Search Results for: four day week

What Leonardo da Vinci can teach us about the six hour working day

What Leonardo da Vinci can teach us about the six hour working day 0

HumanThe latest idea to grip the sometimes limited imagination of the world’s workplace chatterers is that of the six hour working day or the four day working week. This has its original roots in a Swedish experiment designed to limit the hours people work in an attempt to improve their work-life balance and possibly even increase their productivity. Now a growing number of firms are looking to introduce a nominal four day working week or restrict the use of emails outside of office hours.  These are always commendable goals and you can see the logic. We know people find it increasingly hard to switch off, we know that this is bad for them and we know that long hours don’t necessarily equate to greater productivity.

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Majority of UK workers sit at their desk between four and nine hours a day

Majority of UK workers sit at their desk between four and nine hours a day

UK office workers may sit at their desk for up to nine hours a day

The majority (81 percent) of UK office workers spend between four and nine hours each day sitting at their desk, equating to an average of 67 sedentary days per person each year, claims a new survey from Fellowes. Nearly half (45 percent) of office workers polled said they sat at their desk for between six and nine hours daily with 36 percent claiming they spent four to six hours seated. On top of this, a huge 64 percent claimed their office environment also had a negative impact on their health.

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National Work Life Week research reinforces appeal of flexible hours

National Work Life Week research reinforces appeal of flexible hours

National Work Life Week research reinforces appeal of flexible hoursNational Work Life Week (1st – 5th October 2018) starts today with the aim of encouraging companies to think about their employees’ wellbeing and happiness. To mark the week new research asked British workers about the things they most want from their work. The YouGov survey of 2,000 adults, commissioned by the Oxford Open Learning Trust, found that while money is predictably the biggest motivator behind career choice (64 percent), over half of the respondents cited working hours and flexible working as an important factor (55 percent). More →

Nearly half of employees worldwide could do their jobs in 5 hours or fewer each day

Nearly half of employees worldwide could do their jobs in 5 hours or fewer each day

According to a global survey of nearly 3,000 employees across eight countries conducted by The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated, nearly half (45 percent) of full-time workers say it should take less than five hours each day to do their job if they worked uninterrupted, while three out of four employees (72 percent) would work four days or less per week if pay remained constant. Yet, 71 percent of employees also say work interferes with their personal life.

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Nine workplace stories that have challenged and informed us in the last week

Nine workplace stories that have challenged and informed us in the last week

How blue light from screens literally blinds us

Physical closeness makes people and things more desirable

Non-monetary incentives and the implications of work as a source of meaning

How clean is your desk? The unwelcome reality of office hygiene

The utter uselessness of the Cat A habit

UK can thrive post-Brexit, but only with design

New Zealand firm’s four-day week an unmitigated success

Real Estate and technological denial

Biophilic design for the workplace is so much more than plants

Image: Hunt of the Unicorn (tapestry circa 1500) housed at Stirling Castle

A quarter of workers do not take a day off to mourn following the death of a relative

A quarter of workers do not take a day off to mourn following the death of a relative

One in four British workers do not take time off work following a family bereavement, a poll of 2,000 people claims. According to the survey from funeral service firm CPJ Field, a further 10 per cent took just one day off to grieve, with the remaining 65 per cent taking two or more days off following the death of a family member. However the survey also found that 98 percent respondents agree that people should take time off, suggesting that people are not doing the things they know they should in favour of returning to work. The most commonly cited reasons for this behaviour were that people were worried about their jobs or felt they had too much to do.

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Average UK worker takes just half an hour for lunch each day

Average UK worker takes just half an hour for lunch each day

The average worker in Britain now takes just 34 minutes for their lunch break with over half of workers (52 percent) skipping their lunch break completely – a significant shift from the traditional one hour break.  Londoners are most likely to skip their lunch hour altogether, closely followed by Birmingham, Manchester and Norwich. This is according to new research from Workthere, the flexible workspace search service launched by Savills last year. Workthere commissioned a poll of 2,000 full time workers across Britain on their lunchtime habits to find out how long they actually take. The results show that office employees eat at their desk on average four days per week and even when they do take a break, they often don’t step out of the office, with over a third of those polled (37 percent) saying they rarely leave the office at lunch time. Additionally, 12 percent agreed they felt pressure to work through their lunch hour. Workthere also asked how the office environment affects these behaviours and found that over a third (36 percent) of those questioned said that access to outside space at lunchtime would make them more productive at work, with 32 percent confirming a quiet area to escape to would make a difference to the time they spend on their break.

