Search Results for: job interview

September 10, 2015

Five ways in which your colleagues might be driving you completely nuts ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

It’s always worth reminding ourselves that while a well designed workplace and favourable working conditions are very desirable prerequisites of a good job, what really makes work enjoyable and what really makes a great culture are the people with whom we work. This simple fact is one reason why some people are happy in poorly designed offices full of all the things that supposedly make them unhappy and unwell, while other people can be miserable in airy, daylit, tastefully furnished corporate palaces. Just as Peter Drucker once said that culture eats strategy for breakfast, we also know that it washes it down with a piping hot mug of office design. Culture is defined in large measure by the people around us, it can be they who determine how much we enjoy work. Here are just five ways they can drive us nuts based on recent data.

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.

September 2, 2015

Flexible working key to counteracting female workers’ ‘baby shame’ ⁰

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

Whether the gender pay gap is more of a motherhood gap is an ongoing debate, but now a new survey has found that when even planning to have children, one in five (18 percent) working women hide their family plans from their employers. In an interview with the BBC yesterday, Labour Party leader candidate Yvette Cooper revealed that when she took maternity leave from her ministerial job in 2001, there was no procedure in place and when she sought maternity leave a couple of years later, things were made very difficult for her. If that’s how a high powered government minister is treated then it is no wonder over half (58 percent) of women feel they would have to alter their career in order to have a child, and why three quarters feel flexible working which doesn’t leave women feeling ‘baby shame’ for working child friendly hours is essential.

August 5, 2015

Proofs of the link between workplace design and productivity? Here are three

by Charles Marks • Case studies, Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Three new studies have joined the already extensive body of work linking workplace design and productivity. The most extensive is the research carried out by communications consultancy Lansons which looks at every aspect of the British workplace to uncover the experiences and most commonly held perceptions of around 4,500 workers nationwide. The study is broken down into a number of sections which examine topics such as workplace design, wellbeing, job satisfaction, personal development and leadership. The second is a study from the Property Directors Forum which explores the experiences of occupiers and finds a shift in focus away from cost reduction and towards investing to foster employee productivity. The final showcases the results of a post occupancy survey conducted by National Grid following the refurbishment of the firm’s Warwick headquarters by AECOM.

July 27, 2015

Fifth of new mothers claim to experience workplace discrimination

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

One in five new mothers experienced harassment or negative comments from their colleagues, employer or manager when pregnant or returning from maternity leave, a new report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission claims. It also found disturbing evidence that around 54,000 new mothers may be forced out of their jobs in Britain each year. The findings are based on a survey of over 3,200 women, in which 11 percent of the women interviewed reported having been dismissed, made compulsorily redundant where others in their workplace were not, or treated so poorly they felt they had to leave their jobs. If replicated across the population as a whole, this could mean as many as 54,000 women losing their jobs each year. Despite this perception, the majority of employers claimed they were firm supporters of female staff during and after their pregnancies and find it easy to comply with the law.

June 3, 2015

IT firms hold TechNorth digital hub in higher regard than TechCity

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Technology

TechNorth, the Manchester based technology hothouse devised as a regional counterbalance to London, is held in higher regard than the capital’s flagship TechCity development, according to research from recruitment firm Robert Half. The study of IT decision makers across the UK claims that the vast majority would prioritise working with Northern firms over their London counterparts, with 87 percent either ‘highly likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to place work with IT businesses in the TechNorth hub rather than those in TechCity London given the choice. The figure is 100 percent for IT leaders based in the North and to 95 percent for those in Scotland. More surprisingly, 80 percent of those based London and the South East said they would prioritise TechNorth, as did 75 percent in the South West and Wales.

May 8, 2015

The death of the office has been overstated but it is changing, study confirms

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Workplace design

The implications for the property industry of more efficient space planning models and the uptake of flexible working are laid bare in a new report from planning and design consultancy Nathaniel, Lichfield and Partners (NLP). The headline figure from the report, Workspace Futures: The changing dynamics of office locations is that the office stock in England and Wales rose by 17 percent in the twelve years to 2012 while the numbers of office based staff increased by around 21 percent. The report includes details on how these trends affect 11 key locations including Manchester, Cambridge, Bristol, Newcastle and Reading and concludes that while ‘the death of the office has been largely overstated’, the market is undergoing structural changes that need to be addressed by developers and government.

