Search Results for: risk

June 20, 2017

As UK heatwave continues, Acas issues hot weather tips for employers ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

With the Met Office predicting that the hot weather looks set to continue for much of this week, workplace expert Acas, has offered some tips to help employers manage workplace challenges due to the hot weather. From a legal perspective, it advises that workplace temperatures should be reasonable as the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has stated that the temperature in all workplaces inside buildings must be reasonable. The HSE offers advice on how to carry out a thermal comfort risk assessment if employees complain about the temperature. Acas Senior Guidance Adviser, John Palmer, said: “Today’s sizzling weather may be ideal for the beach but staff getting into work on one of the hottest days of the year may not feel the same way. Certain workers may be adversely affected by the extreme heat such as pregnant women, elderly employees and Muslim staff that are currently fasting during Ramadan. Our advice offers some top tips for employers to help ensure their businesses remain productive during the heat wave whilst keeping staff happy too.”

June 16, 2017

RICS and banking sector sign commercial property valuation agreement ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

The Royal Institution for Charted Surveyors (RICS) and the British Banking Association (BBA) have signed a memorandum of understanding outlining their commitment to maintaining high standards in commercial property valuation. The trade bodies intend to future proof the profession by working on maximising consistency in standards of practice, supporting risk-based regulation and tools for managing risk and liability in valuation. Three key areas to be addressed have been highlighted in the agreement: the balance of risk and reward in valuation services, education on liability and risk for lenders and valuers, and clarification of the standards expected in the sector. RICS is set to publish revised guidance on risk, liability and insurance in valuation to help the market to address the challenges that surfaced following the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. As a result of the report Balancing Risk and Reward: Recommendations for a Sustainable Valuation Profession in the UK Dr Oonagh McDonald CBE, RICS has been working with the BBA and the wider industry to deliver improvements to the commercial secured lending sector.

June 14, 2017

Workplace wellbeing is now embedded in the very bricks and mortar of the building ⁰

by Sion Davies • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

For some time now, the debate about how the workplace adds to the bottom line of an organisation has focused increasingly on the subject of wellbeing. There are plenty of good reasons for this, with the issue subject to both the push of employers as well as the pull of employees. Everybody thinks it’s a good idea and it’s easy to see why. Wellbeing is about business ethics, recruitment and retention, productivity, physical and mental health, work-life balance, absenteeism and the management of a flexible workforce, and all the other things that underpin the success and health of an organisation and each individual. It suggests a more positive approach to the workplace than either health & safety or occupational health, both of which remain disciplines more focused on reducing risk and harm than promoting positive outcomes, as is the case with wellbeing. Neither is it about something as raw and nebulous as productivity, which remains difficult and even impossible to measure for knowledge and creative workers and only offers a single dimension on a key workplace issue anyway.

June 14, 2017

Caring responsibilities are main cause of workplace absence and lower productivity ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

An increasing number of workers are taking on caring responsibilities, be this for children, elderly relatives or other dependents, and it’s becoming a major cause of workforce absence, claims new research. According to data released by group risk industry body GRiD, for 61 percent of employers these issues are a main cause of short-term absence (less than 4 weeks); for 49 percent of employers these issues are a main cause of mid-term absence (4 weeks to 6 months) and for 43 percent of employers these issues are a main cause of long-term absence (in excess of 6 months). They can also be a contributory factor in the development of mental illness or the deterioration of mental health. Indeed, mental ill-health is another major cause of absence, due to the knock-on effects of stress and deteriorating mental health that results in more absence. In terms of what employers are doing to reduce absence and improve attendance, flexible working comes out as the top-rated solution, with 36 percent of employers citing this as one of the measures they have put in place to minimise absence.

June 9, 2017

Majority of employees do not think their company culture is embracing the digital age ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Technology

A majority of employees (62 percent) believe their company culture is one of the biggest hurdles in the journey to becoming a digital organisation, and this is putting companies at risk in falling behind competition in today’s digital environment claims a new report. The Digital Culture Challenge: Closing the Employee-Leadership Gap published by Capgemini, and Brian Solis, a prominent digital analyst and world renowned author, uncovers a significant perception gap between the senior leadership and employees on the existence of a digital culture within organisations. While 40 percent of senior-level executives believe their firms have a digital culture, only 27 percent of the employees surveyed agreed with this statement. The survey asked respondents to assess their companies’ digital culture based on seven attributes: their collaboration practices, innovation, open culture, digital-first mindset, agility and flexibility, ‘customer centricity’ and a data-driven culture. Insights gathered from the report, and through a series of focus interviews, helped to identify some of the reasons behind this digital culture gap including senior leaders failing to communicate a clear digital vision to the company, the absence of digital role models and a lack of KPIs aligned to digital transformation goals.

