Search Results for: society

February 21, 2018

Report calls for greater equality and opportunities for over 50s in the workplace

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A new report a new report by the Centre for Ageing Better has called for government and employers to support older workers to stay in work for longer, help those who have fallen out of work involuntarily to return and to create workplaces that work for all, irrespective of age. The report claims that ensuring older workers are able to stay in good quality employment is essential to the future of the UK economy and will relieve pressure on public finances. It makes some key recommendations that include access to flexible working hours and workplace adaptations to help people manage pressures such as caring responsibilities and health conditions, which become more prevalent with age. It also calls for equality of opportunities in the workplace as older workers in the UK experience age discrimination in recruitment and progression. They are less likely to be offered opportunities for development – across the whole of the OECD only Turkey and Slovenia have lower levels of on-the-job training for older workers than the UK. Research shows they are also the most likely to be stuck on low pay and feel most insecure about their jobs.

February 20, 2018

Built environment needs to address the talent gap to make the digital transition says WEF

by Sara Bean • AI, Architecture, Facilities management, News, Technology, Workplace

The construction industry needs new talent and skills to help in the adoption of new technologies to meet the challenges of digital transformation. It must also become more diverse, including increasing the percentage of women in the industry. These are the recommendations of a new report from the World Economic Forum, developed in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Shaping the Future of Construction: An Action Plan to solve the Industry’s Talent Gap. The report argues that the Infrastructure and Urban Development (IU) industry has failed to innovate as quickly as other sectors, resulting in stagnating productivity and negative effects on the economy, society and the environment. An ongoing industry-wide shortage of qualified workers is among the key reasons for this issue. It has undermined project management and execution, adversely affecting cost, timelines and quality. It also has impeded the adoption of new digital technologies, such as building information modelling (BIM), automated equipment and cloud-based collaboration tools, which could improve productivity. The report provides twelve key actions which needs to be implemented to close the structural talent gap of the construction industry.

February 5, 2018

Developing a cultured nose for what makes workplace design great

by Steve Brewer • Comment, Workplace design

Workplace people are at risk of obsessing about productivity. The idea of what is or is not effective and even the notion of wellbeing, has almost been done to death. We overthink stuff. As Neil Usher might say, there are a few bandwagons people are leaping on a little too eagerly. So, let’s keep it simple. Yes, we need a ‘space’ to work in (or just do stuff), but mostly we need a reason for using it in the first place. One thing most people agree on – even the media and flinty-eyed consultants – is that we need a motivation, a reason to do the things asked of us and a belief or intrinsic connection to do those ‘things’ well.

January 29, 2018

New RSA report highlights increasingly precarious and diverse nature of work

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Britain is dividing into seven new classes of worker as the gig economy grows, according to think-tank the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). Striving, Thriving or Just About Surviving has been published to coincide with the launch of the RSA’s Future Work Centre, following RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor’s employment review for Theresa May last year. The report warns of a 30:40:30 society: while around 30 percent live comfortably, economic insecurity is “the new normal” with 40 percent just managing and a bottom 30 percent not managing to get by.

January 25, 2018

World Economic Forum announces expanded global network to shape policy for Fourth Industrial Revolution

by Mark Eltringham • AI, News, Technology

The World Economic Forum has announced an international expansion of its Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The announcement coincides with this week’s Forum at Davos, which you can follow live here. New affiliate Centers will open in India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, creating ‘an international network dedicated to maximising the benefits and minimising the risks of emerging technology’. In cooperation with host governments and private companies, affiliate Centers will aim to build on the work under way in San Francisco to close the perceived gap between emerging technology and policy. The Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution model is to bring together business leaders, governments, start-ups, civil society, academia and international organisations to co-design and pilot innovative approaches to governance for emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain.

January 23, 2018

UK in 8th place for global talent competitiveness but gender equality lags behind

by Sara Bean • Cities, Legal news, News, Workplace

The UK has been ranked as the eighth best country in the world for the ability to attract, retain, train and educate skilled workers, but while its ability to leverage diversity for talent competitiveness is boosted by its global knowledge skills – the UK is undermined by its weaker performance on tolerance and gender equality. According to the Global Talent Competitiveness Index GTCI) produced by the Adecco Group, with international business school INSEAD and Tata Communications, the UK has a particularly strong pool of global knowledge skills, a variable for which it is ranked third in the index boosted further by its strong regulatory, market and business landscape. But this is undermined by its internal openness, where it still lags behind, especially when it comes to gender equality. The report also suggests that although Article 50 was triggered in 2017, the ongoing negotiations and continuing lack of clarity over the UK’s position once it leaves the European Union in 2019, means the impact of Brexit is not yet clear.

