Search Results for: shared parental leave

Astonishing Uber employment case could lead to fresh battles over gig economy

Astonishing Uber employment case could lead to fresh battles over gig economy

by • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Technology

The latest decision in an ongoing legal battle involving the ride-hailing app, Uber, could have serious consequences for companies which operate in the ‘gig economy’. The prolonged employment tribunal case first began in 2016 with a case bought by the GMB Union. Uber drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam argued that the employment status they had been assigned by Uber – namely, ‘self-employed’ – was incorrect and that they should instead be classed as ‘workers’. The change in status would mean the pair were entitled to holiday pay, paid rest breaks and the minimum wage.

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Best practice in flexible working and gender diversity honoured at awards presentation

Best practice in flexible working and gender diversity honoured at awards presentation

by • Flexible working, News

Workingmums.co.uk has announced the winners of its eighth annual Top Employer Awards, celebrating the leading companies in gender diversity and flexible working. The Awards were presented at a ceremony at London’s Soho Hotel on 7th November where the keynote speaker was Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute. Winner of the Overall Top Employer Award was Lloyds Banking Group. The judges felt it was ‘a beacon for other employers with regard to its agile hiring programme which was a root and branch attempt to normalise different ways of working from recruitment onwards. It was a strong performer across all the categories and had made a major step forward in embedding a flexible culture.’

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Flexible working take up amongst both genders is undermined by negative employer attitudes

Flexible working take up amongst both genders is undermined by negative employer attitudes

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Flexible working take up amongst both genders is undermined by negative employer attitudesThe majority (83 percent) of workers view flexible working as an important benefit to them but two thirds (66 percent) believe that taking up flexible working halts progression at work. One of the reasons for this dichotomy suggests the results of the Hays UK Gender Diversity Report 2017, is because nearly a third (32 percent) of employees believe men will be viewed as less committed to their career if they take up shared parental leave, and women are less likely to be promoted after having children. While a majority (84 percent) of workers say it’s important that flexible working options are available to them in their workplace, many choose not to take any, and two-thirds think doing so will have a negative impact on their career. Women perceive it will have a negative impact, with over three-quarters (76 percent) reporting this concern and 65 percent of men. Interestingly, both men and women think flexible working options have helped improve the gender balance in senior roles, with 61 percent saying flexible working has improved the representation of women in senior positions, indicating that employers need to address and overturn the negative perception of flexible working and communicate its benefits.

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The riddle of productivity + Legal implications of AI + Designing collaboration space

The riddle of productivity + Legal implications of AI + Designing collaboration space 0

by • Newsletter

In this week’s Newsletter; Mark Eltringham looks at designs for those who need to be connected permanently to something other than the inside of their own heads; the legal experts from Berg offers advice to employers on the incoming gender pay gap legislation; and from the most recent issue of Work&Place David Woolf charts the rise of global and distributed teams. Corporate occupiers embrace coworking to help reduce property costs; automation in the workplace will lead to drastic changes to laws across the world; and UK productivity may be up but the underlying puzzle remains unsolved. Research shows that two years in there remain barriers to the uptake of shared parental leave; European employees embrace the ‘gig’ economy; staff feel more stressed at work than they did a year ago; and commercial property investment in London’s West End hits a record high. Download our Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design on the link between culture and workplace strategy and design; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

MPs criticise the Government’s response to gender pay gap recommendations

MPs criticise the Government’s response to gender pay gap recommendations 0

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

MPs criticise the Government's response to gender pay gap recommendations

If the Government will fail to achieve its goal of eliminating the gender pay gap in a generation if it continues to ignore the evidence which it is being given, a cross-party committee of MPs has said. The Women and Equalities Committee is disappointed with the Government’s response to a series of recommendations it put forward last March, which it says shows that the Government is not effectively tackling the structural causes of the gender pay gap. While the Government’s recognises the business case for reducing the gender pay gap and acknowledges structural factors contributing to the pay gap, including women doing jobs for which they are overqualified, concentration in part-time work, and being penalised for taking time out of work to raise children; it rejects most of the Committee’s seventeen evidence-based recommendations for addressing these issues. Instead it highlights gender pay gap reporting, as “key to accelerating progress,” and maintains that current policies on Shared Parental Leave, flexible working, and supporting women back into work are adequate.

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Fathers’ careers stifled by modern workplace culture, claims report

Fathers’ careers stifled by modern workplace culture, claims report 0

by • Flexible working, News

The UK is running the risk of creating a ‘fatherhood penalty’ – as fathers consider stalling or side-lining their careers to find roles they can better combine with family life, according to a new study. The 2017 Modern Families Index, published today by work-life charity Working Families and Bright Horizons, captures a broad picture – of fathers wanting to take an active part in childcare and the workplace failing to adapt and support their aspirations. Family is the highest priority for fathers. A quarter of fathers that took part in the study drop their children at school or nursery every day; with just over a quarter (26 percent) collecting them more than half the time. Seven out of ten fathers work flexibly to fulfil their caring responsibilities. However, for half of the fathers we spoke to their work-life balance is increasingly a source of stress.  A third of fathers feel burnt out regularly and one in five fathers are doing extra hours in the evening or weekends all the time.

