Search Results for: digital

December 19, 2016

UK digital divide narrows, but major problems remain for homes and offices ⁰

The UK’s patchy and frequently shoddy broadband network has held back the country for a long time. According to a new report from industry regulator Ofcom, however, there are signs of improvement with the number of UK domestic and commercial properties unable to get a decent broadband connection falling by one million over the past year. Even so, around 5 percent of offices and homes are unable to enjoy broadband speeds over 10 Mbit/s, the speed Ofcom claims is required to meet a typical household’s digital needs. The findings are part of Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2016 report – an in-depth look at the state of the UK’s telecoms and wireless networks. This year’s report shows good progress on the availability and take-up of communications services, which are crucial to people’s personal and working lives.

December 5, 2016

Just one percent of UK firms are ready for the digital economy ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

A new study by Oxford Economics and SAP claims that just one in every 100 organisations in the UK is capitalising on the digital economy, significantly fewer than in comparable European countries such as Germany where the figure is more than 2 in 5 and Spain (22 percent). According to the study, the benefits of digital readiness include greater workforce diversity. The ‘digital winners’ defined by the report have higher female representation at mid-management level level and slightly more women overall. Four in ten of the study’s digital winners globally reported effective diversity programmes, compared to 36 percent of all companies in France, 33 percent in Russia, 30 percent in the UK and 23 percent in Spain.

November 25, 2016

Reducing paper-weight is the key to maintaining a healthy business in the digital age ⁰

by Chas Moloney • Comment, Technology

The idea of creating a paperless office has been circulating for at least 40 years. Business Week famously forecast its arrival in 1975, predicting that paper would be on its way out by 1980 and dead by 1990. However, it’s almost 2017 and even with new and innovative digital technologies that enable us to operate in a highly connected world, the paper-light office is still far from our reality. Yet institutions from a variety of different sectors are leading the way when it comes to driving initiatives forward to going paperless and paper-light. For example, to address the need of approximately 12 million people in the UK that annually fill in a self-assessment tax form, plans have been put in place by the government to give individual digital accounts, aiming to allow more than 50 million individuals and small businesses to manage their tax affairs online. As a result, costs will be significantly cut by erasing expensive and laborious bureaucratic processes in the long-term, whilst fundamentally streamlining and simplifying intricate business services and applications.

November 18, 2016

HR directors struggle to devise long term digital workplace strategies ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

One of the effects of the UK’s falling unemployment levels is that HR Directors risk becoming so consumed with issues of talent retention and hiring that they are unable to plan effectively and build a long term strategy for their business, especially when it comes to key emerging issues such as the digital workplace. While the latest ONS statistics show that UK unemployment fell by 37,000 to 1.6 million in the three months to September, hitting an 11-year low, in an anonymous survey carried out by The Curve Group, 92 percent of HR Directors say re-designing their organisation in response to the emergence of the digital workplace, new entrants and a flat economy should be their main priority, but only 44 percent feel able to do so.

October 20, 2016

Small businesses failing to reap full benefits of digital skills ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Small businesses in the UK are failing to invest enough in digital skills even though there is clear link between digital orientation and commercial success, according to Lloyds Bank’s third annual Business Digital Index. The reports key finding is that firms with a string digital focus are twice as likely to see an increase in turnover than those that aren’t. The report also found that 65 percent of small business owners in the UK have already used digital tools to cut costs. On the down side, the study also found that 38 percent of small firms lack “basic digital skills”. The report claims that independent sole traders have the lowest levels of digital skills with around half having just basic levels of expertise. Despite this, over three quarters (78 percent) of these had no plans to invest to increase the levels of expertise in their business. The study gauged five factors that contribute to a firm’s digital skills score including managing information, communicating, transacting, creating and problem solving, with 62 percent of small businesses were found to have all five skills.

October 14, 2016

Digital tech, leadership and company values aid staff performance ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace

Accessible leaders and strong company values are important factors that can ultimately reflect an employee’s success or failure within the company. However,so too is equipping employees with the latest technology, and it’s an area where many organisations are falling down. A study by Oracle awarded low marks when it came to companies capitalising on technology to help them connect with employees in more ways than ever to create a more modern and customised learning experience. Just 44 percent of respondents said that their employer uses the latest digital technology to enable them to effectively perform in their role. Feedback from nearly 5,000 full-time employees at organisations with 250 or more employees also revealed that only 38 percent say that their company is concerned about their overall well-being, despite the fact that employees are most comfortable and productive within a creative, yet flexible workplace culture. More →

October 11, 2016

Digital diversity hub launched by RICS to coincide with Coming Out Day ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News

Today is Coming Out Day and as part of a greater drive for diversity, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has launched a new digital hub designed to help its members create more inclusive workforces. To underscore the need for greater diversity, RICS cites a 2015 survey carried out by the Architects’ Journal, just 16 percent of gay employees believe the industry is inclusive of LGBT workers, up to a third feel that their sexuality creates barriers to career progression and 85 percent claim to have encountered homophobia at least once during their careers.