January 18, 2018

Occupiers concerned about lack of innovation from commercial property sector

by Mark Eltringham • Coworking, News, Property

The UK’s productivity is lagging behind other G7 countries and property directors are concerned that landlords’ lack of proactivity around commercial property innovation may hamper efforts to move the UK up the productivity league table, according to the newly published results of a survey carried out at the Property Directors Forum in December 2017, hosted by Avison Young. Attendees at the event held at The Royal Society of Chemistry, Piccadilly, were asked to provide their thoughts on property innovation and the role that landlords have in leading the way. The survey revealed that not one of the property directors have been approached by their landlord(s), proactively, to discuss property innovation and, in fact, 40 percent of directors reported their landlord as being reluctant to innovate.

January 12, 2018

BSRIA launches urbanisation megatrends report

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

The Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) has launched a new report called Megatrends – Urbanisation (registration needed) which claims to look at the major forces that are shaping the ‘world in which we live and do business’. The report cites as inspiration a 2015 McKinsey report called No Ordinary Disruption, which examined ‘The Four Global Forces Breaking all the Trends’. The four key trends which McKinsey pointed to as already impacting on almost every society, or will do soon, are urbanisation, an ageing population, globalisation and the technological revolution. Since 1950 there has been a massive global movement towards urbanisation. In 1950 fewer than 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. By 2010 this had reached 50 per cent and by 2050 the share is forecast to exceed two thirds of the world’s population. This represents one of the biggest and fastest human movements in history and the report sets out to explore its implications.

January 5, 2018

Younger workers helping to drive a more positive perception of UK business

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

There has been a rise in the number of people who believe businesses in the UK have a good reputation, with a significant number of younger people helping to create this positive picture. The research, comparing perceptions of businesses between May and November 2017, reveals 2 in 3 people think UK businesses have a good reputation, up 7 percent in 6 months. The tracker, conducted by the CBI in partnership with global PR agency, Porter Novelli, and research company, Opinium, revealed that the public are more aware of the value business provides in local communities with an increasingly vocal business community emerging in recent months. Importantly, the improvement in business reputation has largely been driven by young people and those in work, with a significant 15 percent rise in positive views among 18-34 year olds. This reinforces the view that younger people are more engaged in the debate about the UK’s future, with the Brexit negotiations and a sharper political debate intensifying the focus on jobs and the economy.

January 2, 2018

We need to stop talking about self-employment as a monocultural phenomenon

by Andrea Broughton • Comment, Flexible working

Self-employment has grown considerably in the UK over the past 15 years, now totalling around 4.8 million workers, or 15 per cent of the workforce. There is a debate about the extent to which this growth in self-employment is a positive development: some believe that it is a positive feature of an entrepreneurial and flexible economy, while others fear that it is increasing levels of precariousness. This is a difficult issue to address as there is great heterogeneity among the self-employed workforce. In order to shed light on this, IES undertook research for the Centre for Research on Self-Employment (CRSE) to divide the self-employed workforce into segments. The policy debate on self-employment has often been carried out on the assumption that there is some homogeneity among the self-employed workforce. However, this is far from the case, and it could be argued that diversity is increasing due to the growth of the so-called gig economy. In order to help clarify the debate, IES undertook research for the CRSE that aimed to achieve greater clarity in terms of the size and nature of the different segments of the self-employed workforce. The aim is that if the sector is better segmented, this will help policymakers to avoid taking a broad-brush approach to the treatment of self-employed workers.

December 12, 2017

A 300 year old idea explains some of the enduring appeal of the open plan

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

In the 18th Century the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham came up with his idea of the Panopticon, a prison building with a central tower encircled by cells so that each person in the cells knew they could be watched at all times. Whether they were observed or not was actually immaterial. Bentham called it ‘a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind’ and while he focused on its use as a prison, he was also aware of the idea’s usefulness for schools, asylums and hospitals. Bentham got the original idea following a visit to Belarus to see his brother who was managing sites there and had used the idea of a circular building at the centre of an industrial compound to allow a small number of managers to oversee the activities of a large workforce. This is something of a precursor of the scientific management theories of Frederick Taylor that continue to influence the way we work and manage people.

December 6, 2017

Gig economy workers should not be criticised for defending their rights

by Michael Farrelly • Comment, Flexible working

The gig economy and workers’ rights are among the most prominent themes of our age. In the future of employment – in particular, what it means to be employed or self-employed – they are critical. Catapulted to the heart of this debate is Uber, which has deployed its ride-hailing platform app in nearly 500 cities around the world since its San Francisco launch seven years ago. But in the UK and elsewhere, it has run into myriad legal problems. Most recent among them, Uber lost a hearing at an Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) in London in a case brought by co-claimants, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam. The verdict in favour of the two Uber drivers poses a threat to the fundamental premise that has fuelled the meteoric rise of the gig economy: that workers work for themselves and not for the apps which rely on them.