Search Results for: freelance

January 16, 2014

Workplace is in a state of flux, with many more changes to come

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Although we remain wary of predicting the workplace of the future, it is useful to discover what managers think is likely to happen, even if some of it is pretty obvious. In a new survey, HR decision-makers forecast the workforce of 2018 will look fundamentally different from that of 2013; including more workers opting to work part-time rather than retire (92%), managing an older workforce (88%), individuals maintaining and developing skill sets in multiple simultaneous careers (79%) and more than half of all workers being temporary / on contract or freelance (60%). A whopping 98 per cent of organisations have already experienced some kind of major organisational change over the last five years – the most common being restructuring (74%), a change in leadership (64%) and downsizing (64%). More →

December 12, 2013

The creative talent in the UK’s regions (other than London) is quietly thriving

by Charles Marks • Comment, Property, Technology, Workplace

We can now be very confident that the UK economy is on an enduring upward path. We can also be sure that the UK that emerges from five years of recession will be very different to the one that entered it. And on that score things look pretty promising too, because we have the skills and talent needed in some of the world’s most in-demand sectors such as digital media, banking, software development, telecoms and publishing. In fact a recent report from Deloitte says that London employs more people in these and similar knowledge-based sectors than any other country in the world. But while London has an inevitable tendency to grab these sorts of headlines, it’s also great to acknowledge that London doesn’t have a monopoly on this pool of talent, and may even be less attractive as a base for some firms.

November 19, 2013

2020 vision is a useless metaphor for far-sightedness in a number of ways

by Simon Heath • Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Technology, Workplace design

The year 2020 is a mere seven years away. Yet the designers of the future workplace and those who invite them to talk about it are still referring to it as if it marks the next frontier of human endeavour and as if we weren’t already up to our collective armpits in the 21st century. The idea of 20/20 vision is considered, in ophthalmological circles at least, to represent “normal” visual acuity and is dependent on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye and the sensitivity of the interpretative faculty of the brain. In practical terms, this means it’s about seeing and interpreting what is directly in front of us at a distance of around 6 metres. So as a metaphor for farsightedness regarding the future of work or workplaces it’s always been a poor one. And as we get closer to the eponymous year, it becomes worse day by day.

November 12, 2013

UK leads the world in talent, but it needs the right culture in which to thrive

by Philip Ross • Comment, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

We should never take the UK’s talent base for granted. According to a new report from Deloitte, when it comes to employment levels of people in knowledge based jobs in high skill sectors such as digital media, banking, legal services, software development, telecoms and publishing, London is comfortably the world’s leading city. The study found that London employed 1.5 million people in the 22 sectors surveyed, compared with 1.2 million in New York, 784,000 in Los Angeles, 630,000 in Hong Kong and 425,000 in Boston. The report also predicts that London will enjoy rapid growth in employment levels in these sectors over the next seven years, adding around 100,000 more people and that while a decline in employment is foreseen in financial services, this will be more than offset by strong growth in creative and media businesses.

October 30, 2013

IT managers yet to accept the whole challenge presented to them by BYOD

by Brandon Allen • Comment, Technology

How exactly does an employee’s convenience trump an organisation’s need for control? That’s the debate corporations are facing when it comes to managing the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ trend. BYOD allows employees to use their personal mobile products for business. In 2012, IBM decided a majority of their workforce could use their own phones and tablets for work purposes, but the company had high concerns about security, according to a report in the MIT Technology Review. They needed to quickly find solutions to the problem instead of fighting the inevitable. So given the inevitability of BYOD and the lack of control that accompanies it, what is the upside for businesses and how does an IT department ready itself for the BYOD challenge?

October 22, 2013

What happens in a designer’s mind and Mac can be very different to reality

by Simon Heath • Architecture, Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Workplace design

Social media is inarguably closing the gap between organisations and consumers of their services. Advances in the way we interrogate the opinions of building users are lifting the veil on some sharp practices in management and the negative impacts of poorly thought out design or badly executed installation of designs into the built environment. The positive impacts of this new, more open world are evident in changing attitudes to mental health and other wellness issues that affect us in the workplace. And it is becoming ever more evident in the response to a clear disconnect between what happens inside the designer or architect’s MacBook and its effect on the physical spaces with, and within which, we interact.