August 10, 2016

The solution to closing the digital skills gap starts at home ⁰

by Andrea Chadwick • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

Much has already been written about the UK’s digital skills gap, and undoubtedly as the Government continues to develop and roll out its Digital Strategy for the nation, many more headlines will be devoted to it. For a country so focused on technological development it’s a problem which is both acute and imperative. Recent Government figures put 12.6 million Britons at risk of being left behind in terms of the skills needed for a modern economy. Parliamentary plans to address this issue focus firmly on education: including digital development as a key part of apprenticeships, encouraging vocational digital skills courses at universities, and broadening access to other educational courses to help people to learn to code. However, responsibility to upskill the nation’s workforce also resides with employers. Whether the current role demands IT skills or not, technology increasingly impacts and transforms every element of our lives.

July 27, 2016

Bridging the UK’s persistent productivity and digital skills gap ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Two of the most persistent and related structural problems facing the UK economy are the productivity and digital skills gaps. Earlier this month, the Office for National Statistics reported that there had been a further 1.2 percent fall in productivity. Part of the reason for this is that there is an underlying digital skills gap. According to a report from Barclays, nearly a third (31 percent) of working-age adults in the UK lack even basic digital problem-solving skills which places the country comfortably below the 37 percent average across OECD countries. Despite this, a mere 38 percent of UK employers offer their workers digital skills training, perhaps because on the other side of the coin, the UK ranks highly in what the report calls ‘digital empowerment’, which it defines as ‘the ability and desire to use one’s digital skills to work productively and creatively, and to have the opportunity to continually upgrade them to keep pace with changing technology’.

June 13, 2016

UK faces digital skills gap … but simply hiring Millennials won’t close it ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

Although the UK remains a global tech leader, the country remains in the grip of a digital skills crisis which is holding back productivity and costs around £63 billion each year, according to a report published today by the Commons Science and Technology Committee. The report claims that 12.6 million UK adults lack even basic digital skills, and nearly half of these people (5.8 million) have never even used the internet. Meanwhile, a coincidental report published by Cisco claims that those organisations who apparently assume they can close the gap by merely employing so-called Millennials, will be disappointed because there’s no great correlation between age and confidence in using digital technology. The Digital Culture Clash report found the only meaningful correlations were between the type of work an individual does, their level of employment and their competence and confidence in using technology.

June 10, 2016

What holiday? Why it is vital for productivity to take a digital detox ⁰

by Ciara McGrath • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace

The explosion of digital devices means that we’re always connected to the office, wherever we might be. In a survey conducted by the Chartered Management Institute, only half of UK managers booked a summer holiday. While 35 percent put their annual holiday plans on hold, 69 percent of those not taking a holiday cited their workload as a reason why. Even for those taking some time off, 12 percent planned to check their email daily, 19 percent said they would check their mail most days, and 26 percent planned to check at least once or twice a week. In the US, the situation is the same; 61 percent of employees said that they planned to work during their break. 38 percent planned to spend time reading emails, 32 percent said they would access work-related documents while on holiday, 30 percent planned to take work phone calls, and 20 percent would complete work tasks if asked by a colleague, boss or client.

May 26, 2016

Digital mobility to work anytime, anywhere is key to job satisfaction ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

In a further nod to the growing relevance of flexible working, the ability to work anytime, anywhere is now key to job satisfaction with well over a third (38 percent) of employees in a global survey rating this as the number one factor, with the UK (43 percent) scoring this the highest. According to the “Mobility, Performance and Engagement” report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Aruba, employees in Western countries report themselves to be happier in their jobs, more loyal to their employers and more productive in their work compared to their counterparts in Eastern markets. When it comes to securing loyalty, the ability to hot desk was seen as paramount by many employees, notably in Singapore (37 percent), UAE (31 percent) and the US (34 percent), while the ability to collaborate with other employees was the number one choice for employees in Germany (43 percent), France (37 percent) and Japan (35 percent).