Search Results for: financial services

October 12, 2016

Flexible hours key to achieving gender balance in finance sector ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Improvements in flexible working are among the key steps being taken to help achieve gender balance within the financial services sector, according to the UK Treasury. Financial services is the country’s highest paid sector but has the widest gender pay gap, at 39.5 percent, compared with 19.2 percent across the economy. The ‘Women in Finance Charter’, was set up by the Treasury earlier this year to publish progress on gender balance annually and reports that of the 72 firms who signed the charter, 60 have now committed to having at least 30 percent of women in senior roles by 2021. Alongside gender diversity targets, these firms have set out strategies for how they’ll hit these targets, including improving flexible working, making recruitment gender neutral and distributing high profile work more fairly.

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September 22, 2016

Women told to wear heels and vamp up their appearance at work ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Legal news, News, Workplace

It seems the news earlier this year that a woman from an FM company based at PwC had been sent home for not wearing heels is sadly not an isolated incident, as employers regularly tell women to put on more makeup, wear high heels and short skirts. The research by solicitors Slater and Gordon claims large numbers of women feel their employer has unfairly criticised their appearance in the workplace, with nearly one in five (19 percent) saying they felt more attention was paid to their appearance by their bosses than to their male peers. Shockingly, nearly one in 10 women (seven percent) have been told by bosses they preferred them to wear high heels whilst in the office or with clients, because it made them “more appealing”. Many women revealed they had been told to dress more provocatively and to be “sexier” – with almost 90 percent (86 percent) of those pressured to dress “sexier” and feeling their career might suffer if they didn’t comply.

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September 8, 2016

HR remains unprepared for impact on the workforce of Brexit ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

One of the biggest impacts of the Brexit vote will be on recruitment and retention, but less than half of businesses have so far bothered to create a dedicated HR team, claims the latest Willis Towers Watson survey. The majority of companies (56 percent) instead continue to ‘wait and see’ before they take any action to prepare their organisation for Brexit. This is despite two-thirds (66 percent) of employers believing their business in the UK will be significantly affected by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union (EU), and 76 percent most worried about the impact of Brexit on the workforce. The report says that almost four-fifths (78 percent) of companies have begun a consideration of the implications of Brexit and more than half (60 percent) have conducted an assessment of what it means for key areas, but so far only 24 percent have carried out a detailed impact assessment and only a third (33 percent) have done any scenario planning.

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August 6, 2016

HR analytics has the potential to stem the silver brain drain ⁰

by Matt Henderson • Comment, Technology, Workplace

We’re operating in an increasingly tech-centric environment, but human talent still remains one of the core differentiators if a business is to thrive. Not surprisingly, the mission to get the very best people on board and optimise the potential of those already in situ has become the Holy Grail for many companies, irrespective of scale and sector – a challenge that demands a more intuitive and precise, even scientific approach to human capital management. Data analytics is a case in point, designed to extrapolate insight from intelligence across a variety of disparate sources and establish actionable intelligence, capabilities which naturally lend themselves to powering key decisions around hiring and retention and building on existing talent. Yet despite the proliferation of analytics across many strands of the workplace, take up in the HR sphere remains relatively modest, in tandem with a long-held reticence over the use of the technology in this area.

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July 25, 2016

Outmoded desk phone will disappear within next couple of years ⁰

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

A new survey has confirmed the imminent death of the ‘nearly useless’ desk phone, which while still in evidence within many organisations, is believed by one third of workers will disappear in two to three years. With both corporate and remote workers increasingly away from their desks, 65 percent already have a ‘desk phone optional’ work environment and over half (59 percent) believe the desk phone is outdated. The 2016 Report on Business Communications in the Era of the Anywhere Worker, by Dialpad, among end users to executives, on cloud communications adoption rates and expectations, also found that businesses of all sizes are adapting to the “anywhere worker” movement and as employees increasingly rely exclusively on mobile technologies, the organisations they work for are quickly evolving to meet their mobility demands and prepare for more anywhere workers in the future. In fact, 84 percent of responding companies already have remote workers.

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July 11, 2016

Many firms lag behind their customers in use of latest tech innovations ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Just one in three IT decision makers believe advances such as cloud-based solutions, big data and wearable tech will be available in their industry within the next 12 months, according to a new study from Capita. Although the report – Trends vs Technologies – has yet to be published, the firm has released some of its findings. Based on a survey of IT professionals in the insurance, finance, legal services and manufacturing sectors, the study analyses nine key organisational trends and the implementation of related technology. The report claims that while many decision makers describe a tech trend as being relevant to their industry, several barriers to implementation mean solutions are not yet ready and in many cases might be lagging behind consumer take-up of the new technology. The trends named in the report are Big Data, Digital Workplace, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Wearable Tech, Robotics, Cloud Based Solutions, 3D Printers and Virtual Reality.

