May 12, 2020

Government publishes guidance on how people should safely return to work

The UK Government has issued new guidance to help people return to work safely. Measures include redesigns of all workplaces including offices to maintain social distancing, staggered times of work, the use of as many entrances to a building as possible and changed layouts. The guidelines cover eight workplace settings including construction, offices and contact centres, factories, plants and warehouses and shops. More →

May 11, 2020

Reshaping ourselves to fit in a new era for work

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Workplace

The ethical, practical and philosophical implications of how we live alongside new forms of technology is something we will have to address very soon. It is a point well made in this conversation between Kate Darling of MIT and the neuroscientist Sam Harris. But we’ve had parts of this conversation before. For example, while most people will not have read the book from which it came, those with an interest in work, workplaces and their links with our happiness (or perceived lack of it) will know that the British philosopher Bertrand Russell once famously said that “one of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important”.

May 11, 2020

Hygiene remains main concern of people returning to work

by Neil Franklin • News

As lockdown measures begin to ease, many UK office workers are concerned about going back to the office – with worries rife over being able to maintain social distancing (59 percent) and appropriate hygiene and cleaning standards (44 percent), according to new research. The YouGov poll, for the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM) surveyed office workers across the country to reveal that over a third (34 percent) are concerned about getting used to a corporate office culture again after the lockdown. More →

May 11, 2020

Employee productivity proves remarkably resilient during pandemic

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

The surge in remote working coupled with the rapid adoption of communications and collaborative technology means many companies have seen no significant change in employee productivity, according to a new report from Willis Towers Watson. Organisations have responded to the rapid disruption caused by the dramatic spread of COVID-19 by finding innovative ways to help their workers cope with the impact of the pandemic, while at the same time preparing for an eventual return to the workplace for many employees, according to the survey of employers’. More →

May 7, 2020

Remote working has a number of hidden risks

by Dave Cook • Features, Flexible working, Wellbeing

Many of us have had little choice but to resort to remote working in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. It is just days since Google, Apple and Twitter were making headlines by ordering their employees to work from home, but you could now say the same about lots of companies. More →

May 7, 2020

Coronavirus crisis drives freelancer confidence to unimagined lows

by Neil Franklin • News

Freelancers’ confidence in their businesses and the wider economy has been driven to record lows by the Coronavirus crisis, according to research by IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed) and PeoplePerHour, Europe’s largest freelance marketplace. Freelancers’ three month confidence in their businesses had already fallen to a six-year low last quarter because of concerns about the changes to IR35 tax regulations. More →

May 6, 2020

Organisations think empowering people is the route to success (but only a few act)

by Neil Franklin • News

Nearly 90 percent of organisations say their success depends on empowering frontline employees to make decisions in real, but only 7 percent offer people the tools they need, according to a new report from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, sponsored by ThoughtSpot. The report, The New Decision Makers: Equipping Frontline Workers For Success, analyses the sentiments of 464 business executives from 16 industry sectors in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Only one-fifth of organisations say they currently have a truly empowered and digitally equipped workforce while 86 percent agree their frontline workers need better technology and more insight to be able to make good decisions in the moment. More →

May 6, 2020

Employees reluctant to give up flexible working after lockdown

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

New working patterns prompted by COVID-19 could cause employees to permanently reduce time spent in the office, as nearly half (45 percent) of Brits predict a permanent change to their employers’ approach to flexible working when lockdown lifts. O2 Business’ new report – entitled The Flexible Future of Work, conducted in partnership with ICM and YouGov – claims that employees will be reluctant to give up their new way of working after lockdown. Nearly half the workforce think flexible working will increase, with a third (33 percent) of this group expecting to increase the amount they work from home by at least three days a week after lockdown, and 81 percent expecting to work at least one day a week from home. More →

May 5, 2020

The six best ways to increase engagement in remote workers

by Marie Hillen • Company news

We exist in an era in which the ways in which we engage employees shift continuously in parallel with their working hours. Technology and innovative workforce policy allow businesses to include remote workers anywhere and at any time. While this opens up a number of opportunities for work-life integration, it may also pose a number of specific challenges. More →

May 5, 2020

From the archive: We shouldn’t rely on narrow ideas to define flexible working

by Luke Munro • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing

This piece was originally published five years ago. While we now read it with different eyes, what is interesting is how the ideas have stood up. Some better than others perhaps but a welcome reminder that the conversations we are now having about life after lockdown began some time ago. One of the particular and often unspoken issues that shadows in any debate about flexible working is what we mean by the term. We’ve been talking about new ways of working for a good quarter of a century now and what is generally understood about the practice has evolved considerably. The very idea was conceived at the birth of the new online era so is inextricably tied up with the Internet and new technology. More →

May 1, 2020

Organisations should seize this opportunity to look at their values

by James Morley • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

Not since 911 has one event triggered such global impact and uncertainty across all businesses and industries. The unprecedented speed and scale of organisational change has challenged even the prepared leadership team. More →

April 30, 2020

We need to talk more about how we get to work in the first place

by Andrew Brown • Comment

More and more politicians and business leaders are keen to see the UK ease lockdown and begin a move towards returning to work. Is it’s too early to plan the exit from lockdown? Maybe. But either way, the general chatter about what a post COVID19 will look has predictably fanned the debate about how workplace will cope. It is a good debate, with valid ideas shared by the likes of Antony Slumbers, Neil Usher and others. More →