January 20, 2019
The changing shape of the insurance workplace
HOK’s WorkPlace group has released The New Insurance Workplace (registration required), a report which sets out to examine the forces reshaping the insurance industry and how workplace design can position these companies for success. The report’s concludes that insurance firms take pride in their conservative approach to risk management and traditional business models. They also have high-performance cultures that demand strong results. Yet changing regulations, emerging technologies and increasingly obsolete work processes have left many legacy players with underutilised, outdated office and retail space that hinders their ability to meet the fast-changing expectations of customers.
Flexible working is supposed to be a boon to working parents, but it seems it’s not without its disadvantages, as a new academic study has found that part-time working mothers who have the ability to control their own schedule often end up working an increased amount of unpaid overtime. The research from the University of Kent found that for those who gained schedule control over their work there was an increase in the amount of unpaid overtime worked, as on average in the UK men work an extra 2.2 hours a week in unpaid overtime while for women it is about 1.9 hours.
Just three days into the New Year, today (Friday 4 January), the UK’s top bosses will have made more than a typical full-time worker will earn in the entire year, according to calculations from independent think tank the High Pay Centre and the CIPD. The average (median) full-time worker in the UK earns a gross annual salary of £29,574, while the average FTSE 100 CEO, on an average (median) pay packet of £3.9 million, only needs to work until 1pm on Friday 4 January 2019 to earn the same amount. The £3.9 million figure was calculated by the CIPD and the High Pay Centre in their 
Office investment volume in Central London in 2018 is expected to come close to £20 billion, despite the ongoing economic and political uncertainties of Brexit. According to Savills London witnessed notably above average levels of office take-up in 2018 and achieved the best ever City of London rent (£80 per sq ft). The list of global businesses committing to long term leases has continued to grow with announcements in the last 12 months from Facebook, LinkedIn and Sidley Austin. The constrained development pipeline has seen more office pre-lets over 50,000 sq ft agreed in 2018 than ever before, while a shortage of available Grade A options has matured into a greater number of development opportunities. Savills also predicts a greater number of value-add and development opportunities coming to the market and that trading in London will insure the ongoing creation of the world’s best office buildings in a city where people will continue to want to work. This in turn creates new investment opportunities for global investors searching for prime assets.
Huge numbers of employees have or have had access to mission critical company systems which should be reserved only for staff that require it, claims a new study by CyberArk. Specifically, it found that almost half (48 percent) of employees have or have had access to sensitive financial documents; 46 percent to confidential HR information; nearly a third (29 percent) have or have had direct access to company bank account and over a third (37 percent) access to research and development plans or blueprints for new products/services. Credential theft remains the most common and effective route to a successful cyber-attack.
January 8, 2019
From nudge tech to listening tools, Gartner makes some workplace predictions for 2019
by Brian Kropp • AI, Comment, Technology, Workplace
Last year we saw businesses reporting their gender pay gap, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) taking effect, speculation on how Brexit will impact jobs and further impact on how technology is changing the way we work. Looking forward to the year ahead, Gartner has pulled together a fresh set of workplace predictions for the coming year. This includes the demise of employee surveys as the adoption of sophisticated listening tools accelerates; precious little progress in closing the gender pay gap, but the evolution of discrepancies in pay scales between new hires and existing employees; the rise and rise of the #MeToo movement, which could lead to more senior executives being ousted in 2019 than in 2018; and new technologies designed to nudge workers into action.
More →