Search Results for: uk talent market

January 11, 2017

Detoxify the workplace to improve employee wellbeing and productivity ⁰

by Sara Bean • Case studies, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

While most organisations recognise the importance of keeping their employees safe, not enough focus is being given to wellness, and those organisations that do not prioritise employee wellness and design their workplaces accordingly will lose talent and potentially face bottom line repercussions. This is according to AECOM, which is urging organisations to “detoxify” their work environments to improve employee wellbeing. With 9.9 million working days lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in Great Britain in 2014/151, employees’ health and happiness can have a direct impact on business performance. Making improvements to the physical environment can help organisations create spaces and working cultures that encourage creativity, support wellbeing and increase job satisfaction. More →

December 14, 2016

Lack of free childcare dissuades workers from shared parental leave ⁰

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

Just 5 percent of new fathers and 8 percent of new mothers have opted for Shared Parental Leave (SPL) since its introduction in April 2015 a new report claims. Just one organisation in five (21 percent) said they had received requests from male employees to take up SPL since April 2015 and in two-thirds (67 percent) of organisations with mothers eligible for SPL, none have opted in. This low take-up of (SPL) and the lack of affordable childcare options for parents with 0-2 year-olds are both major problems that need to be addressed to support working parents more effectively, according to ‘Labour Market Outlook: Focus on Working Parents’ from the CIPD. The survey of over 1,000 HR professionals also suggests that the lack of free childcare for 0-2 year-olds could be having a negative impact on women returning to work after maternity leave.

December 7, 2016

Are these the best places to work in 2017? ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace, Workplace design

Recruitment site Glassdoor has announced the winners of its ninth annual Employees’ Choice Awards to find the best places to work in North America and parts of Europe. The Awards are based on the input of employees who voluntarily provide anonymous feedback, by completing a company review, about their job, work environment and employer over the past year. This year, the Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Awards feature six categories, honouring the Best Places to Work across the UK, US (both large and small companies), Canada, France and Germany. There is one category in the UK: 50 Best Places to Work (honouring employers with 1,000 or more employees). Winners are ranked based on their overall rating achieved during the past year. The top five UK Best Places to Work in 2017 are Expedia, ARM, HomeServeUK, Mott MacDonald and Hays plc

December 7, 2016

Business as usual for recruitment and retention in post-Brexit Britain … for now ⁰

by Oliver Watson • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

On 24 June 2016 Britain voted for Brexit. The shock (and narrow) victory caused country-wide concern among the 48 percent of the voting public that favoured remain – apprehension seemingly justified by the immediate weakening of the pound, Cameron’s resignation and the start of ongoing political in-fighting. Speculation over job losses and potential hiring freezes added to a general sense of uncertainty, leaving some UK workers fearing their job security. Since then however, recruitment experts have somewhat softened their predictions for the UK job market as recent reports of month-on-month vacancy growth and record high employment rates have served to inspire confidence. Five months on, how has job applicant sentiment changed in the UK since the EU referendum vote? And what does this mean for businesses hiring in post-Brexit vote Britain? As part of our ongoing tracking of candidate confidence levels in the job market and their career prospects we analysed the responses of almost 28,000 job applicants across the UK and Republic of Ireland – from all ages, experiences and sector disciplines – to gauge how perspectives might have changed pre- and post-Brexit.

November 28, 2016

Britain is missing a trick by not getting workplace training right ⁰

by Steve Hill • Comment, Workplace

New research from PwC highlights Britain’s failure to provide opportunities for young people. The study brings attention to the fact that the country ranks a lowly 21st out of 35 OECD members for its ability to get 15 to 24 year olds into work, education or training. If the UK could equal Germany’s low youth unemployment rate it would stand to gain around £45 billion, a 2.3 percent increase in GDP. The PwC report compares numerous countries, however Germany, Austria and Switzerland come out on top when it comes to providing career opportunities and workplace training to young people. Perhaps a clue to their success is that these nations all have so-called ‘dual education systems’ where work-based learning sits with equal stature alongside traditional academic study.

November 28, 2016

Surge in overall job vacancies, but consultancy sector bears Brexit brunt ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

The number of advertised job vacancies in the UK increased by 2.6 percent to 1,162,342 in October, and according to the latest UK Job Market Report from Adzuna.co.uk, with Christmas on the horizon, employers will be seeking to hire an array of temporary jobseekers to meet a rise in demand. A rise in total advertised vacancies has also been fuelled by employers’ plans to expand and refresh their teams to capitalise on jobseekers intending to make a fresh start or change in career path in the first few months of 2017. However, despite the overall resilient nature of the jobs market, the consultancy sector appears to have taken the brunt of the implications of Brexit. As a result, average advertised salaries are currently down 8.7 percent. This suggests companies are withdrawing from placing as much reliance on temporary staff and freelancers and seeking expertise internally from senior employees who may be more familiar with the nature of the business. This also highlights the importance of employers widening their talent pool and attracting highly skilled workers.