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Half of UK employees work one unpaid day a week, but Germans get an even worse deal

Half of UK employees work one unpaid day a week, but Germans get an even worse deal 0

Half of UK employees work one day a week for free, but Germans do even more unpaid timeNearly half of UK employees are effectively working an extra day per week for free, claims new research from Powwownow. On average, UK workers spend just under seven hours per week working outside of contracted hours – the equivalent of a nine-to-five working day with an hour for lunch – but nearly half of them (42 percent) receive no pay for this extra days’ worth of work. A quarter of UK workers (26 percent) receive their standard pay for any overtime, while a fifth (21 percent) are rewarded with ‘time and a half’. Only 6 per cent receive ‘double time’. Germans get a worst deal though, as employees spend an average of 7 hours and 54 minutes working extra but a huge 61 percent of workers receive no pay at all for this time. Workers in Sweden spend the least time working outside of contracted hours, with only 4 hours and 9 minutes of extra work per week.

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Wellbeing threat for UK workers who don’t see daylight in winter

Wellbeing threat for UK workers who don’t see daylight in winter 0

Working in winter wellbeing

The customary debate over putting the clocks back has come and gone, as has the average workers chances of seeing any daylight until the early spring, for according to new research, the average office worker will now only be seeing daylight for less than an hour (52 minutes) a week. Nine in 10 rarely glimpse daylight during the winter months as they arrive at and leave work in the dark, according to a poll of 2,000 workers by Get More Vitamin Drinks. The average person will only leave the building for a total of 52 minutes during the week, although two-thirds admit there are at least two weeks in every month where they don’t spend any time outside at all. Unsurprisingly, just under half of office workers believe their work suffers as a direct result of the lack of sunlight – with productivity dropping rapidly from around 2pm. The study shows two thirds of office workers will start finding it difficult to concentrate by the early hours of the afternoon in winter as a direct result of being stuck inside.

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UK in bottom four of European countries for workplace benefits

UK in bottom four of European countries for workplace benefits 0

UK economySocial benefits for people in the workplace in Europe are generally far more generous than in the US, but the UK is in the bottom four overall taking into account factors such as maternity and paternity leave, general parental leave, paid holiday allowance, paid sick leave and unemployment benefits. Only the Swiss, the Irish and the Americans have a more frugal government policy. According to a report by Glassdoor of 14 key European neighbouring economies, conducted in cooperation with Llewellyn Consulting, the countries offering the most generous workplace and welfare benefits overall are Denmark, France and Spain. In terms of paid annual leave, Sweden, France and Denmark all offer 25 working days a year as minimum –the highest entitlement. The UK is bunched towards the bottom again with the likes of Italy, Greece, Germany, Portugal and Switzerland – all offering the minimum 20 days.

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Neocon highlights four of the world’s most important office design trends

Neocon highlights four of the world’s most important office design trends

humanscale-office-iq-float-smartWe live in the Global Village, Marshall McLuhan’s idea from 1962 of an electronically contracted world in which attitudes, cultures and our political, business and legislative framework begin to pull together. Yet each nation is shaped by little differences. That is why the comedy programme The Office found an audience on both sides of the pond, but one that needed Wernham Hogg in Slough to become Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania for it to work for the local audience. The central idea of the show has a universal appeal but needs a local voice. And what is true for The Office with a big O is also true for the office with a small o. This was the takeaway conclusion of a series of events staged in London and Manchester last week by Milliken and Humanscale. The touchstone for these events was a debate about the main conclusions of of June’s Neocon.

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The bonds that link work with place are loosening day by day

The bonds that link work with place are loosening day by day

Frayed ropeOver the decades designing productive spaces for work has focused on redefining the corporate office and its surroundings. While there are examples of quality design in buildings around the world, there is a growing movement that challenges the presumption that work should always be done “at work”. If we aim to allow people to be at their best, develop and nurture creativity and maximise quality output then we must ensure the place where the work is done is outstanding. Sarah Kathleen Peck of ‘It starts with’ summed it up when she wrote “There are people, places and things that make me feel like I’m building my energy stores, that rejuvenate me, and help me to do my best work. Likewise, there are also people and places that zap my energy; that leave me exhausted; that make me feel as though I’ve waste my time and my energy – and my day – without getting anything useful done.”

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