Search Results for: employer

July 3, 2015

One in five Americans would change jobs for better work-life balance

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

More than half of US and Canadian employees report feeling overworked and burnt out (53 percent), yet the overwhelming majority (86 percent) say they are still happy at work. According to the inaugural Staples Advantage Workplace Index employees are working longer days, with about a quarter of them regularly working after the standard workday is done. A key motivator is to advance in the organization, with nearly two-thirds of respondents seeing themselves as managers in the next five years. Though employees are largely conditioned to working longer hours, about one in five do expect to change jobs in the next twelve months. Steps employers can take to improve happiness levels include; adding more office perks, improving office technology and providing a better office design. Alongside this, with employees working longer days and on weekends, the biggest request is for employers to provide more flexibility. More →

July 2, 2015

Employees prefer diverse working experiences to traditional career ladder

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Employees value a varied working experience and flexibility over traditional, linear career progression, a global study published by the Top Employers Institute claims. The Career & Succession Management Report identifies the global developments forcing employers to rethink career and succession management strategies. These include skill shortages resulting in a global competition for best talent and an increased risk of losing business-critical knowledge due to the ageing of the workforce. There is also a new generation of workers seeking diverse work assignments and flexibility, who are taking greater responsibility for their own career management, resulting in less loyalty to employers and less interest in the traditional step-by-step climbing of career ladders. The findings suggest that HR needs to move from assuring the smooth succession of leadership to concentrate more on wider long-term staff engagement and retention.

July 1, 2015

Takeup of flexible working remains sluggish in UK SMEs claims Microsoft study

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

It’s now one year since the UK Government extended the right to request flexible working to nearly all UK permanent employees. Two new surveys have been published to coincide with the anniversary and gauge the effects of the legislation. Both surveys, from EY and Microsoft UK, paint somewhat mixed pictures, with uptake considerably slower than might have been expected. The study by Microsoft, one of the UK’s great champions of flexible working, found that just 22 percent of workers in SMEs have requested flexible working as a direct result of the new legislation. The report also found that over half (55 percent) of British office workers are still required to work from the office during set working hours. A similar proportion (44 percent) claim it is not possible for them to work remotely under any circumstances.

June 25, 2015

The healthy workplace is now a matter of public policy in the UK

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Promoting a culture that improves the health and wellbeing of employees is good management practice and leads to a healthy and productive workplace, according to the Governmental body charged with shaping policy and offering advice on health related matters in the UK. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), part of the Department of Health, has published a new set of guidelines on the issue and called on employers to do more to address the challenge of creating a productive and healthy workplace. According to NICE, workplace health is a significant public health issue with more than a million working people in the UK experiencing a work-related illness each year, leading to around 27 million lost working days and costing the economy an estimated £13.4 billion.

June 23, 2015

Fit note scheme is not reducing long term sickness absence, claims new study

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Wellbeing

The UK government’s fit note scheme, introduced five years ago to help people back to work from long term sickness absence, has failed to deliver its intended reductions, according to research from manufacturing and engineering trade association EEF and Jelf Employee Benefits. The study of 345 companies claims more than two-fifths (43 per cent) of employers believe the policy had not helped employees return to work, up from 35 per cent in 2010. Employers also told the survey that the quality of GP advice on fitness for work has deteriorated, which the report’s authors claim is largely down to the fact that only around one in eight GPs in the UK have been trained in specific health and work and the Government has shown no willingness to invest in more training to bring the numbers of those qualified up to the necessary levels necessary to meet its own goals.

June 19, 2015

Well designed offices should create spaces suitable for everybody

by Dan Callegari • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

The basis of the commonly held belief that offices are designed for extroverts seems to be that, because the primary goal of offices is to bring people together to work and because the de facto office design standard is open plan, then this makes them an ideal home for extroverts. They are parties to which everybody is invited, but at which the wallflowers are told to dance. There is something in this but it doesn’t tell the whole story. This is just as well because personalities are not so straightforwardly easy to categorise and the needs of everybody to collaborate or work alone – however extroverted they might be – vary throughout the day. The office remains endlessly complex and sophisticated and any simplistic notions about it and the things it does should be challenged with a cold, hard look at the facts and what is happening in the real world.

