Search Results for: employer

February 7, 2017

Employers urged to create age friendly workplaces to help retain older workers ⁰

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

Employers should provide full and equal access to flexible working arrangements, occupational health support and appropriate workplace adaptations to help older workers to manage health conditions at work. This is according to a new report from the Centre for Ageing Better, Fulfilling work: what do older workers value about work and why? which identifies the characteristics of work that are important to people aged 50 and over, and explores actions employers can take to attract and retain them. Understanding what older workers want is the first step in helping employers, policy makers and others create age-friendly workplaces. By 2020, one in three workers will be over 50 but while the employment rate for all working age adults remains at a record high of nearly 75%, for people over 60, this falls to around 50%. and there are currently 12 million people heading towards an insufficient retirement income. Ageing Better commissioned the Institute of Employment Studies to carry out the study as to ways of helping people stay at work and the report finds that health is the most important factor affecting older workers’ decisions to continue in work, ahead of job satisfaction and job quality.

February 2, 2017

Majority of UK employers ill prepared for gender pay reporting regulations ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

The new gender pay reporting Regulations coming into force in April 31, but UK employers may be ill prepared to handle the requirements claims a new survey from XpertHR. The Regulations will require all employers with 250 or more employees to measure and report their gender pay gaps for the first time but XpertHR found that only 6.2 percent of employers had any formal mechanisms in place to monitor their gender pay gap before the legislation was announced. And, with the deadline date fast approaching, most admitted they don’t know how or when they will publish the results of the exercise. Although proposals to introduce mandatory reporting were announced in October 2015, over half (53.5 percent) of organisations had no monitoring in place before this time. Just over one-third claimed to have carried out “informal” monitoring in the past, while a handful (7.1 percent) did not know whether or not they had done so before the Regulations were announced.

January 26, 2017

Majority of employers predict more challenging economic conditions this year ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Three quarters of UK employers (76 percent) expect economic conditions to be more challenging in 2017 compared to 2016 and there are signs that the jobs market is slowing, claims the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) latest JobsOutlook survey. Employers intending to increase their permanent staff headcount within the next three months has reduced to one in five (21 percent), down from 24 percent reported last month. Similarly, demand for permanent staff has reduced in all sectors except health & social care and education. More positively, despite harsh economic conditions, businesses remain self-confident with three quarters of employers polled (74 percent) saying that their business will perform better this year compared to last year. Skills shortages remain a challenge for businesses however, as half of all employers (50 percent) anticipate a shortage of suitable candidates for some permanent roles this year. Employers anticipate that roles in engineering & technology, health & social care, and hospitality will be particularly affected by skills shortages.

January 19, 2017

Employers should offer flexible working to solve recruitment crisis in EMEA ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Employers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are facing an increasingly competitive recruitment landscape in 2017, but what might help candidates choose one organisation over another will be more opportunities for flexible working, claims a new global study by the Futurestep division of Korn Ferry. Specifying which qualities they thought would entice candidates to choose one organisation over another in five-years-time, respondents reflected that flexible working (27 percent) would likely lead the charge. In Part One of Talent Forecast Futurestep’s global survey of more than 1,100 hiring professionals almost half (48 percent) of EMEA respondents report that it has become harder to source qualified candidates over the past 12 months. Additional findings compiled for the report suggest that ongoing disruption and changing candidate demands will combine to create an increasingly volatile market for talent in 2017.

January 6, 2017

Over half of employers struggled to find newly graduated employees last year ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Over half of graduate employers are struggling to fill their graduate vacancies, partly due to students reneging on offers. A poll by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) claims that 52 percent of employers did not fill all of their graduate vacancies last year and while one in five offers were declined, 7.1 percent of offers made were accepted and then reneged. The size of the challenge differs by sector. Accountancy, banking and engineering firms are the most likely to find reneging an issue. It is less of a problem in the public sector and among law, utility and IT businesses. However, employers are finding ways to tackle the issue with 97 percent communicating and 78 percent holding events for graduates between offer and join date. As a result the proportion of job offers reneged is falling – in the AGR’s 2015 poll 8.2 percent were reneged. Employers are also being advised to take more of a digital approach to reaching ‘tech savvy’ graduates.

December 23, 2016

Presenteeism doesn’t aid productivity, so employers should set workers free ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working

At this time of year, the days are short, the morning commute can be hellish and traffic grid-locked. Wouldn’t it be ideal if more employers recognised this and offered a solution involving flexible hours, remote collaboration or even home-working? And not just at Christmas, but the whole year round? More and more companies are switching on to the benefits this can bring in terms of their employees’ well-being and productivity. Firms can allow colleagues to occasionally work from home or a third place, provide tools that enable them to work remotely and support an agile working agenda. This can be done in parallel with making provision for a hi-tech and collaborative workplace where colleagues can get together regularly to connect, get work done and be part of an effective team.