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Gender earnings gap in tech sector is significantly higher than national average

Gender earnings gap in tech sector is significantly higher than national average 0

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

homepage-insideThe high tech sector may pride itself on offering some of the most attractive and modern workplace environments, but when it comes to equal parity between the sexes it seems out of date. New research from Mercer claims that at 25 percent, the gender earnings gap in the UK’s high tech sector is significantly higher than the national average (18 percent). The consultancy also found that small companies have the largest gap, with a 30 percent difference in (median) pay between all male and female employees, and a 26 percent gap when considering mean base salaries. This difference reduces as company sizes grow. Where the data allowed comparison of pay between women and men in equal job roles, the pay gap was much smaller, typically 8 percent. This is comparable to the UK norm of 9 percent for this type of analysis. The reasons for this gap is due on further analysis to a multitude of factors including the reluctance of many women to enter the tech field, not enough effort being put into promoting women and a lack of will in promoting flexible working patterns.

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TMT & workplace design + Real-estate decision making + Dutch productivity 0

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Property, Workplace

Insight_twitter_logo_2In this week’s Newsletter Andrew Brown explains why the Dutch are regarded as leaders in ideas on productivity; Mark Eltringham says the TMT sector may push the office design boundaries, but much of what they’re doing isn’t unique to them; and Sara Bean reveals just 1 percent of men have so far taken up the opportunity of Shared Parental Leave (SPL). In news; the global economy, workforce strategies and rising costs all influence real estate decision-making; Londoners are unsure and often un-consulted on the proliferation of high rise buildings; HR best practice proved to improve business performance and disturbing evidence that mobile phone users movements are being monitored. Download our Insight Briefing, produced in partnership with Connection, on how the boundless office can be freed from the shackles of time and place and access the latest issue of Work&Place. Visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

Dramatic rise predicted for the number of UK men working part-time

Dramatic rise predicted for the number of UK men working part-time 0

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Flexible workingAs we reported yesterday, just 1 percent of working men have availed themselves so far of the right to Shared Parental Leave (SPL) but it seems this doesn’t necessarily mean that men don’t want to adopt more flexible working patterns. A new report, Working Futures, published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), projects that the number of part-time male workers is set to increase by 20 percent by 2024 – nearly three times more than the projected growth in part-time female workers (7 percent), and this growth is particularly significant for men in professional or management roles, where an increase of 25 percent is projected. This marks a substantial change in the working patterns of men in highly paid, highly skilled roles. Women by contrast are set to become more career focused – with a rise of 7 percent in the number of women working full-time, compared to just 3 percent for men.

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Is discrimination of women with children the root cause of gender pay gap?

Is discrimination of women with children the root cause of gender pay gap? 0

by • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Measuring the gender pay gapTwo reports published this week support the argument that it is when women have children and require more flexible hours, that they really start to feel the sharp end of the gender pay gap. A report by a cross party group of MPs on the Women and Equalities Select Committee, reveals that supporting men and women to share childcare and other forms of unpaid caring more equally would be one of the most effective policy levers in reducing the gender pay gap. Without this support, many women are trapped in low paid, part-time work below their skill level. This contributes to pay disparities and the under-utilisation of women’s skills that costs the UK economy up to 2 percent GDP, around £36 billion. It also found that not enough is being done to support women returning to work if they have had time out of the labour market. Meanwhile a report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission says that three in four working mothers experience maternity discrimination.

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While politicians squabble, here’s what the Budget meant for the workplace

While politicians squabble, here’s what the Budget meant for the workplace 0

by • Comment, Facilities management, Legal news, Workplace, Workplace design

Bash streetStrange as it may seem now, there was a Budget last week. We’d planned to produce a report on it once the dust had settled but given that whatever dust had originally been kicked up has now been swept away by a political storm, it’s only now we feel able to offer some perspective a few days out. As ever these days, the budget touched on a number of aspects of the workplace, sometimes hitting the mark and sometimes suggesting politicians don’t yet understand how people work. There was the usual stuff about rates and commercial property but also plenty to digest about the freelance economy, productivity, new technology, flexible working legislation and the current, often faltering attempts to develop wealth and infrastructure as well as the 21st Century creative and digital economy in places other than London. There’s plenty to digest here and plenty of people have already had their say, so a chance to grab a coffee and take all or some of it in.

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Jobs growth predicted for next year, along with skills shortages

Jobs growth predicted for next year, along with skills shortages 0

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

New job in 2015More than two fifths (43 percent) of firms will grow their workforce next year, with permanent jobs outstripping temporary roles according to the latest CBI/Accenture Employment Trends Survey. Firms identify skills shortages as the top threat, with over half (52 percent) of respondents citing the development and maintenance of digital skills as having a new urgency. More than half intend giving staff a pay award at or above the RPI rate of inflation, but nervousness remains about the impact of the National Living Wage (NLW). Half (51 percent) of service sector respondents indicate they will raise their prices, 27 percent will employ fewer people and 18 percent will make changes to their reward packages as a result. Multi-skilling employees to improve productivity and the capacity to adapt is now the leading form of flexibility, operated by nearly four in five respondents (79 percent), followed by flexibility over location for work (73 percent).

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