March 10, 2015

Some improvement but levels of engagement remain low in US workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

According to a new poll from Gallup, the proportion of US workers engaged in their jobs rose from an average 31.7 percent in January to an average 32.9 percent in February. The latest monthly rate of employee engagement is the highest Gallup has recorded in three years and is 1.5 percent higher than for the same period last year. The study is based on Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted with around 6,000 employees. Gallup categorises workers as more or less engaged or disengaged based on their responses to key workplace metrics that the pollster claims predict important organisational performance outcomes. With a third of US employees engaged at work – a figure that has remained consistent over the last three years – February’s data also showed that half (50.3 percent) of employees are not engaged and 16.8 percent are actively disengaged at work.

November 10, 2014

New report urges firms to protect against BYOD security breaches

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

According to a new report from BT, security breaches related to the practice of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and related forms of mobile working have affected 41 percent of UK organisations over the last year. Despite this, the report claims organisations are still not taking sufficient measures to protect themselves against threats such as lost or stolen devices and malware infections. The report reveals that at least one fifth of respondents’ organisations that suffered a mobile security breach, experienced more than four incidents in the last year. The research is based on a total of 640 interviews with IT decision makers from large sized organisations (1000 or more employees) across 11 regions: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Middle East, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, UK and USA. Respondents’ organisations were from the financial, retail and public sectors. It shows that uptake of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and COPE (Corporately Owned Personally-Enabled) devices is very high, with 95 percent of UK organisations allowing employees to use these devices for work purposes.

August 13, 2014

Small business has no problem with flexible working – it’s just sceptical of legislation

by Justin Miller • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news

At the end of July, the UK Government introduced new legislation that allowed any employee with more than six months in a job to apply to their employer for some form of flexible working arrangements. Now, research from Sage claims that a third of small businesses are ignoring the legislation, a fact which might be interpreted as suggesting that the UK’s SMEs are not so keen on the idea. What other data suggests, however, is that they’re probably more likely to offer flexible working than larger firms. This can only mean that it’s the legislation that’s the problem, not the practice. Leaving aside the ten percent of SMEs who the Sage report claimed were unaware of the new rules, this still leaves a large number of smaller businesses open to litigation and industrial tribunals. But, as the Federation of Small Businesses warned ahead of the new law’s introduction, the right to request was always likely to lead to headaches for business owners anyway.

July 3, 2014

Flexible work could dissuade the one in three workers that pull a sickie

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

One in three British workers admit to having pulled a ‘sickie’ – according to new research by PwC – and it’s costing UK business £9bn a year. As part of the research PwC surveyed over 2,000 UK adults and found that the most popular reasons for why people pulled a ‘sickie’ are hangovers (32%), to watch a sporting event (8%), being bored with your job (26%), interviews (26%) and Mondays (11%). One in 10 people said they have lied to take time off work due to good weather. A flexible working approach by employers is the measure that would most likely put people off from pulling a ‘sickie’, followed by initiatives such as ‘duvet mornings’ (where employees are allowed to take a couple of last minute lie ins a year). One in ten employees said that having to report the reason for their absence over the phone to their manager would put them off lying.Illness is by far the most common excuse used, but the research has revealed that some employees go to very creative lengths to cover up why they are taking off unauthorised time from work, including I was attacked by ants, my dog has eaten my keys, I got a rash from eating too many strawberries, and a male employee who told his boss that he had started the menopause.

June 20, 2014

Recruiters failing to adapt to increasing demand for flexible working

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Contrary to the recent report by Robert Half, which found that larger firms use flexible working to attract staff, hiring managers are failing to keep pace with the growing trend for flexible work. According to research by the Timewise Foundation, two in every five full time workers want to work fewer hours or remotely, on top of the one in four workers already in part time jobs. Yet only a quarter of job advertisements mention flexible options. Following previous research which found that two in five people worry about asking their employers to allow them to work flexibly; new research amongst employers asked how receptive they were to job applications from candidates who need flexibility. The research found that while the vast majority (9 in 10) say they welcome questions about flexible working – candidates still face significant barriers when it comes to finding a brand new flexible job.