December 21, 2016

Employee retention and engagement was top of mind for employers this year ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employee retention was the top workforce management challenge in 2016, claims a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), with almost one-half of surveyed organizations (46 percent) citing it as a top challenge in 2016. Other top workforce management challenges for at least one-third of organizations were: employee engagement (36 percent), recruitment (34 percent) and succession planning (33 percent). SHRM’s survey Influencing Workplace Culture Though Employee Recognition and Other Efforts, which was produced in collaboration with and commissioned by Globoforce, found that as employers look for ways to deal with the challenges of low employee retention and high turnover, more organizations are tying employee recognition efforts to their core values.The majority of respondents indicated that their employee recognition programs had positive impacts on employee engagement, workplace culture, retention and employee happiness.

December 19, 2016

UK employers predict workforce growth in 2017 along with more inclusive hiring ⁰

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

Four in ten (41 percent) of firms across the UK will grow their workforce in 2017 but uncertainty about the UK’s future relationship with the EU has shaken overall business confidence in the labour market claims a new report. According to respondents to the 19th CBI/Pertemps Network Group Employment Trends Survey, for the fourth year running, growth in permanent job opportunities will outstrip temporary recruitment. But the balance of those expecting the UK to be a more attractive place to employ people in the next five years has flipped from +16 percent in the 2015 survey to -21 percent in this year’s results. In terms of engagement, over three quarters (76 percent) of respondents reported that a diverse and inclusive workforce is vital or important to the future success of their organisation. They report a range of benefits of inclusive workplace practices including increased skills (73 percent), attraction and retention of staff (60 percent) and engagement levels (46 percent).

November 29, 2016

Majority of employers believe automation will create more jobs than it will replace ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

A new report published by Capita Resourcing claims that 85 percent of employers believe workplace automation will create more jobs than it will replace in their organisation in 10 years’ time. The main benefits to businesses and employees over this period are likely to be enhanced productivity (76 percent) and new skills development (54 percent). The ‘Workplace More Human’ report surveyed the attitudes of 200 business leaders in medium to large organisations and 1,000 full or part time employees. It revealed that the workplace is currently undergoing rapid transformation with over half (54 percent) of employers already automating business processes that were once performed by people. A further 39 percent plan to automate more processes in the next 12 months.

November 29, 2016

Rigid attitudes to flexible working prevents lawyers raising it with employers ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Flexible working may be gaining ground across the professions but it remains so rare in the legal industry that more than one in three (35 percent) lawyers say they would not feel comfortable even beginning the conversation about flexible working with their employer. The reason for this, suggests new research from My Family Care and recruiters Hydrogen, is down to a rigid culture which encourages working anti-social hours; as almost a third (29 percent) of the 140 of lawyers asked, saying that the majority of their colleagues think that people who work flexibly are simply “having an easy life.” Yet despite this, over two thirds (67 percent) would rather choose flexible working over a 5 percent salary increase. The research also found a large gender divide when it comes to flexible working. While significantly more female lawyers work part time (34 percent of women compared with 10 percent of men), female lawyers say they work considerably more than their contracted hours: 35 percent compared to just 28 percent of males.

November 28, 2016

Employers urged to find ways of motivating and retaining older workers ⁰

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

Employees over 50 still have a huge amount to offer, and that is why employers need to develop and implement strategies to find ways of managing and retaining them. The results of a three year study – led by Nottingham Trent University with Workplace Innovation Limited – aimed at preventing the loss of vital knowledge, skills and experience of increasingly ageing workforces indicate that measures should be taken by employers to ensure older workers don’t become demotivated and head into early retirement. The first-of-its-kind study follows findings which reveal that by 2030 the number of people aged over 55 in high-income countries will have grown to 500 million. As part of the study, researchers found that interventions which seek to improve job design and the way in which work is organised can lead to better engagement and retention of older workers – as well as producing wider benefits for the business and its employees. The project investigated work-related predictors of retirement for the over 50s, finding that manageable job demands and more control over roles were key factors in delaying a decision to retire.

November 22, 2016

Employers and ambitious employees combine to boost a buoyant job market ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

The job market continues to remain buoyant in the face of economic and political uncertainties, and this is matched by a noticeable enthusiasm among employees to move jobs, suggests new research. The Totaljobs Employment Index, which measures activity across the totaljobs website, has shown that job postings on the site were up 7 percent year-on-year (YoY) in October. But this demand seems to have been outstripped by jobseekers’ needs, with the number of applications on the website up 14 percent YoY. This means that despite an increase in vacancies, the number of applications per job has soared 7 percent. This trend continues when looking at the last three months (Aug-Oct) compared with the same period in 2015, as jobs rose 11 percent and applications increased 12 percent. Broken down across the UK, the best performing regions in terms of growth in jobs posted include the North West (up 17 percent), the East Midlands and Wales (both up 13 percent).