October 2, 2013

Open source talent could rewrite the meaning of the term workforce

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

The digital revolution has changed the definition of the “workplace”, from a physical building where employees go to perform the tasks for which they get paid – to a more flexible model that allows staff to perform and deliver work from a variety of locations. But the employers’ role, i.e. managing the talent wherever they are based, has remained the same. Not for much longer – suggest analysts from Deloitte in a new paper, The Open Talent Economy, which describes the evolving workforce as a mixture of full-time employees, contractors and freelancers and – increasingly – people with no formal ties to a business at all. What’s more, in the future this “open source talent” will ultimately rewrite what the term “workforce” actually means. More →

September 30, 2013

United States and Europe; closing the gap on flexible working law

by Debbie Kovak • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news

Vermont became the first U.S. state to enact a law requiring employers to consider workers’ requests for a flexible schedule without fear of retaliation. The law, signed by the governor in May, includes a statutory process which requires “good faith” discussions relative to the employee’s needs and the company’s business operations. Despite Vermont’s efforts to make the workplace more accommodating, the United States still lags behind Europe when it comes to flexible work schedules and accommodating family life issues. For example, Vermont is already a decade behind the United Kingdom which passed similar legislation in 2003. The reasons for this are not cut-and-dried either.

September 17, 2013

Businesses report a growing appetite for social media work tools

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Technology

Social media, as politicians and celebrities are all too aware is a double edged sword. Just last week David Cameron read out a Twitter message during Prime Minister’s Questions sent to a Labour MP, who had asked people for suggestions about what to ask at PMQs. The first reply was “how happy are you that the Labour leader will still be in place at the next election?” And Cameron himself has not been exempt to the odd twitter gaffe. Social media is such a powerful tool however, that employers can’t afford to ignore it – so demand for enterprise social networks – business tools that use Facebook-style features to allow staff to interact with one another on work projects are on the increase. More →

September 12, 2013

When it comes to transparency, most businesses might fail The Peacock Test

by Simon Heath • Comment, Workplace

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The HR profession took a savaging yesterday in a Daily Telegraph article by Louisa Peacock following what many felt to be a disastrous appearance by the BBC’s head of HR, Lucy Adams in front of the Public Accounts Committee. You can see a brutal excerpt above. A thread of sensationalism runs through the Telegraph piece but some good points are made that have broader lessons for the commercial world. There have been acres of coverage generated by the debacle at the Beeb, but there is a real sense of “there but for the grace of God go I” and schadenfreude about much of the commentary and chatter from the business community.

July 12, 2013

The challenge in Silicon Alley is providing the right quantity and quality of office space

by Charles Marks • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

News emerges from BNP Paribas that the most dynamic occupiers in Western European property markets belong to the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector and that the most important market in the region is London. This comes as no surprise given the plans of Google to move to its new home in King’s Cross and the focus on developments in Tech City. But the same hothousing of TMT businesses is also evident in the area Prime Minister David Cameron has referred to as Silicon Alley, a cluster of businesses running alongside the M4 originally clustered between Reading and Swindon but now extending as far as Bristol. Companies that have found a home in the area include the likes of Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Ericsson, Vodafone, O2, Citrix, Dell, Huawei, Lexmark, LG, Novell, Nvidia, Panasonic, SAP and Symantec not to mention the countless other smaller businesses, consultants and freelancers that share this hothouse.

July 9, 2013

BIFM partnership with DWP may prove an ill-advised and short-lived union

by Simon Heath • Comment, Facilities management

Rather like someone who collects friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter with the obsessiveness of the avid lepidopterist completist, news reaches us from the British Institute of Facilities Management concerning yet another partnership. Not content with the recently announced merger with Asset Skills, the Facilities Management Association and the Cleaning and Support Services Association, this time it’s the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) that is the object of BIFM’s affections. Not that BIFM are considering moving in to Caxton House and a run for Parliament in 2015 (at least not that we are aware of). But while BIFM are, understandably, trumpeting the signing of this joint agreement, the DWP are not. In fact, if one searches on www.gov.uk using the search terms “BIFM” or “British Institute of Facilities Management” no results are returned.