April 7, 2020
Mergers & acquisitions should always lead to a cultural identity shift. This can range from a complete reinvention of identity and purpose to just a slight shift that includes the new partner: its history, narrative and critical traits. (more…)
March 25, 2020
Loneliness is increasingly recognised as a serious issue in modern society. In the UK, the Office of National Statistics reported that 5 percent of adults feel lonely ‘often’ or ‘always’, with further 16 percent of adults reporting feeling lonely ‘sometimes’, equivalent to approximately 9 million adults suffering from loneliness to some degree. (more…)
March 19, 2020
Betteridge’s law of headlines declares that “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no”. And so I simultaneously ask and answer the question of whether the coronavirus pandemic will really lead to the death of the office. So it goes. Of course, I’m not the first person to raise the question over the last few weeks as the world adapts to the threat of the pandemic. But it’s worth reminding ourselves that the demise of the office has been predicted for at least a quarter of a century, although never in such circumstances. (more…)
March 3, 2020
The idea of giving everybody something called basic income – an unconditional, regular income – has become increasingly popular in the last few years, partly because employment has become less secure and people fear that increasing automation may cause job losses across many sectors. (more…)
February 25, 2020
A problem shared may be a problem halved but, according to a new report, many UK office workers can’t discuss work with their nearest and dearest without them switching off. The survey by CWJobs claims couples are more likely to know the PIN to their partner’s phone (40 percent) or who their favourite band is (38 percent) than understand what they do for a living (30 percent). Three quarters of the workers surveyed said their spouse could not explain their job to another person. (more…)
February 13, 2020
Flexible working can help employees manage mental illness and keep them in the workforce during difficult life events, a survey by US-based FlexJobs has claimed. Of 2,100 respondents with a mental illness, such as anxiety or depression, 84 percent thought having a flexible job would help them manage their condition better. (more…)
February 12, 2020
I speak with senior workplace leaders daily and those conversations, coupled with our research and that of other people, offer us a striking perspective on the trends and changing nature of the workplace and in particular the impact of technology. Some themes are cropping up time and time again in these conversations and research and point to a new technology-led reality that we must all address. (more…)
February 11, 2020
The ongoing worldwide friction between legislators and firms operating in the “gig economy” was evident this week as a US judge denied Uber and Postmates a temporary reprieve from California’s new gig worker law. The ruling comes as a setback for both companies as the legislation has the potential to undermine their business models. (more…)
February 7, 2020
The UK’s ‘alternative workers’, comprising gig economy workers, freelancers and contractors, have cited lack of pay, benefits and job security as their most significant concerns in new research. Yet according to The 2020 Pulse of Talent report released by Ceridian, plenty of the 536 respondents praised the flexible and ‘interesting’ nature of the work on offer. (more…)
February 5, 2020
Organisations are currently operating against a backdrop of environmental, social, political and technological upheaval. Changes in the way people work, buy, communicate and live their lives abound while the communications narratives become ever more complex. The zeitgeist dictates how an organisation’s purpose and communications should match the growing expectations placed on it by its identity and need to address its engagement with staff and the outside world. (more…)
January 30, 2020
Policy makers should beware of classifying all gig economy workers as “employees”, a new research report has claimed. Such workers vary in age, income and education in a similar way to the traditional workforce and crafting regulations that treat both fully committed and occasional gig workers as one group is unlikely to be an efficient solution, the report from IZA World of Labor contends. (more…)
April 10, 2020
When it comes to the future of work, we only know what we don’t know
by David Clements • Comment, Workplace design