June 27, 2018
Location of workplace most important factor in attracting UK job seekers
The most attractive factor for UK job seekers when choosing a new employer is the location, claims the latest Global Talent Monitor report from Gartner. The report warns that employers are facing some challenges in retention as just 27.2 percent of UK employees in 1Q18 reported a high intention to stay with the organisation, down 5.5 percent from the same period last year. The UK had the fourth largest decrease after France, Singapore and Germany and those that are at the highest risk of leaving are those aged between 18-29 and 30-39 who have completed an MBA. The biggest attraction-drivers for UK job seekers are location (53.5 percent), vacation (43 percent), work-life balance (41.9 percent), camaraderie (41.4 percent) and produce or service quality (41.4 percent). More →
A third of UK office workers (30 percent) have admitted to only completing 1-4 tasks every day, according to a new report from Fellowes, which claims productivity levels in offices across the UK have fallen to a dramatic low. A quarter of workers admit they are unproductive for up to two hours a day, equating to a staggering 40 million-hours in lost productivity across the UK every week. Compared to data from Fellowes in 2017, the average office worker has lost an extra 30 minutes each day to productivity issues., office product specialists, released their second Productivity in the UK report today to help businesses understand what their employees need to increase output and the tools that can help. The study also found that over a third (38 percent) of office workers felt their employers weren’t doing enough to help their productivity and nearly half (40 percent) even went as far as to say they were more productive than their boss. On average Brits failed to meet deadlines at least once a week and 65 percent think a four-day working week would improve productivity.
Artificial intelligence systems need to be accountable for human bias at AI becomes more prevalent in recruitment and selection, attendees at the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion’s annual conference have been warned. Hosted by NatWest, the conference, Diversity & Inclusion: The Changing Landscape heard from experts in ethics, psychology and computing. They explained that AIs learnt from existing data, and highlighted how information such as performance review scores and employee grading was being fed in to machines after being subjected to human unconscious bias. Dr David Snelling, the programme director for artificial intelligence at technology giant Fujitsu, illustrated how artificial intelligence is taught through human feedback. Describing how huge data sets were fed into the program, David explained that humans corrected the AI when it used that data to come to an incorrect conclusion, using this feedback to teach the AI to work correctly. However, as this feedback is subject to human error and bias, this can become embedded in the machine.
