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Majority of staff refuse to admit tiredness is affecting their performance at work

Majority of staff refuse to admit tiredness is affecting their performance at work

Majority of staff won't admit tiredness is impacting their performance at work

Almost half of employees regularly turn up to their job feeling too tired to work but according to a new survey the majority (86 percent) are not able to speak openly with their line manager about how tiredness is impacting on performance. The research from Westfield Health has found over one in ten (11 percent) of UK workers have purposefully taken a nap at work, and over a third (34 percent) say their mental wellbeing is reduced due to tiredness and fatigue. Fatigue, which is defined as extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness, is stretching beyond work for UK employees, with 55 percent saying it is affecting them at home too. Almost half (46 percent) said they regularly turn up to their jobs feeling too tired to work, and more than a third (37 percent) say they tend to be more forgetful and make errors as a result of tiredness. This is a worrying concern when it comes to the built environment, particularly construction.

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Call for employers to do more for older workers

Call for employers to do more for older workers

A new report from the charity and lobbying group the Centre for Ageing Better has called for employers to be more age-friendly and inclusive of those over 50, including doing more to tackle age discrimination in the workplace. According to the study, significant numbers of older workers feel they are being discriminated against at work because of their age, including believing they have been turned down for jobs (9 percent) and being offered fewer opportunities for training and progression (32 percent).

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Working long and hard? It may do more harm than good for your productivity and wellbeing

Working long and hard? It may do more harm than good for your productivity and wellbeing

Nearly half of people in the EU work in their free time to meet work demands, and a third often or always work at high speed, according to recent estimates. If you are one of them, have you ever wondered whether all the effort is really worth it? Employees who invest more effort in their work report higher levels of stress and fatigue, along with lower job satisfaction. But they also report receiving less recognition and fewer growth opportunities. And they experience less job security. So increased work effort not only predicts reduced wellbeing, it even predicts inferior career-related outcomes.

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Employees more productive when they understand the company goals

Employees more productive when they understand the company goals

Employees more productive when they understand the company goalsBeing made to feel you’re making a positive contribution to your organisation is an important motivator, but a new study suggests over half of employees believe they would be more productive if they knew how their work fitted into overall company objectives. According to the research from Asana this lack of transparency means a third of UK employees believe their business suffers from a lack of direction, with employees complaining that they do not know what their company stands for and are completely unclear of the company’s long term and short-term goals. This unsurprisingly is having a direct impact on employee motivation, with and framed within the context of the UK’s productivity conundrum.  A lack of clarity of company goals across businesses is not the sole reason that the UK is experiencing a productivity conundrum, but there is a clear disconnect between strategic goals and the jobs being executed on a day to day basis.

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Four day working week could become a reality soon, claims report

Four day working week could become a reality soon, claims report

A four-day working week could become a reality this century, according to the general secretary of the Trade Union Congress and a new TUC report. In a key speech to the TUC’s annual congress set to be delivered later today, Frances O’Grady will call for firms to use technology in a way to improve the lives of workers and cut the number of hours they spend working. However, the union also concedes that it may take government intervention for this to happen, given the way technology has encouraged the extension of working time over past few decades.

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We should measure wellbeing and security if we want to create Good Work, claims the RSA

We should measure wellbeing and security if we want to create Good Work, claims the RSA

Job security, workplace mental health, and how well-supported workers feel by their employer, should be monitored annually by the government, a report led by the RSA and the Carnegie UK Trust recommends. The need to better monitor quality of work in the UK was called for in RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor’s 2017 employment review for the Prime Minister. The UK Government subsequently committed to delivering on this proposal; and Measuring Good Work now sets out a roadmap for how the ambition can be achieved. The report highlights that employment has a major impact on people’s wellbeing and quality of life, arguing that since the 2008 financial crisis, despite record employment, the overall figure on the number of people in work fails to account for issues like worker pay; whether employees feel they are trapped in a job below their skillset; are working too few or too many hours; or are facing excessive workplace pressure.

