June 12, 2019
With a rising retirement age and the prediction that by 2020, a third of UK workers will be aged 50 or over, new research from job board Totaljobs and recruitment firm Robert Walters found that many workers in their 50s find their career options and development opportunities are extremely limited.
June 6, 2019
The majority of office employees (84 percent) believe good relationships with colleagues boost their quality of work, yet nearly three quarters (70 percent) admit to not knowing the people they work with very well, claims a new survey from Nespresso Professional. The study suggests that changing office environments and flexible working practices are not improving employees’ relationships with co-workers, or their creativity and output. (more…)
June 4, 2019
Employees who feel they are a good fit for their role and the culture of their company are 36 percent more productive, claims a new report from ThriveMap (registration). The paper claims to reveal what a difference feeling like a natural fit for a job and organisational culture makes to employees. The survey of 1,000 people used in the report claims that employees who felt they fit their role and the culture of their employer rated their productivity at 7.2 out of 10. This compares to just 5.3 out of 10 for those employees who felt they were a poor fit for both these factors.
May 31, 2019
One of the most commonly used and longstanding recruitment practices should be reconsidered according to new research from academics at Florida State University. Screening job applicants based on their prior work experience is often a mistake for employers because there appears to be little or no correlation between previous experience and future performance, according to a paper from Chad Van Iddekinge, FSU’s Bank of America Professor of Management and an expert on human resources management. (more…)
May 13, 2019
Employers are having to be more flexible to fill vacancies as buoyant demand for staff is creating recruitment challenges. Two in five (41 percent) employers say it has become more difficult to fill vacancies in the past year, while three in five (61 percent) employers said that at least some of their vacancies were proving hard to fill. However, according to the latest Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD and the Adecco Group despite the tightening labour market, this confidence has yet to translate into significant salary increases for all but new starters and those with key skills.
As recruitment and retention challenges grow, employers are changing their recruitment practices and drawing on a wider talent pool to fill vacancies, while putting more focus on training up existing staff.
Gerwyn Davies, senior labour market adviser for the CIPD said: “The majority of UK workers are long overdue a meaningful pay rise. However, many workers will remain disappointed with their pay packets until there are significant and sustained improvements to productivity. Organisations need to give much greater consideration to the obstacles that are preventing their people from performing better at work.
“A greater focus on training, development and better people management is needed to lift the UK out of its current productivity crisis. One upside is that many employers are already investing in developing their existing workforce to plug skills gaps. Strengthening workplace training and recruiting in a more inclusive, flexible way will ultimately deliver higher performing and fairer workplaces.”
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“A greater focus on training, development and better people management is needed to lift the UK out of its current productivity crisis.” [/perfectpullquote]
Recruitment outlook – jobs growth set to continue
Britain’s jobs boom is set to continue in the short term. The report’s net employment balance – a measure of the difference between the proportion of employers who expect to increase staff levels and those who expect to decrease staff levels – has increased from +20 to +22. Employment growth will continue to be driven by the private sector which has increased from +22 to +25 in the last quarter. The report shows that confidence is highest in business services (+39), construction (+36), healthcare (+31) and ICT (31 percent).
Skills shortages – employers are having to be more flexible to find candidates
Skills shortages are particularly being seen in professional occupations (e.g. scientists, engineers) where 50 percent of employers report that applicants don’t have the required level of skills needed. In response to skills challenges employers are having to rethink their recruitment practices and draw from a wider talent pool. The Labour Market Outlook found that:
In line with recent ONS data*, the report also found that employers were making greater efforts to hire those aged over 55 (8 percent) and those from disadvantaged groups (6 percent).
Despite rising recruitment and retention pressures, median basic pay expectations in the 12 months to March 2020 remain at 2 percent. However, pay expectations have fallen back in the private sector from 2.5 percent to 2 percent and have risen in the public sector from 1 percent to 1.5 percent.
In addition to hiring challenges, a third of employers (33 percent) said that it has become harder to retain staff in the last 12 months, particularly in the public sector (42 percent). In response, over half (54 percent) of organisations have increased salaries in some capacity and one in four organisations (25 percent) have increased salaries for key staff only.
May 7, 2019
Working Families and Bright Horizons have launched a new report which focuses on flexible working and the reality of flexible jobs from the perspective of working parents in the UK. According to the report, the experience of parents shows that flexible working is widespread, although patchy in some sectors and for some workers. It is beneficial in helping parents get a better work life fit, although it is not a panacea. Issues around job design, workloads and organisational culture undermine some of the benefits of flexibility, and proper management of flexibility to ensure it works is, for many parents, missing. (more…)
May 3, 2019
In the UK approximately 1 in 100 people (600,000) have a diagnosis of epilepsy, yet despite anti-discrimination legislation, people with epilepsy in the UK are more than twice as likely as those without the condition to be unemployed. That is the main conclusion of a report from IES which included a literature review, interviews with for experts in employment support, clinical practice and applied research, interviews with six employers of different sizes across a range of industries and two focus groups of individuals with varied symptoms and employment histories. (more…)
May 2, 2019
Team activities designed to boost morale and strengthen relationships, are more successful in engaging younger talent than individual ones, a new report suggests. The research carried out by Perkbox and Talentpool claims that employer recruitment techniques are adapting incentives accordingly in a bid to attract top young talent, as young professionals today seem to like to prioritise ‘team’ over ‘individual’ in all of their everyday working practices. (more…)
May 1, 2019
The tech sector is facing high departure rates as employees’ complain of work impinging on their home life, coupled with a lack of learning & development opportunities. It’s been estimated that vacancies already outweigh skilled talent in the UK tech industry, where there are an estimated 600,000 vacancies. Yet nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of tech workers say they would quit their job to achieve a better work-life balance. The research from CWJobs of over 1,000 IT workers also discovered that this is even more important to Gen Z (aged 16-24), where seven in 10 (72 percent) would leave a company if this was compromised.
April 25, 2019
There are lots of reasons to worry about where the World might be taking us, or perhaps where we are taking it. You can take your pick but for me one of the most worrying aspects of contemporary discourse is the obvious dearth of empathy. We might like to think of this as an innate characteristic of human beings, but it really isn’t. It’s something that we also need to learn. This idea is explored in this piece by Hanna Rosin who centres her argument around an analysis by Sara Konrath, an associate professor and researcher at Indiana University who has discovered that our willingness to empathise with people is eroding rapidly, especially for those who we see as ‘other’ or irrelevant. If you want an example of lack of empathy, you can see it in this footage of a banker being taken to task for it in a US committee hearing.
April 23, 2019
An online employee referral recruitment platform has analysed data from the top 25 accountancy firms in the UK and claims that women make up just a quarter of the executive boards, however statistics show that women made up 44 percent of full-time accountants in the UK. The research conducted by Real Links also claims that only two of the top 25 firms boards are nearly equal in the gender split and a further six boards were only one third women. Four executive boards had no women on them at all in 2014. (more…)
April 15, 2019
Black and minority ethnic workers are far more likely to be trapped in temporary and insecure work, according to a new TUC analysis published to mark the start of its annual Black Workers Conference. The analysis claims to show how BME workers are faring worse than white workers in the jobs market. (more…)