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June 21, 2016

London office rents predicted to stay strong provided there’s no Brexit ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

The continuing imbalance between the supply and demand for office space throughout London is resulting in a shift in the balance of negotiating power away from tenants, according to the latest London Office Update from Carter Jonas. Rents across Central London have, on average, risen by over 50 percent over the last five years in the West End, Midtown and South Bank office markets, and by over 30 percent in the City of London. Rent free periods have typically fallen by up to six months over the same period. In the next 18-24 months, the trend will continue to be higher rents and shorter rent free periods as availability remains low. While some occupiers may leave London altogether, others may adopt a ‘spoke and hub’ strategy, whereby back office functions relocate to peripheral, lower cost, areas while ‘client facing’ operations are retained in Central London. This prediction assumes that Britain rejects Brexit however, and there are no major economic shocks.

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June 14, 2016

JLL survey claims occupiers and investors think voters will shun Brexit ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

According to a new survey from JLL of top international corporate occupiers and UK-based investors into their business attitudes to the EU referendum, 80 percent held the view that the UK will vote to remain in the EU. The survey claims that investors are less fearful of impact of Brexit on their long term property strategies than corporate occupiers and that the London office market is viewed as the property sector that would be most impacted by a vote to leave. The survey also revealed attitudes of corporates and investors to future property market decisions in the event of a Brexit. 60 percent of the investors surveyed felt that there would be no changes to their property strategy in the short or long term as a result of a leave vote. Only 30 percent expect reduced allocations in UK property. Of the corporate occupiers surveyed, almost half foresaw they would need to review their UK business space in both the short or long term.

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May 11, 2016

Central London office activity slows as EU uncertainty hits market ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

Given the level of uncertainty around June’s Referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, the £11.9bn invested into commercial real estate during the first three months of 2016 appeared robust. However, 50 percent of Q1’s volume was in January, with the data from Lambert Smith Hampton showing that activity tapered off significantly in the following two months. Anecdotal evidence clearly linked the slowdown directly to the approaching vote. As a result there was a significant fall in activity, which translated into a very quiet quarter for Central London Offices, where volume halved quarter-on-quarter to £2.2bn, the lowest quarterly total since the last part of 2011. Given that financial services is widely regarded as the most exposed sector to a possible ‘Brexit’, this sector appears to have suffered most from investor caution.In marked contrast, investment in the rest of UK Offices has remained buoyant at £1.4bn, the highest quarterly total since the middle of 2007.

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April 29, 2016

UK’s ‘best workplaces’ announced by Great Place to Work ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace, Workplace design

Great Place to Work has announced what it considers to be the UK’s best workplaces. The category for large firms was headed by McDonald’s and IT firm Softcat followed by Salesforce UK, Cisco, Capital One and Hyatt. The medium sized organisation category was headed by housing association RHP Group followed by manufacturers Cosatto, financial services firm Goodman Masson, R Twining & Company and IT provider UKFast. IT companies were also prominent in the small business category with Foundation SP and DMW, first and second respectively followed by professional services firm Futureheads Recruitment, non-profit Resurge and professional services firm, New Chapter Consulting. Google topped the best multinational category, followed by SAS Institute, manufacturing firm WI Gore & Associates IT firm Net App and telecommunications firm Telefonica. A full report on the awards including its methodology can be found here.

April 17, 2016

Stress and sedentary working remain the UK’s greatest productivity drains ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The effects of stress and sedentary lifestyles mean that the average UK worker loses nearly 24 days of productivity each year, according to a major new report. The study, part of an initiative called Britain’s Healthiest Workplace from VitalityHealth, Mercer, the University of Cambridge and RAND Europe surveyed 32,538 workers and claims that these two factors alone account for an average of 23.5 days of lost productivity each year, equivalent to an annual loss in GDP of £ 57 billion. Stress remains a particularly important issue with three quarters of respondents (73 percent) saying they suffer some form of stress. The two sectors most affected overall also recorded higher incidences of stress. People working in the healthcare and financial services industries lost the most days (26.6 and 24.9 days per employee a year respectively), while tech workers claim to have lost only 18.9 days per employee per year.

April 1, 2016

Rise in European outsourcing of real estate and facilities management ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Companies outsourcing their real estate and facilities management needs have hit record levels across Europe, finds new data. According to CBRE, its EMEA Global Workplace Solutions (GWS) business received a record number of Requests for Information (RFI) or Requests for Proposals (RFP) from organisations wishing to outsource all, or part, of their real estate activities in 2015. This marks a 190 percent increase over 2012, with the data showing the most popular function to outsource is facilities management, with 64 percent of briefs including this service. The trend for outsourcing is also reflected in CBRE’s European Occupier Survey, which spans 120 organisations. Fifty-four percent of respondents noted that that they outsourced some or part of their property requirements. This figure marks an uplift from 30 percent the year before and demonstrates that more corporates are seeking, and using, specialist property advisors for outsourcing advice.