Search Results for: governments

September 9, 2015

Wellness policies often ignore the role of the workplace environment ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

A new meta analysis compiled by researchers from Harvard Business School and Stanford University raises questions about the way Government and organisational policies designed to tackle the problems of work related health costs in the United States have largely ignored the health effects of ‘psychosocial workplace stressors’ such as high job demands, economic insecurity, and long work hours. The analysis of 228 existing studies assessed the effects of ten workplace stressors on four specific health outcomes. The researchers claims that job insecurity increases the odds of reporting poor health by about 50 percent, high job demands raise the odds of having a diagnosed illness by 35 percent, and long work hours increase mortality by almost 20 percent. They argue that any policies designed to address these issues should account for the health effects of the workplace environment.

June 16, 2015

Staff want flexible working but worry about growing fat, stale and lonely

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A new report from Regus, based on a study of 44,000 workers worldwide claims that while many people see flexible working as an important factor in their career choices, they also remain worried about what working from home will mean for their happiness, health, family lives and job prospects. The report claims that many workers are afraid that working from home will mean they grow lonely, overweight and stale. According to the report, home workers still long for a chance to mix with other professionals and so opt to pop out of the house regularly for a change of scenery and to reconnect with the real world. More →

May 18, 2015

European workers optimistic about the impact of workplace technology

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

The European workforce is optimistic about the impact of new and emerging workplace technology although many employers face challenges in pursuing digital business models, according to new research by Accenture. The report claims that more than four times as many workers think technology will improve their working lives than those who think it will have a negative impact. The study of over 2500 workers and 500 business leaders in the EU found that 57 percent of workers think technologies such as robots, apps, data analytics and artificial intelligence will improve their working experience versus eight percent who think it will worsen it. Fifty percent of EU workers believe that digital technology will improve their job prospects compared to 12 percent who think it will limit them.

March 20, 2015

Happiness and wellbeing must be at the heart of the economy finds new report

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

To mark International Day of Happiness, a major new report has revealed that a country’s GDP fails to reflect levels of people’s happiness, which, it says, “are not easily reducible to monetary values”. Wellbeing and policy was commissioned by the Legatum Institute, which established the Commission on Wellbeing and Policy to advance the policy debate on social wellbeing and is chaired by the former head of the civil service Lord Gus O’Donnell. It finds there is growing recognition that the measures of a country’s progress need to include the wellbeing of its citizens. The report adds that with job satisfaction on a long-term downward trend in most advanced countries, and people ranking time spent with their manager as among their least happy moments in the day, there’s a lot more employers can be doing to address levels of wellbeing and happiness at work.

March 17, 2015

Budget to focus on flexible working, broadband and regional economy

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Flexible working, News, Technology

According to reports in today’s Times, two of the key commitments in this week’s budget announcement will be a commitment to the development of the UK’s technological infrastructure as well as more details on plans for the UK’s regional economies. What is telling about both is they signal an overdue recognition that the vast majority of the UK’s inhabitants don’t live in London and even those that do find it increasingly unaffordable and unattractive. Accordingly, the first communities to be targeted for superfast and ultrafast broadband will be those in the remotest parts of the country, which until now have been those most at risk of being in the slow lane of technological developments. The Times reports that until now about 1.5 million homes were due to miss out on a pledge to give 95 per cent of people access to fast internet by 2017.

March 11, 2015

How a big, stupid idea can be more attractive than a small, effective one

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Comment, Property

We’re going to be hearing a lot of big ideas over the next few weeks. Politicians will be sharing their ‘visions’ with us and letting us know exactly how ‘passionate’ they are about them and anything else Twitter tells them we care about. It’s going to be boring and infuriating, but we only have ourselves to blame. We fret when politicians don’t give us a handy label on which we can rest our hopes or lay the blame, depending on whether we agree with whatever the big idea is or not. Of course, David Cameron’s vision of choice when he became Prime Minister in 2010 was The Big Society. I won’t get into the rights and wrongs of that but I think we can all agree that The Big Society has been kicked unceremoniously into The Long Grass and we won’t be hearing much about it in the build up to this year’s General Election. Nor will we be hearing much about another of David Cameron’s pet projects even though that has actually gone on to be something of a success.

