3.7 percent since 2008. A recent OECD report went as far as saying: “weak labour productivity since 2004 has been holding back real wages and well-being. The sustainability of economic expansion and further progress in living standards rest on boosting productivity growth, which is a key challenge for the coming years”.

February 20, 2015

Job automation seen as a key digital challenge in new policy report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace

Whichever party or coalition forms the next UK Government will face a raft of serious challenges with the emerging digital economy, including making plans for the automation of up to a third of existing jobs. That is the main conclusion of a new report published this week by The House of Lords. Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future, argues that the next 20 years will present the UK with a range of profound challenges and opportunities and it is incumbent on the Government to address them at the earliest opportunity. As well as imminent and well known issues such as the need to roll out ultrafast broadband countrywide and the development of skills and digital clusters, the report also highlights the particular issue of what to do about the claim that up to 35 percent of jobs over the next two decades will be automated.

April 2, 2014

New consortium aims to standardise technology to drive Internet of Things

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Technology

The development of the much talked-about Internet of Things has been boosted with the announcement that AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel have come together to form a group called the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) which will aim to standardise the way certain technologies function and so drive the uptake of the Internet of Things. The group has the apparent backing of the White House which has also announced that it will invest $100 million in research into the way physical objects can be linked to the internet, which is the fundamental principle of the Internet of Things. The IIC will be outlining its own plans in the near future to establish a common, global framework for the development of inter-connected digital and physical worlds and so sped up the adoption of an idea that promises to transform many aspects of our lives but which has not moved quickly enough, according to many commentators.

March 6, 2014

Business continuity report confirms technology still biggest threat to firms

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Forget the recent UK floods. When it comes to risks to their businesses, it’s still tech that keeps business leaders awake at night, according to the latest annual Business Continuity Institute Horizon Scan report. Technology related threats continue to rank higher than natural disasters, security and industrial action according to the report which gauges the threats that organisations consider to be their biggest concerns. Nearly four-fifths of business leaders fear that an unplanned technological event, cyber attack or data breach will harm their business. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) consider malicious attacks through the Internet a major threat that needs to be managed closely, while nearly two-thirds (63 percent) think that social media remains a challenge. Meanwhile, one of last year’s threats – supply chain resilience – dropped out of the top ten completely.

September 11, 2013

Three quarters of companies allow BYOD, but most admit data security concerns

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

In the same week that Apple launches the iPhone 5S, over half (56%) of CIOs have said they allow employees to use their own smartphones in the workplace, and over three quarters (76%) of staff are allowed to use their own mobile data devices. While the research from Robert Half Technology found the biggest BYOD challenge is security, cited by over half (53%) of respondents, the Verizon 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report into global data breaches provides some reassurance that 86 per cent of cyber-attacks do not knowingly involve insiders. However lax internal practices, like copying data onto a USB drive or leaving a device in a cab does lead to security breaches, accounting for 41 per cent of cases of misuse. More →

April 11, 2013

Survey exposes social media and non work-related activities of staff

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, Legal news, News, Technology, Workplace

One in three British employees spends time on social media or prints private files on company printers instead of working; one in four searches for other employment from the work computer and 12 per cent take company files home. This is according to research carried out for Safetica, a provider of employee monitoring and data protection software, to ascertain whether British employees use their computers for non-work-related activities while they should be working, even when knowing it’s against company policy.

January 31, 2013

Workers fear social media leads to loss of privacy

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Technology, Workplace

According to a new report from AVG Technologies, more than half of adults believe that their privacy is being eroded at work because of the proliferation of social media. The Digital Work Life survey asked 4,000 people in ten countries about the experiences of and beliefs about issues such as cyberbullying, privacy and their approach to creating a better balance between their private and working lives. One in ten respondents had discovered secret discussions about themselves and 11 percent had embarrassing photos or videos taken at a work event and uploaded onto social media sites.