May 3, 2023

Around a quarter of jobs will shift over the next five years, WEF report claims

Almost a quarter of jobs are expected to switch in the next five years according to a new report from the World Economic Forum. Its Future of Jobs Report for 2023 suggests that employers anticipate 69 million new jobs to be created and 83 million eliminated among the 673 million jobs corresponding to the dataset, a net decrease of 14 million jobs, or 2 percent of current employment. The data is an extrapolation of data from 803 employers employing around 11 million people. More →

April 25, 2023

People responding to artificial intelligence by focussing on their ‘human skills’

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Workplace

Globally, workers are focused on developing their human skills, even as they see a future dominated by technology-driven work, artificial intelligence and automation, according to a new study from Pearson. For the latest edition of the Pearson Skills Outlook series [registration], Pearson partnered with Google to examine how and why people in the US, UK, India, and Brazil are looking to upskill as they face a rapidly changing economy. More →

March 29, 2023

Generative artificial intelligence set to boost GDP but could affect 300 million jobs

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Workplace

The latest developments in generative artificial intelligence could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs claims. The authors suggest that the technology could replace around a quarter of the work tasks carried out in the US and Europe but may also mean new jobs and a productivity boom. The report claims that the tech could increase total annual value of goods and services produced globally by 7 percent. More →

March 9, 2023

More than one in three Americans fear artificial intelligence could take their jobs

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

A survey of 3,000 employees across the United States has shed light on the extent to which workers are concerned about the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on their job security. The research, carried out by FreelanceWritingJobs.com, claims that just over 1 in 3 (35 percent) Americans are worried about the possibility of AI making their professions redundant. More →

March 8, 2023

Two thirds of US landlords don’t really understand how their buildings are used

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Property

A new report from VTS claims that 62 percent of US landlords don’t have the tools they need to know how their properties are used, in spite of the ongoing pressure on them to understand the experience of occupiers and retain their business. More →

February 13, 2023

Childhood’s end for work and the need for a grown-up conversation about it

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing

Arthur C Clarke’s finest novel Childhood’s End is the story of an Earth that is invaded by a force of alien Overlords. This is not a destructive colonial invasion, which is why there’s no Hollywood blockbuster in the tale, but a seemingly benevolent intervention which ushers in a golden age for humanity. Although humankind initially does not get to meet the Overlords in person (for reasons I won’t give away here), the aliens unite the world’s governments, eradicate crime, conflict and the nation state and do away with the need for creativity and hard work. It is the literal end of history.

January 20, 2023

AI presents us with a chance to rediscover what it means to be human

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology

Like a lot of people right now, I am struggling to get my head around where we are going with AI. Look around and you’ll see the breathless excitement at the sheer amazingness of it all. And examples of its limitations, how it screws up, how military grade AI can be fooled by somebody hiding in a box, and its sense of humour failure. All of this is demonstrably, paradoxically true. More →

November 23, 2022

Firms should focus on people in the drive for long term growth

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new report by Economist Impact, sponsored by Kyocera Document Solutions, claims that human-centric strategies are needed for businesses to drive sustainable business growth, focusing on three pillars: productivity and infrastructure, employee engagement and culture. The Magnetic Workplace Barometer claims to gauge confidence both today and in five years’ time across what the report terms the three main pillars of productivity and infrastructure; employee engagement; and culture. The barometer scores are scaled from 1 to 7, 7 being the most confident. More →

November 22, 2022

HR profession should rebrand and shift its focus, claims a new report

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

The time has come to re-brand the human resources profession and shift its focus from processes to people, a new report from Sage claims. The authors claim the study emphasises the scale of the challenge facing teams, with 92 percent of executives believing the perceived value of human resources is a challenge for the profession. The poll of more than 1,000 HR and C-suite leaders working in SMBs across six of the world’s largest economies also highlights that 81 percent of human resources professionals are feeling burnt out and 62 percent are considering leaving the industry. More →

November 17, 2022

The workplace circus continues to entertain, but back in the real world…

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing

The Great Workplace Circus headlines its 322nd show of the year with everybody’s favourite distraction, Elon Musk, being driven into the ring by his own shoddily built clown car, declaring he needs everybody at Twitter to be ‘extremely hardcore’ before sacking a few people from his space programme, then setting fire to the tent himself. The swarm of stories spawned by this extraordinary behaviour include this tired and predictable rant in the Telegraph about ‘lazy Brits’. Ironically, there’s nothing lazier than a columnist on this rag with some space to fill. More →

November 10, 2022

Summing up where the office now stands in the scheme of things

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working

The argument about what it takes to encourage people to come into the office more often seems to have boiled down to an equation. It’s now common to hear somebody argue that the office has to be worth the commute it takes to get to it. So, if you want people to spend more time in the building, you need to do the maths. O must be greater than or equal to C More →

November 4, 2022

The human mind and body are not really machines for living in

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace

It is ironic that while we live in a world in which we are witnessing the automation of more and more human skills and capabilities, we are often best able to understand the way people function with symbols of mechanisation. That is the underlying conceit of what turned out to be one of the animated film events of recent years, Pixar’s Inside Out. The movie depicts the inner workings of the human brain as under the control of tiny people, literally inside our heads, making decisions on our behalf we only half understand. More →