December 22, 2017
The jingle jangle of work non-work balance
Productive healthy ageing and musculoskeletal health
Understanding modern work in an age of insecurity
The death of employee engagement or a happy ending?
Is the era of management over?
The paradox of choice in the workplace
Ten workplace meta-trends for 2018 (really)
December 19, 2017
We have talked before about the risks of over thinking problems. It is not just something that consultants, designers and the workplace intelligentsia are guilty of – everyone does it. It is why we do not switch off when we are ill and still insist on going to work. We over think the consequences of not being in our workplace. Likewise, many traditional line managers simply cannot get their head around their teams working from home. After all, modern management mantras all talk about creating a great atmosphere in which teams all work together – in the same space at the same time? We all tend to over complicate most things and that is one of the main reasons in the UK we struggle with the concept of working from home. A consequence of this is the rise in presenteeism, which is mainly linked to illness, people ignoring how bad they feel and because of a perceived pressure, still turning up for work.
December 6, 2017
Only half (50 percent) of UK companies believe they have the right skills to address a cyberattack, despite some high profile cyberattacks this year against the NHS, Uber and Equifax. A lack of cybersecurity skills may be due to a wider skills gaps facing the UK tech industry, claims new research from IT jobs board, CW Jobs. Nearly a third of tech employees reported feeling they were insufficiently trained in coding, cybersecurity and cloud migration. The gaps in employees’ skills is translating to the businesses they work for with 23 percent saying their business is missing programming and cybersecurity skills. A little over half (51 percent) of IT workers said that cybersecurity was included in their training, and almost one in four (23 percent) say they are not confident in handling a cyber security attack. Despite the growing threat and lack of in-house expertise, only half (50 percent) of employers look for cybersecurity skills when recruiting new IT talent. However, despite awareness around the risk of cybersecurity and the lack of preparedness, only 22 percent of employers are currently training their existing staff in cybersecurity.
November 16, 2017
A fear of change among staff is putting British companies at risk, according to new research that looks at how businesses are preparing for a technology-led future. A significant number of workers from across the UK admitted to anxiety and concerns over job security when their firms introduced technology to help them in their roles. Just under half (49 percent) of the people surveyed by Microsoft, Goldsmiths, University of London and YouGov said they feared the change that comes with digital transformation. Sixty-one percent said they felt anxious when bosses brought in new technology, while 59 percent were worried about the impact the automation of tasks would have on their job.
November 14, 2017
A new quarterly report that claims to analyse the latest trends taking place in cities across the UK has been published by Future Cities Catapult, the Government-backed centre of expertise in urban innovation, the City Innovation Brief (automatic download) summarises key developments and changes from cities across the UK, identifying where money is being invested and what future opportunities might look like within the advanced urban services sector.
November 14, 2017
New data published today shows that the over 50 age group experience an ‘unemployment trap’ – meaning they are more likely to be out of work than younger age groups, and once unemployed they struggle more than younger jobseekers to get back into employment. Currently almost a third of 50-64 year olds in the UK are not in work – some 3.3 million people. Within this, 29 percent are recorded as ‘economically inactive’ – not engaged in the labour market in any way – which is more than twice the rate of those aged 35-49 (13 percent). It is estimated that around one million of the over 50s who are out of work left employment involuntarily due to issues such as ill health, caring responsibilities or redundancy. Some 38 percent of unemployed over 50s have been out of work for over a year, compared to 19 percent of 18-24 year olds and the Centre for Ageing Better claims that employment support is failing this age group.
November 14, 2017
The Government’s HM Land Registry is making available, for free, data on land or property in England and Wales where the registered legal owner is a UK company or corporate body, or an overseas company. The Commercial and Corporate Ownership Data and Overseas Companies Ownership Data contain more than 3 million rows of data and include the address, company’s name, price paid and country of incorporation along with other useful information.
November 9, 2017
Ramon Suarez has produced a very practical book, based on his own experience as one of the pioneers of coworking. And let’s be clear – it is coworking (not “co-working”; there is no hyphen), as Suarez explains, “a coworker (a member of a coworking space) is not the same as a co-worker (somebody who happens to work for the same company or in your same office)”. On his business card, Suarez describes his role as “Serendipity Accelerator”- you will understand that if you read the book. Suarez differentiates coworking from its many (and mostly false) aliases. Shared offices may be collaborative, but do not provide the network of people found in a good coworking space. Networked offices, where more than one company shares space and may collaborate, “come close” to coworking. Hacker & Maker spaces, Accelerators, Incubators and Cafes are similarly differentiated.
November 7, 2017
Far from being a homogeneous group, nine distinct segments of the solo self-employed workforce have been identified in new research published by the Centre for Research on Self-Employment, in partnership with IES. This segmentation furthers understanding of the solo self-employed population, including the levels of independence and security, and variation in earnings across this broad section of the UK workforce. The solo self-employed are those who do not employ other people and therefore work on their own account, and makes up 84 per cent of the self-employed workforce.
October 31, 2017
The future workplace will replace familiar, rigid hierarchies and departments with small, collaborative networks of teams and the lines between individual organisations and ecosystems will blur as companies increasingly cast their net wider to innovate. This is one of the predictions made in a Fujitsu-commissioned whitepaper ‘Workplace 2025’ which argues that businesses must rethink social and technology strategies to plan for the future workplace – or risk being left behind. To appeal to future employees with the right skills, the whitepaper, which was produced by European research firm Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) advises that businesses must ensure they are moving towards an environment that provides contextual, personalised workspaces aligned to the individual needs of users. At the same time, they should plan to encourage enhanced peer collaboration by implementing technologies such as augmented reality. The Workplace 2025 report foresees that today’s organisational structures will become more agile, adapting to constantly-changing economic conditions, competitive landscapes and customer demands.
October 31, 2017
New research released to mark International Stress Awareness Day tomorrow (Wednesday 1st November) has revealed that more than one third (36 percent) of the working population have left a job because of the stress it caused them, according to research conducted by Citation. It claims that women are almost 10 percent more likely to leave because of stress than men, and those aged between 25 to 34-years old were most likely to struggle with workplace stress. Worryingly, more than half (53 percent) of employees feel too afraid to show signs of stress at work. More than a quarter (27 percent) think it’ll make them look weak, one in five (18 percent) worry it will affect their career and the remaining 7 percent feel uncomfortable approaching their manager with the problem. Those aged between 18 to 24-years old were most likely to fear for their career and worry about looking weak. Employees between 45 and 54 were notably more likely to feel at unease approaching their manager.
January 2, 2018
We need to stop talking about self-employment as a monocultural phenomenon
by Andrea Broughton • Comment, Flexible working
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