February 1, 2019
The Top Employers Institute, a certifier recognising employers that provide world-class employee conditions, has released its list of Certified UK Top Employers for 2019. Over 600 HR professionals gathered at London’s Hilton on Park Lane, on the 31st January 2019, to recognise the best employers in the UK. More →
January 28, 2019
IT consultancy Infosys has released new research, the Infosys Digital Radar 2019, which it claims reveals the digital transformation maturity of businesses around the world in 2018, and what it takes to navigate the next stage of their journey. Its main claim is that to become digitally advanced, organisations need to run multiple digital initiatives at scale at the same time. It suggests that organisations in the UK are now significantly ahead of the global average when it comes to their digital transformation, including countries like the United States and Germany.
January 22, 2019
Although executives have high expectations for the impact that AI will have on their businesses according to Cognizant’s new report, ‘Making AI Responsible – and Effective, only half of companies have policies and procedures in place to identify and address the ethical considerations of its applications and implementations. The study analyses the responses of almost 1,000 executives across the financial services, technology, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, insurance and media & entertainment industries in Europe and the US. The research suggests that business leaders are positive about the importance and potential benefits of AI. Roughly two- thirds (63 percent) say that AI is extremely or very important to their companies today, and 84 percent expect this will be the case three years from now. Lower costs, increased revenues and the ability to introduce new products or services, or to diversify were cited as the key advantages for the future.
January 10, 2019
The RSA Future Work Centre has published a new essay collection which it claims presents fresh perspectives on the future of work. The report claims that there are four basic problems with the mainstream narrative about work: that there is a fixation with certain technologies, especially artificial intelligence and robotics; that this in turn leads to a distorted perception of the effects of technology; that this analysis ignores reality in favour of potential; and that technological change does not take place in a vacuum and has a number of knock-on effects that aren’t always considered. Worth noting that the authors of the essays are predominantly academic and the report focuses almost exclusively on the effects of technology.
December 4, 2018
An alliance of experts specialising in digital, manufacturing, building performance standards and construction technology has been awarded leadership of a new national Hub to drive innovation and technological advances in the UK construction and infrastructure sectors. Following a nationwide competition, Innovate UK has awarded £72 million to the Transforming Construction Alliance to deliver a national Core Innovation Hub, a key element of the Transforming Construction programme. The alliance brings together the specialist expertise of the MTC (Manufacturing Technology Centre), BRE (Building Research Establishment) and the CDBB (University of Cambridge Centre for Digital Built Britain).
November 29, 2018
Dell Technologies have shared their predictions for 2019. Its central forecast is that this will be the year of the data-driven digital ecosystem, bringing us one step closer to 2030, which Dell describes as the next era of human-machine partnerships and a society where we will be immersed in smart living, intelligent work, and a frictionless economy. This includes: The spark of the next gold rush in tech investments, spurred by the greater value to be derived from data; 5G paving the way for micro-hubs to line our streets, and the opportunity for real-time insights; Multi-cloud environments driving automation, AI and ML processing into high gear; Making room in the workforce for Gen Z; and stronger, smarter and greener supply chains
November 9, 2018
Sometime over the past few years, the search for possible locations for the latest tech giant palace has become something of a media preoccupation. Typical of the stories this quest generates is this piece in the New York Times about Google’s search for new property in the city. But the apotheosis of all this has been Amazon’s quest for a new HQ in the US, leading to an unedifying scrabble between municipal authorities keen to attract the lair of OmniCorp to their turf.
October 8, 2018
A new report published by Information Services Group (ISG) claims that UK banks are already moving headcount out of the UK and building new centres of excellence in other EU countries. The reason it suggests is because Brexit is likely to disrupt the UK and Europe applications development and maintenance (ADM) services markets in the coming months, with the impact felt most notably in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare and life sciences (HCLS) and manufacturing sectors. However, a September report from Reuters found that so far just 630 jobs in the finance sector have been relocated from the UK. More →
October 8, 2018
Men with GCSE qualifications or below employed in certain manual occupations are more likely than other groups to work in industries at particular risk from new barriers to trade with the EU after Brexit. Historically, those in this group have struggled to find equally well-paid work elsewhere when job losses have occurred. That is one of the key conclusions from detailed new analysis of trade data carried out by researchers at IFS and funded by the ESRC’s UK in a Changing Europe initiative.
September 24, 2018
When board members in big firms make critical decisions about their organisations, it is almost always behind closed doors. So exactly how and if senior leaders draw on big data factors in their decision-making is largely unexplained. Researchers from Brunel University studied top-level decisions by board managers at 19 organisations in manufacturing, finance, consultancy, IT and air travel. The study, published in the Journal of Business Research looked at how board managers think and act and the mental models and skills they use to weigh up big data. Directors, it suggests, recognise big data’s potential to improve their decision-making. But many admit feeling ill-equipped to do this, whether through their own technical skills or the new type of non-linear thinking needed. More →
September 24, 2018
New research by 247meeting claims to have uncovered worrying lapses in data security in the workplace, with senior management often being the biggest culprits. According to the report: a quarter of senior managers have experienced a stranger on a conference call; 26 percent of employees with access to customer data haven’t been trained on GDPR; over a third of employees don’t know where their security policy is saved; and almost half of employees admit to using technology tools to communicate at work without them being password protected
February 19, 2019
Cold noses and warm design; a review of the Stockholm Furniture Fair
by John Sacks • Comment, Workplace design
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