June 18, 2015

Gen Z workers will be far more conventional than commonly assumed

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Despite being the first generation of workers to boast ‘native’ digital skills, so-called ‘Gen Z’ is far more conventional than previously assumed. The coming generation of 16-19 years-olds who are fast approaching the jobs market will care far more about their workplace and their employer’s ethics than Gen Y, new research from recruiter Adecco claims. The research shows that long-term security is more appealing to Gen Z than short term perks; with gym memberships (12%), free technology (16%) and time off to travel (26%) rejected in favour of qualifications and job security; at 43 percent and 41 percent, respectively. However, the research does show they have strong personal ambition and high expectations from employers, with half of those surveyed expecting a promotion within their first year of employment and the same number expecting to move on from an employer within two years.

June 16, 2015

Back pain and mental ill health still the main reasons for workplace absence

by Sara Bean • Furniture, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Back pain and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) remain the prime reason for long-term workplace absence (38%); with stress and mental-health disorders the main cause of absence for one in four companies. However, the results of the UK’s largest business survey on sickness absence published by EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation and Jelf Employee Benefits reveals that stress and mental illness is regarded as the most difficult form of absence to make workplace adjustments for, with almost a third of companies saying this is the case. Furthermore, a third of employers said that they do not have approaches for managing mental-health-related long-term absence. Just one in ten companies provides training for line managers in mental-health issues and only 2 percent of companies have an open mental-health disclosure policy, suggesting business matches society in finding it a difficult issue to address.

June 15, 2015

Generation Y isn’t as tech savvy as it and everybody else likes to think

by Mark Eltringham • Technology, Workplace

The shaky idea that the members of Generation Y are somehow different to the rest of the human race tends to rest on their characterisation as ‘digital natives’. However, according to a new report from US campaign organisation Change the Equation, just because Millennials have grown up with digital technology and are very attached to it doesn’t mean they are particularly tech savvy, especially when it comes to using technology to solve challenges in the workplace. The report, based on na analysis of the OECD’s Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies, found that although Millennials spend an average of 35 hours a week using digital devices, more than half of them (58 percent) are still unable to use their tech to help increase their productivity. They are still better in this regard than previous generations where 70 percent of people have low skills, but not significantly better.

June 13, 2015

The latest issue of Insight Weekly is available to view online

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Newsletter, Public Sector, Wellbeing, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; Dr Kerstin Sailer, Ros Pomeroy and Rosie Haslem describe the ten demonstrable facts about the workplace you may not know; Mark Eltringham says the most pervasive and enduring myth about the office is that it is somehow dying off and discovers that people have been writing guides to good ergonomics since the early seventeenth Century. Also this week; a parliamentary inquiry into the effects of design on behaviour is launched by the Design Commission, a survey for World FM Day reveals the key role played by FM in wellbeing and productivity, the US Government’s plans to reform the way federal office space is managed, and too few employers advertise jobs with flexible working opportunities. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and for weekly news via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

June 10, 2015

Time to get back a sense of proportion about sitting down

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The well of public discourse about office design is regularly fouled by the effluent of people who really should know better. Normally this is characterised by hyperbolic assertions about how flexible working will lead to The Death of the Office (it won’t) or how the decision by Yahoo and others to go into partial reverse on remote work would spell The Death of Flexible Working (it didn’t). All of this drivel can be forgiven when it comes from civilians, but the fact that it remains commonplace in the workplace media and emanates from the mouths of people who work in the sector is enough to make you despair. The latest example of this attention seeking behaviour, excretion of simplistic bullshit, market making or whatever you see it as, is the drive to demonise sitting, now normally expressed alongside some variant of the slogan ‘Sitting is the New Smoking’.

June 10, 2015

Flexible hiring out of step with flexible working, especially in London

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Only a handful (6.2%) of new jobs offer both decent salaries and the opportunity to work flexibly, according to new research from Timewise. Despite technological advances and significant changes in how and where people work, employers consistently underestimate how precious a benefit is flexibility, and rarely mention it in job ads. The flexible talent pool is massive; with more than 5.4 million people already in flexible roles, yet the number of jobs advertised with flexibility are so scarce that 77 percent of flexible workers feel ‘trapped’ in their current role, leaving those who want flexibility to fit with modern life, locked out of chances to progress. Flexible opportunities are better outside of the Capital, as candidates looking for flexible jobs have comparatively greater opportunities in Scotland, Northern Ireland and in the north of England.