Search Results for: labour

Established businesses must do more to support local entrepreneurs and startups

Established businesses must do more to support local entrepreneurs and startups

by • Company news

With SME’s accounting for the employment of more than half of the UK’s workforce, supporting these businesses is of benefit to everyone while geopolitical events and the impact of the pandemic continue to cause economic uncertainty.  Entrepreneurs and small businesses are vital for spurring on evolutions in our technology and creating new markets for services and products, therefore bringing about competition which in turn boosts productivity that benefits our own and other economies, helping them withstand and recover faster from financial downturns. (more…)

Working from home can lead to fathers doing less childcare and mothers doing more

Working from home can lead to fathers doing less childcare and mothers doing more

by • Flexible working, News

working from homeAn analysis of survey data on 1,694 parents of young children found that working from home can result in a “traditional division of housework and childcare”, with men fearing they may lose their masculinity when taking on more routine tasks. Although the research, by Professor Heejung Chung, of the University of Kent, and Dr Cara Booker, University of Essex, uses data from 2010-16, they believe its conclusions are still valid now, at a time when the pandemic has greatly increased home working. (more…)

Skills gap is the most prominent hiring challenge facing HR leaders

Skills gap is the most prominent hiring challenge facing HR leaders

by • News, Workplace

skills gapNew research from ECI Partners, a private equity firm, suggests that HR leaders believe the most prominent hiring challenge they currently face is a lack of technical skills and knowledge. Nearly a fifth (18.3 percent) of managers said this was their single biggest obstacle, highlighting the growing concern over the UK’s skills gap. The current labour shortages prompted by a range of factors including Brexit and Covid-19, appear to have further widened the skills gap for recruiters. (more…)

Is the growing number of working mums a cause for celebration or concern?

Is the growing number of working mums a cause for celebration or concern?

by • Comment, Wellbeing

working mumsWorking mothers are a resilient group, accustomed to juggling work responsibilities and family time with aplomb. Such was the conclusion in a report from McKinsey last year. But the day-to-day challenges they face can severely test that resilience. The proportion of working mums in the UK has just matched the highest ever recorded figure. In the three months to June, 75 per cent of women with dependent children were in employment, according to the Office for National Statistics. By comparison, 93 per cent of fathers were in employment during the same period. (more…)

A safe and healthy working environment is now a human right

A safe and healthy working environment is now a human right

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

healthy working environmentA landmark decision was made recently in the long history of efforts to protect people from injury and illness at work. At a hybrid conference held by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, for those attending in person, delegates voted in favour of a resolution to make the principle of a safe and healthy work environment a human right. That’s correct; we managed to reach the third decade of the 21st century without a safe workplace being a fundamental right of us all. (more…)

Benefits of zero-hours contracts outweigh downsides for most people

Benefits of zero-hours contracts outweigh downsides for most people

by • News, Workplace

zero hours contractsNew research from the CIPD suggests there needs to be a more balanced and nuanced debate about their place in the labour market, that recognises both the positives and downsides to zero-hours work. The CIPD’s new research ‘Zero-hours contracts – Evolution and current status’– claims that this kind of arrangement – where there’s no guaranteed minimum number of hours that must be worked – is an established part of the UK labour market. It finds that the number of people on ZHCs has changed little since 2015, making up just 3 percent of employment. Fewer than a fifth of employers (18 percent) use ZHCs, and they’re most often used in the hospitality and entertainment industries, in the voluntary sector, and typically in roles such as bar staff, waiters/waitresses, and care workers. (more…)

It should be much easier to identify genuinely green products

It should be much easier to identify genuinely green products

by • Comment, Environment

green productsWe all need to become more environmentally conscious, so there’s a greater focus than ever on workplace sustainability. Trying to find greener products, and making sure they truly are better than the alternatives, is a complex task. Once you’ve acknowledged that you really do need to make a purchase and other options have been exhausted, you’re in a prime position to swap to a cleaner, greener alternative, but choosing one product over another can be a headache.  (more…)

Rising office fit-out costs begin to hit occupiers

Rising office fit-out costs begin to hit occupiers

by • News, Property

office fit-out costsAn analysis by Savills of Q2 2022 Prime Office Costs (SPOC) in global markets around the world suggests that inflation and supply chain issues are now feeding into office fit-out costs and keeping occupiers’ net effective costs high in many cities around the world. Over the past year office fit-out costs have risen an average of 6 percent across the SPOC cities that have so far reported rises says Savills, although proportionally they remain a small part of overall costs compared to rents. (more…)

The UK is entering a new unstable period of employment relations

The UK is entering a new unstable period of employment relations

by • News, Workplace

employment relationsA new study from the CIPD shows that a tight labour market, combined with a cost-of-living crisis and falling wages, could fuel further industrial action in the coming months. The CIPD is urging employers to engage with their recognised employee representatives and trade unions to avoid issues escalating to strike action. The data, gathered in January 2022, offered  what the CIPD says is a stark warning for what has now become a reality – that a lack of engagement with employee representatives will lead to worse employment relations and possible strike action. (more…)

Four day week rejected by majority of SME leaders

Four day week rejected by majority of SME leaders

by • Flexible working, News

four day weekAround three quarters (76 percent) of UK business leaders are either unlikely or very unlikely to introduce the four day work week to their business, according to the latest quarterly UK SME CEO Confidence Index for Q2 2022 from Vistage. The study reports that the SME business confidence index hit 77 points, a 22 percent decrease since the last quarter. The index suggests that small and medium sized businesses overall feel pessimistic about the current economic landscape. 69 percent of SME leaders think that economic conditions have significantly worsened over the last 12 months. Only 5 percent predict that the economic landscape will improve over the next year, while 72 percent strongly believe that the economy will further deteriorate. (more…)

We need to stop misusing the term ergonomic

We need to stop misusing the term ergonomic

by • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design, Works Magazine

Sedus ergonomic working from homeYou don’t have to search for long to find the word ergonomic; it pops up everywhere, in connection with every sort of product and device for the workplace (and elsewhere). You can – so the marketeers will tell you – buy an ‘ergonomic’ chair, desk, keyboard or mouse. What’s wrong with that? An awful lot actually. The word ergonomic has a particular meaning. Ergonomics (note the crucial addition of an ‘s’ at the end), from the Greek ‘Ergos’ for work or labour and ‘Nomos’, meaning natural law, is the discipline of designing and arranging an environment to optimise the comfort and performance of the individual. (more…)

UK is third most attractive place to work in Europe

UK is third most attractive place to work in Europe

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

most attractive place to workThe UK is the third most attractive place to work in Europe and experienced a stronger “brain-gain” than other major economies, according to a report from job site Indeed. It analysed nearly one billion data points including more than 800 million cross-border job searches and over 100 million job postings and found that cross-border searches by European jobseekers are up 13 percent from their pandemic low of -32 percent.   At the same time, Europe has become increasingly popular to jobseekers outside of the continent: inbound searches from jobseekers based outside Europe are a staggering 38 percent above the 2017-19 average, up from the pandemic low of -31 percent. (more…)

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