February 7, 2020
Cuts to government estate save £2bn
Work to reduce the size of the government estate has freed up land for development, including new housing, and secured more than £2bn over the past year, the Cabinet Office has claimed. The ‘State of the Estate 2018-2019’ report shows the government estate, which is made up of buildings across the country, is now 30 percent smaller than it was in 2010. In the past year, 339 former government sites have been disposed of, totalling 277,000 square metres – the equivalent of 39 football pitches. The cost of running the estate has also fallen by £50 million a year. More →
Two surveys have highlighted continuing fears among freelancers about the changes to the IR35 rules due to take effect in April. The reforms will shift the responsibility for defining contractors’ tax status from the individual to the employer to crack down on so-called ‘disguised employment’, where off-payroll workers are able to pay less tax than employees. However, concerns have been raised that the rules could force organisations to bring genuine contractors and freelancers on to the payroll, reducing flexibility for both parties. 
Executives in small and mid-sized businesses in the UK are more anxious about major decisions at work than critical decisions at home that affect their family, a new study has claimed. The new study by 
Senior employees being too confident about the value of their ideas could be one reason businesses are failing, according to research by the University of Cologne. The study, conducted by Professor Fabian Sting and a team of interdisciplinary co-authors, highlights how choosing the wrong ideas to pursue can lead businesses to make unwise investments and miss out on opportunities, which could threaten their survival. A large part of the problem, it says, is that the person who comes up with the idea overestimates how successful their innovation will be and views their skill or performance as better than it actually is. 
Many companies are moving away from long-term overseas placements in favour of short-term transfers, a report has suggested. To reduce costs and meet changing business and worker needs, firms are shifting from typical transfers of one to three years to moves of around three to 12 months, 
Following reports that job applications on the first working Monday of the New Year spiked by 89 percent compared to the average Monday in December, many UK businesses may be missing a trick in their efforts to retain staff, new research has suggested. When researchers commissioned by 
Getting on well with colleagues gives workers greater job satisfaction than having a good salary, new research has claimed. “
Artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies such as virtual personal assistants and chatbots will replace 69 percent of managers’ workload by 2024, 