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BRE announces plans for £10m innovation hub building

BRE announces plans for £10m innovation hub building

UK based building research body BRE has announced plans for a new research centre building at its campus in Hertfordshire. The new Open Innovation Hub will be built on the current site of a redundant and soon to be demolished 1960’s office block, known as Building 4, at the organisation’s Garston base. BRE says the new building, designed by architects AHMM will create a national and international centre for research and innovation in emerging sectors such as digital, connected and smart built environment. The four-floor 35,000 sq ft building will offer high-quality incubation and SME acceleration space to facilitate collaboration between the research base, large firms and knowledge-intensive SMEs. BRE aims to see the £10m build project achieve a BREEAM outstanding environmental accreditation. Once finished it will create 150 jobs and BRE also hopes to attract as many as 25 new firms to its Enterprise Zone.

Flexible hours and opportunities for growth help reduce graduate job-hopping

Flexible hours and opportunities for growth help reduce graduate job-hopping

Flexible hours and opportunities for growth help reduce graduate job-hoppingThe latest generation of workplace recruits, the so-called Gen Z graduates, are more likely to stay in their first role if flexible working and mentoring is on offer, new research claims. According to graduate jobs board Milkround, while over half (55 percent) of new graduates’ plan to stay in their first role for less than two years, 76 percent can be encouraged to stay longer with training/mentorship and 63 percent with flexible hours. They are also ambitious and have high expectations, with 65 percent believing they will work in their dream industry. This impacts what is expected of employers and could hold the key to encouraging this new generation to stay in roles longer. This change in expectations begins before they start their new role – 68 percent of graduates are calling for more detailed job descriptions and 57 percent would like to have an open line of communication with their line manager from the moment they accept a job.

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Finance professionals prioritise protection of employment rights in Brexit deal

Finance professionals prioritise protection of employment rights in Brexit deal

Securing employment rights for workers must be one of the key priorities of any Brexit deal, according to a fifth of finance professionals surveyed by REED. The recruitment agency asked almost 800 senior finance professionals about company preparations for leaving the EU, finding that only prioritising a free trade deal for the UK (31 per cent) received more votes than securing employment rights (20 per cent). Finance professionals gave considerably less backing for prioritising membership of the single market (18 per cent), self-determined UK law (10 per cent), the customs union (10 per cent) and border controls (10 per cent).

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution will be the most disruptive yet, senior economist predicts

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will be the most disruptive yet, senior economist predicts

The rise of artificial intelligence and automation will create a Fourth Industrial Revolution that will be be significantly more disruptive than the three previous industrial revolutions, according to the Bank of England’s chief economist. According to Andy Haldane, the transformation caused by automation of cognitive skills had the potential to have a greater impact than Britain’s first industrial revolution, when coal and steam changed the country, the second industrial revolution which brought chemical engineering and the combustion engine, or the widespread use of computers in the 20th and 21st centuries.

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Workers are focused on shorter hours and more flexible working

Workers are focused on shorter hours and more flexible working

New research released today by McDonald’s UK, reveals more than half of UK adults want to move away from traditional working patterns, choosing jobs that enable them to enjoy more flexible working and prioritise commitments outside of work. This study was conducted in July and August, with YouGov as well as with McDonald’s employees. Its key finding is that Jobs that offer earlier starts and a shorter working week most appealing to job seekers; with only 6 percent of people working the traditional ‘9-5’

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How will Crossrail impact the office landscape of London and beyond?

How will Crossrail impact the office landscape of London and beyond?

We are now just a few months away from the grand opening of the central section of Crossrail, the 118km long railway line spanning London and the South East which will, once completed, will deliver a direct connection between all of London’s main employment centres; linking Heathrow with Paddington, the West End, the City and Canary Wharf. This ambitious redevelopment plan will bring huge positive change to the City and is estimated to generate over 850,000 new jobs in the Capital, as well as making the lives of those already working in London easier and more efficient.

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