Search Results for: employees

Condeco and iOffice + SpaceIQ announce merger

Condeco and iOffice + SpaceIQ announce merger

Investment firm Thoma Bravo has announced the merger of Condeco, a provider of workspace scheduling software with workplace and asset management firm iOffice + SpaceIQ to create a new business called Eptura. The firm claims that the “strategic combination creates a global worktech leader that provides software solutions to power the modern workplace”. The merger follows previously announced investments in Condeco and iOffice + SpaceIQ by Thoma Bravo and JMI Equity, who will remain the primary investors in Eptura. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. More →

One in four pregnant women reluctant to share news with employers

One in four pregnant women reluctant to share news with employers

An exasperated woman at a desk rests her head on her laptop to show how women, including pregnant women,  can feel let down by outdated attitudes More than one in four (26 percent) pregnant women feel reluctant to share their pregnancy news due to fear of the stigma they may face from colleagues and managers, according to a new poll from Culture Shift. This jumped to almost half (46 percent) for those who had been in employment for less than six months when they fell pregnant. The survey conducted among mothers who worked while pregnant reveals more than one in five (21 percent) know someone who has faced maternity discrimination at work, while one in eight (12 percent) have experienced it themselves. More than one in ten (11 percent) say it was their manager who discriminated against them. More →

Reliance on hero leaders holds back progress on the environment

Reliance on hero leaders holds back progress on the environment

Reliance on a wise ‘guru’ leader or ‘hero CEO’ endangers progress in tackling the environmental crisis by shifting responsibility, according to a new report from CEMS. Instead, all leaders need to adopt a corporate culture of ‘collective’ responsibility, empowering all employees to make decisions with a generational outlook if real change is to take place.  The new report – Leading for the Future of Our Planet – builds on findings from a CEMS survey of 4,206 professionals across 75 countries revealing that the environment is the single greatest concern facing modern-day business leaders, overtaking technological advancement. More →

Work is more visible to managers when people are in the physical workplace

Work is more visible to managers when people are in the physical workplace

workplace visibilityAlthough workers think that their work location doesn’t matter, a new poll suggests that their bosses don’t agree. In the poll of US employees from workplace platform Envoy, 96 percent of respondents described as leaders say they take more notice of people’s work contributions when they are in the office. Just 42 percent of respondents described as employees agree. Gen Z employees, more than any other generation, value workplace visibility, with 73 percent believing their contributions are noticed more in-office than at home. Only 64 percent of Millennials, 53 percent of Gen X, and 45 percent of Boomers feel the same. Among executives, women are more likely than men to recognise work and contributions accomplished from home. More →

Corporate change forces managers to juggle different views of fairness

Corporate change forces managers to juggle different views of fairness

corporate changeMiddle managers get caught between different stakeholders’ perceptions of fair treatment in reaction to corporate change programmes, claims new research from Aalto University School of Business and published in the Journal of Business Ethics. According to Associate Professor Marjo-Riitta Diehl, from the Department of Management Studies, and her co-authors, these managers can often experience uncertainty, anxiety, and reluctance to take action as a result. The research was based on two rounds of interviews with managers in the German branch of an international company shortly before and after restructuring changes. More →

Skills shortages won’t be solved by offering people more money

Skills shortages won’t be solved by offering people more money

skills shortagesAs businesses across the country face rising costs, new research from the CIPD and Omni warns that using pay to attract talent simply isn’t enough to tackle on-going skills shortages. While an increasing number of organisations (54 percent) are inflating pay to retain talent, this approach is not sustainable for most employers in the face of rising costs. To tackle the skills shortage, organisations need to highlight other components of good working practices when recruiting, such as offering flexible working and promoting career development opportunities. For instance, the latest Resourcing and Talent Planning survey shows that 68 percent of employers that offer hybrid/ remote working say it has allowed their organisation to attract and retain more talent.  More →

The Great Workplace Debate continues to improve (mostly)

The Great Workplace Debate continues to improve (mostly)

The great bandwagon of bullshit that is the home v office debate looks set to trundle into a third year. What is increasingly obvious is that it is the mainstream media that is holding the reins and refusing to release them. Here’s a BBC story from this week that doesn’t exactly mischaracterise the Microsoft report on which it is based, but does place the emphasis where it doesn’t need to be. The binary headline doesn’t help, of course, except to launder the idea and drive a needless wave of social media chatter. More →

What effect will the Employment Bill have on hybrid working?

What effect will the Employment Bill have on hybrid working?

hybrid workingThe long-awaited Employment Bill may be published later this year. The draft Bill, first introduced in the Queen’s speech in 2019, was put on hold and repeatedly delayed due to the impact of COVID-19. There is some confusion around what the change to flexible working will entail should the Employment Bill come into force. In the Queen’s speech, as set out in the Conservative’s manifesto earlier that year, it was announced that the proposal was to make flexible working the default position unless an employer had a ‘good reason’ not to allow it. This proposal would have been a radical change in favour of employees as flexible working would become an automatic right – thereby weakening an employer’s ability to push back on hybrid working requests. More →

Working from home is a double-edged sword, according to UK workers

Working from home is a double-edged sword, according to UK workers

working from homeA new poll from SD Worx claims that while 72 percent of British workers think working from home offers a better chance of improving their work-life balance, they have concerns about wellbeing and working culture. Based on data from over 4,000 companies in the UK and across Europe, the findings suggestthat the appetite for working from home (WFH) in the UK (72 percent) is creeping ahead of mainland Europe (66 percent). More →

Getting working culture right is essential to hiring, supporting and retaining workers

Getting working culture right is essential to hiring, supporting and retaining workers

working cultureAs workers continue to adjust workstyles to fit with their new priorities, a PwC survey reveals nearly two-thirds of workers are on the hunt for a new job. Many employers are scrambling for strategies to attract top talent and retain their employees. But actively developing working culture and designing new ways to secure the best talent and look after it requires first listening and reacting to the impact the changing work landscape is having on employees’ mental and physical health, as well as understanding and prioritising new and sought-after benefits. More →

Four-day week pilot met with overwhelming approval at halfway point

Four-day week pilot met with overwhelming approval at halfway point

four-day weekAt the halfway point of a six-month pilot programme of a four-day week in the United Kingdom, results so far indicate that the idea has been backed by an overwhelming majority of those companies taking part, with many already saying the move will be permanent. A poll found that 88 percent believed the trial was working ‘well’ for their business. Just under half (46 percent) of respondents said their business productivity had ‘maintained around the same level’, while 34 percent said that it had ‘improved slightly’, and 15 percent said it had ‘improved significantly’. More →

Poor acoustics hamper productivity and deter people from spending more time in the office

Poor acoustics hamper productivity and deter people from spending more time in the office

acousticsNoisy offices are lowering productivity, with 60 percent of office workers unable to concentrate and delivering poor quality work due to loud workspaces, is deterring people from returning to offices more often, and can even lead to violence. Those are the key findings of a new poll of 2,000 workers from Oscar Acoustics. The survey [registration] suggests that just 8 percent of people feel they work in a quiet office, with only a quarter of office workers working in a space that has well designed acoustics for their job. More →