December 5, 2019
From menstruation to menopause, the challenges that come with being a woman at work is causing reoccurring career breaks, which are costing UK businesses, according to a new report from Bupa. As many as 11 million women have had to take a long-term leave of absence at some point during their working life, from their late teens to their early seventies. More →
November 18, 2019
A new study from The Institute of Leadership & Management claims there is a significant gulf between the organisational values held by UK businesses and the personal values of their workers, and highlights the different values considered important to men and women, younger and older workers and between sectors. More →
November 12, 2019
Oxford has been recognised as the top performing city in the UK to live and work for the fourth year in a row in a nationwide study carried out by PwC. The city has emerged ahead of Reading thanks to work-life balance, income, transport and skills with Bradford being crowned as the most improved city. Published today (12 November 2019), the annual Demos-PwC Good Growth for Cities 2019 sets out to show there’s more to economic well-being than just measuring GDP. The index measures the performance of 42 of the UK’s largest cities, England’s Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and ten Combined Authorities, against a basket of ten factors which the public think are most important when it comes to economic well being. These include jobs, health, income and skills, as well as work-life balance, house-affordability, travel-to-work times, income equality, environment and business start-ups. More →
October 30, 2019
Automation is not likely to eliminate millions of jobs any time soon — but the U.S. and other countries still need vastly improved policies if people are to build better careers and share prosperity as technological changes occur, according to a new MIT report about the workplace of the future. The report, which represents the initial findings of MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future, claims to puncture conventional wisdom and builds a nuanced picture of the evolution of technology and jobs.
October 15, 2019
The EU continues its snail’s pace when it comes to gender equality progress, according to the latest Gender Equality Index from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) shows that the EU’s score for gender equality is up just one point to 67.4, since the 2017 edition. Sweden continues to top the EU scoreboard, with 83.6 points, followed by Denmark with 77.5. Greece and Hungary have the most ground to make up, with both scoring less than 52. The biggest improver is Portugal, with an increase of 3.9 points, followed closely by Estonia with 3.1 points. More →
July 31, 2019
New research from ADP claims that the UK workforce feels confident, stable and well trained. The findings point to a more positive workforce that has continuously strengthened since the financial crash. Despite worries about the future of work generally, optimism has grown with just 27 percent of respondents reporting feeling very optimistic about their future in the workplace in 2019, up from 12 percent in 2012. More →
July 30, 2019
As the consequences of climate change, social tensions and high levels of inequality are increasingly evident, the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, led by Professor Diane Coyle, has published its initial report on how to improve economic measurement by replacing GDP as the standard measure for national prosperity with others that include wellbeing and social and environmental capital. More →
July 22, 2019
An abandoned mine shaft beneath the town of Mansfield, England is an unlikely place to shape the future of smart cities. But here, researchers from the nearby University of Nottingham are planning to launch a “deep farm” that could produce ten times as much food as farms above ground. Deep farms are an example of what the latest wave of smart cities look like: putting people first by focusing on solving urban problems and improving existing infrastructure, rather than opening shiny new buildings. More →
July 12, 2019
Differences in typical household incomes across the UK’s regions and nations have halved since their 1990 peak, but differences in productivity remain close to record highs, according to new research published by the Resolution Foundation. The report, Mapping Gaps, examines the relative economic performance of UK regions and nations since the 1960s, and the extent to which this has driven differences in household living standards. The report notes that regional inequality is a hot topic – particularly since the EU referendum exposed huge voting divides between London, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the rest of the UK – and that the UK is one of the most unequal countries in the OECD when it comes to the relative economic performance of its regions and nations.
July 9, 2019
One-fifth of sole traders in self-employment don’t survive one year, and the majority don’t survive five, according to a new study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The analysis of HMRC tax records by researchers at the IFS was funded by the Office for National Statistics through the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) and the Economic and Social Research Council. More →
June 26, 2019
A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit and UiPath claims that organisations around the world currently making extensive use of automation technologies, with 67 percent of UK business executives claiming to be satisfied satisfied with the results of their automation initiatives, 48 percent describing their organisation’s progress with automation as advanced, and 73 percent expecting their company’s operating costs to improve as a result of automating business processes. It is published on the same day as another report suggests that up to 20 million manufacturing jobs could be lost to robots across the world’s leading economies by 2030, replaced by a range of new jobs. More →
November 22, 2019
Office design can be a vehicle for equality and change
by Jeni Durksen • Comment, Workplace design