June 9, 2017

UK businesses still breaking the most basic health and safety laws ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News

Almost two thirds of UK businesses are failing to meet basic health and safety laws and are putting their employees in danger, according to new research. A survey of 2,000 employees, working for businesses that have over five employees, found that 65 percent have not received any information on their company’s health and safety policies. This is despite it being a basic legal requirement for all companies with five employees or more. The research, which was conducted by data capture app provider WorkMobile, also revealed that even when workers were provided with written health and safety guidance, the information didn’t explain the risks of the job properly.

June 8, 2017

Long term problems predicted for EU businesses if gender pay gap persists ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

As we reported earlier this week, more needs to be done to ensure that female representation in the boardroom increases; and now a new report paints a negative future for European businesses if the pay gap isn’t adequately addressed. Mercer has warned that a failure to address the EU’s substantial gender pension gap (40 percent), could cause long-term problems for businesses and governments alike; as through its analysis, the consultancy has found that the pension gap varies widely from one member state to another, however half have gaps of 30 percent or more. In its white paper The Gender Pension Gap – From Awareness to Action Mercer outlines the key drivers behind the pension gender gap, how it will impact companies and how they can start to address it within their workforce. Women continue to be significantly under-represented at all levels of the work force; in the EU their participation rate is 10 percent lower than men. The European Commission’s recent proposal for a directive on work-life balance for parents and carers, including the introduction of carers’ leave for dependent relatives, aims at addressing this under-representation.

June 7, 2017

Firms remain optimistic despite political uncertainty, Brexit and automation ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

Britain’s start-up businesses are more optimistic about the future than those in the US, Europe and Asia, despite the uncertainties caused by Brexit, according to research by EY. According to the company’s Growth Barometer, half of UK businesses less than five years old expected to grow by more than 11 per cent this year. Almost a quarter were forecasting growth of more than 26 per cent. The findings are based on a survey of 2,340 middle market executives across 30 countries, reveal that in spite of geopolitical tensions, including Brexit, increasing populism, the rise of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) and skilled talent shortages, 89 percent of executives see today’s uncertainty as grounds for growth opportunities. What’s more, 14 percent of all companies surveyed have current year growth ambitions of more than 16 percent.

June 7, 2017

Coworking and the current French revolution in the workplace ⁰

by Baptiste Broughton • Case studies, Cities, Features, Flexible working, Workplace design

In France, we might have been the first to behead a King and hold a revolution, or to stand on barricades and die for ideals of justice and equality, but when it comes to change – especially in large organisations– we always seem to lag behind. You could blame it on a number of factors: a cultural bias towards tradition, the legacy of an interventionist and ever-present state, spawning bureaucratic models of large state-owned corporations, the everlasting grasp of the elites stifling innovation and the ability to “think outside the box”… Whatever this may be, the debate around remote working – a type of work organisation which allows employees to work regularly away from the office – in France has always been articulated around the preconception that France was behind. And that while its Anglo-Saxon or Nordic European neighbours displayed a boastful 30 percent of the working population as remote workers, France struggled to reach a meagre 9 to 10 percent in 2010.

June 7, 2017

More women in the boardroom worldwide, but progress remains slow ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

Women are still largely under-represented on corporate boards worldwide, despite continued efforts to improve boardroom gender diversity, according to the fifth edition of Deloitte Global’s Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective publication explores the efforts of 64 countries to promote boardroom gender diversity. The report claims that women hold just 15 percent of board seats worldwide. These numbers show only modest progress from the 2015 edition of the report. In the UK, there are no quotas in place for women on boards, but 20 percent of board seats and 3 percent of board chair positions are held by women. Among companies that make up the FTSE 100, 26.2 per cent of board seats are held by women, more than double the 12.5 per cent recorded as recently as 2011. In that year, 21 FTSE 100 companies had all-male boards. That has now been reduced to zero, the Deloitte study shows.

June 5, 2017

Taking action on climate change will boost economic growth, claims report ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News

Integrating measures to tackle climate change into regular economic policy will have a positive impact on economic growth over the medium and long term, according to a new OECD report prepared in the context of the German Presidency of the G20. Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth claims that bringing together the growth and climate agendas, rather than treating climate as a separate issue, could add 1 percent to average economic output in G20 countries by 2021 and lift 2050 output by up to 2.8 percent. If the economic benefits of avoiding climate change impacts such as coastal flooding or storm damage are factored in, the net increase to 2050 GDP would be nearly 5 percent.

May 25, 2017

Third of office workers in the UK not taking the required amount of exercise ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A third (35 percent) of UK office workers fail to get the National Health Service recommended exercise quota of 150 minutes per week, a new survey commissioned by Pure Gym to mark Global Employee Health and Fitness Month (GEHFM), has revealed. According to the NHS website, it’s advised that adults between the ages of 19-64 should take part in at least two and a half hours of moderate exercise each week. However, approximately one in three office employees in the UK are currently falling short of these guidelines, with just over two thirds (73 percent) citing work pressures as a key contributing factor to this deficit. Top reasons noted for this lack of activity include, stress at work (17 percent), long commuting hours (15 percent) and insufficient lunch breaks (14 percent), with over a third (38 percent) of office workers attributing their exercise short fall to work related tiredness and fatigue.