November 23, 2016

Gender earnings gap in tech sector is significantly higher than national average ⁰

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

The high tech sector may pride itself on offering some of the most attractive and modern workplace environments, but when it comes to equal parity between the sexes it seems out of date. New research from Mercer claims that at 25 percent, the gender earnings gap in the UK’s high tech sector is significantly higher than the national average (18 percent). The consultancy also found that small companies have the largest gap, with a 30 percent difference in (median) pay between all male and female employees, and a 26 percent gap when considering mean base salaries. This difference reduces as company sizes grow. Where the data allowed comparison of pay between women and men in equal job roles, the pay gap was much smaller, typically 8 percent. This is comparable to the UK norm of 9 percent for this type of analysis. The reasons for this gap is due on further analysis to a multitude of factors including the reluctance of many women to enter the tech field, not enough effort being put into promoting women and a lack of will in promoting flexible working patterns.

November 16, 2016

Google confirms it is to go ahead with massive new London HQ ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology, Workplace design

Following the announcement in September that Apple was to reaffirm its commitment to the UK with a major investment in the creation of a new headquarters building in London, the latest global tech giant to follow suit is Google. The firm has confirmed it is to open a new HQ in the capital which will see 3,000 jobs created by 2020. In an interview with the BBC, chief executive Sundar Pichai claimed that he is confident that the UK Government will not be throwing up barriers to the movement of skilled labour in the wake of the Brexit vote. Based on this he is moving ahead with the Bjarke Ingels Group and Thomas Heatherwick designed £1 billion Kings Cross development that will allow the firm to expand its UK workforce to 7,000 people. Heatherwick has previously worked with Google alongside Bjarke Ingels Group on the design of their Mountain View headquarters in California. He was drafted in to work on the London project after a previous design was rejected because it was ‘boring’.

November 14, 2016

Business association calls for action on high cost of childcare ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

The British Chambers of Commerce and Middlesex University, have published a new survey to gauge the opinion of business leaders on the cost and availability of childcare and its impact on the workforce. The survey of businesses claims that a third of firms (33 percent) regard the availability of childcare as a key issue in recruiting and retaining staff. The survey of more than 1,600 business leaders across the UK also claims that over a quarter (28 percent) of firms have seen a reduction of working hours by staff due to the cost of childcare, while nearly 1 in 10 (9 percent) have seen employees leave their business. Although the survey suggests that nearly 40 percent of businesses already view government plans to double the availability of free childcare next year as likely to have a positive impact on their business, the BCC is calling on government to go further. It says the administration should consider the costs and benefits of a universal entitlement up until school entry, which would help more firms retain and promote productive staff, and help working parents progress.

October 26, 2016

Larger employers much more optimistic about post-Brexit outlook than SMEs ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

A gap is emerging between UK businesses regarding the impact of Brexit, with large businesses significantly more optimistic about the future than their small business counterparts, joint research by NGA Human Resources (NGA HR) and its SMB division, Moorepay suggests. Six in ten (59 percent) respondents working for large businesses expect Brexit to have a positive impact on their business, but only 35 percent of SMBs share this view. In fact, a quarter of (25 percent) SMB employees in the UK actually believe their situation will worsen after the UK has left the European Union. Looking ahead, the majority (79 percent) of larger UK businesses are ready to address the challenges and exploit the opportunities resulting from Brexit, whereas just over half of small businesses (56 percent) feel the same. Asked about their wish list for a post-Brexit economy, all UK businesses agree that access to the single market is the biggest advantage of the EU membership and one that both large businesses (64 percent) and SMBs (54 percent) would like to retain. Additionally, opening up trade to new countries and markets is seen as the main advantage of Brexit for both large (70 percent) and smaller businesses (54 percent), followed by freedom from EU laws and regulations (both 48 percent).

October 25, 2016

How tech giant EMC standardised the design and management of its office portfolio ⁰

by Cathy Hayward • Case studies, Facilities management, Features, Workplace design

This summer’s headlines have been full of discord, a cacophony of angry voices either directed at continental Europe, or at the Brexiters who voted for Britain to leave the European Union. But EMC, a global leader in information technology-as-a-service which has recently been acquired by Dell, is a leading light of European integration through its One Team approach to workplace management and design across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Over the past three years, the EMC Global Real Estate and Facilities Team (GREF), which supports more than 12,000 people in around 130 office locations across 50 countries in EMEA, has transformed from a group operating independently, to a fully-aligned team which provides a uniform and standardised approach to workplace delivery and management to enable greater business success.

October 18, 2016

New CoreNet Global / HOK report explores impact of coworking on corporate real estate ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Coworking, Flexible working, News

The UK Chapter of CoreNet Global, in partnership with HOK’s WorkPlace practice, has released a new report that studies the impact of coworking from a corporate real estate (CRE) perspective. With coworking now one of the fastest-growing sectors of the commercial real estate market, the new report, Coworking: A Corporate Real Estate Perspective, examines the drivers of coworking from the demand and supply side, the industry risks and implications for corporate real estate, as well as information about the owners, coworkers and centres. The CoreNet Global / HOK Coworking report highlights the ideas that changing business priorities and the need to attract talented people, reduce real estate costs, improve speed to innovation and increase productivity are driving corporations to consider different workplace models, including on- and off-site coworking.