February 20, 2015

Job automation seen as a key digital challenge in new policy report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace

Whichever party or coalition forms the next UK Government will face a raft of serious challenges with the emerging digital economy, including making plans for the automation of up to a third of existing jobs. That is the main conclusion of a new report published this week by The House of Lords. Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future, argues that the next 20 years will present the UK with a range of profound challenges and opportunities and it is incumbent on the Government to address them at the earliest opportunity. As well as imminent and well known issues such as the need to roll out ultrafast broadband countrywide and the development of skills and digital clusters, the report also highlights the particular issue of what to do about the claim that up to 35 percent of jobs over the next two decades will be automated.

February 5, 2015

Digital economy spreads nationwide but London still dominates

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

The UK Government has published what it says is the first comprehensive analysis of the UK’s digital economy clusters as part of an ‘interactive data project’ called Tech Nation*. The project shows the development of digital businesses by region across the UK. The project has been developed by Tech City UK, the government’s flagship organisation focused on the UK’s digital economy. The project suggests that there are now nearly 1.5 million jobs in the UK digital sector with around three quarters (74 percent) of them outside London. While the Government is keen to portray this as a nationwide success story, this still means that there are twice as many jobs per head in London’s digital sector as the national average and, as we reported earlier, the Government’s rollout of fast broadband to rural areas remains woefully inadequate.

January 13, 2015

Investors priced out of London commercial property turn to regions

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property

According to a report from Reuters, foreign competition in the London commercial property market is forcing local investors to invest in regional cities to tap rising rents there, with many making purchases privately to avoid auctions or even building office blocks from scratch. Commercial property in London has become a popular safe haven for investors from places such as Russia, China and southern Europe as a result of the financial crisis, and office prices have bounced back strongly from the lows. From a $4 billion battle for control of the Canary Wharf financial district to the creation of the capital’s tallest building, The Shard, thanks to oil money from the Gulf, many of London’s landmarks have had a helpful overseas financing hand.

December 22, 2014

Market for smart cities set to triple worldwide over next five years

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Technology

According to a new report, the global market for smart cities will grow by nearly a factor of three from $411.31 billion in 2014 to $1,135 billion by 2019. The not so snappily titled report, “Smart Cities Market by Smart Home, Intelligent Building Automation, Energy Management, Smart Healthcare, Smart Education, Smart Water, Smart Transportation, Smart Security, & by Services – Worldwide Market Forecasts and Analysis (2014 – 2019)”, has been published by MarketsandMarkets, and claims to define and segment smart cities into various sub-segments of technologies, solutions, services and regions with in-depth analysis and forecasting of revenues. The authors also claim that the report identifies drivers and restraints of this market with insights on trends, opportunities, and challenges.

December 17, 2014

Only a third of staff trust their senior management, finds CIPD

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

There is little evidence of improvement in the quality of management in the UK over the last decade – and it is one of the reasons behind the UK’s long-standing productivity weakness compared to the likes of the US and Germany. According to the CIPD report ‘Are UK organisations getting better at managing their people?’ while 65 percent of employees are generally satisfied with their line manager and largely trust them and value their honesty, only 33 percent say they trust their senior management. It found that management processes are not always applied consistently or fairly and this is one reason why there is a lack of trust in senior leadership. These are deep-rooted problems and the solutions are largely down to organisations, says the CIPD, which is urging the Government to consider ways in which it can raise awareness of the challenges and potential approaches to tackling them, not least in its capacity as an employer.

December 17, 2014

Flexible working is best built on the foundations of a great office

by Charles Marks • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

It’s getting on for two years since Yahoo’s much talked about decision in 2013 to ban its staff from homeworking but, in many ways, the fallout has continued ever since. Certainly a lot of commentary on the subject refers back to CEO Marissa Mayer’s trend bucking decision. This can only be because it was a defining event in what is an enduring debate about where we work and what that means for a range of factors including our productivity, wellbeing, sense of belonging, access to information, the way we structure our time and our ability to communicate with and develop relationships with our fellow human beings. If those things were the same regardless of how and where we worked, there would be no discussion in the first place. But they do make a difference and there is a discussion.