Search Results for: risk

April 24, 2017

Commercial property lenders should drive sustainability through financial innovation ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News, Property

The commercial real estate finance sector is witnessing a dramatic shift in attitudes towards the issue of sustainability, according to a new report from the Better Buildings Partnership. It claims that major commercial property lenders are already exploring new opportunities that go well beyond traditional risk management through sustainability initiatives that ‘drive new business, strengthen customer relationships and improve the data they hold on the buildings in which they have underwritten’. The report, Beyond Risk Management: How sustainability is driving innovation in commercial real estate finance, is sponsored by CREFC Europe, GeoPhy, ING Bank and Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, and claims to reveal pioneering examples of how lenders are incorporating sustainability into their core business activities.

April 20, 2017

Number of data scientist jobs soars as Big Data moves up the corporate agenda ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Advances in tech have boosted Data Scientist roles by 57 percent globally in one year, according to a Big Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Observatory run by Politecnico di Milano School of Management. Advances in big data analytics are encouraging increasing numbers of industries – including banking, media and big pharma – to maximise this tool by employing more data scientists. The research, which surveyed 280 international data scientists, revealed the 57 percent annual increase in positions allocated, as well as role availability in nearly a third of companies. The research suggests that international businesses will increasingly be looking to integrate Data Scientist roles into their hiring strategies.

April 18, 2017

Despite Brexit, UK remains most attractive commercial real estate market ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

The UK remains the preferred region to invest in commercial real estate despite seeing a slight dip in popularity since Brexit, according to the latest BrickVest commercial property investment barometer. In March 2017 nearly one in three (30 percent) selected the UK as their preferred commercial real estate investment location, down slightly from 31 percent in March 2016. BrickVest’s quarterly survey of 3,000 investors found that a quarter (25 percent) of respondents favour Germany as their second location of choice for commercial real estate opportunities, the same as last year. Less than one in five (18 percent) selected the US which represents a fall from 21 percent last year. The same number (18 percent) also selected France although this is an increase from 14 percent in 2016.

April 13, 2017

Over half of employers report increase in workplace stress and mental ill health ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

More than half (55 percent) of employers have reported an increase in the level of stress and mental health related illnesses at work, according to the annual Benefits and Trends Survey from Aon. The survey claims that while 72 percent of employers believed they had a key role in influencing employee health in 2015, this decreased to 67 percent in 2016. The survey did find that employers have tactics to support health and wellbeing – branded wellness programmes (21 percent) and flexible working (20 percent) being the most popular – but these may be disconnected to what employees and the business actually need. Not surprisingly then, 58 percent would like a better understanding of the impacts of health risks, while 72 percent now use some form of data to drive health and wellbeing strategy. The most popular sources were absence data (57 percent) and employee engagement surveys (45 percent). In addition, the number of employers that have considered managing a known health risk is on the increase – rising to 48 percent from 25 percent in the last two years (42 percent in 2015).

April 12, 2017

Research shows how the gender pay gap can be directly related to motherhood ⁰

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

A new piece of academic research provides more evidence that the underlying reason for the gender pay gap is the discrepancy between the way women with children are treated compared to men, and other women without children. According to new research from Université Paris-Saclay, mothers are paid 3 percent less for every child they have compared to their female colleagues who do not have children, while fathers suffer no such penalty at all. The figures were compiled from a 16-year study of data from organisations in the French private sector between 1995 and 2011 by Lionel Wilner, Director of Graduate Studies at engineering and statistics school ENSAE, a founding member of Université Paris-Saclay. He separated the effect of childbirth from other firm-specific wage determinants, and accounted for full-time and part-time work, to find that the difference between mothers and non-mothers is approximated a 3 percent lower hourly wage. The effect was found to be more pronounced after the birth of the first child. More →

April 10, 2017

Concerns mount as local government investment in commercial property hit £1.3 bn last year ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Public Sector

Fresh concerns have been raised about the levels of investment by the UK’s local authorities in commercial property. New figures published by CBRE suggest that councils spent around £1.3 billion on commercial property in 2016, most of it borrowed from a Central Government scheme not designed for that purpose. The news is certain to raise alarm across the UK and especially in Westminster. In November of last year, a report from the Public Accounts Committee warned that the increasing scale of commercial activity taken on by local authorities carried a high level of risk and that the council employees and councillors making decisions often lacked the skills and knowledge needed to take on such projects. At that time, the Government put the level of activity at around £1 billion. The fact that this figure is now significantly higher and mostly borrowed money is sure to increase concerns.

April 5, 2017

Drastic changes needed to workplace laws as age of automation dawns ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Technology

The rise of robots and automation in the workplace will lead to drastic changes to laws across the world, a new report suggests. The present wave of automation, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) – the development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence – is creating a gap between current legislation and new laws necessary for an emerging workplace reality, states a report published by the International Bar Association Global Employment Institute (IBA GEI). Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace focuses on potential future trends in AI, and the likely impact intelligent systems will have on the labour market, companies, employees’ working time, remuneration and the workplace environment.

April 5, 2017

Bumpy ride and slow uptake in first two years of shared parental leave rules ⁰

by Sara Bean • Features, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

It is two years since the introduction of Shared Parental Leave (SPL), where couples were given the ability to share leave surrounding the arrival of a new addition to their family; and while sharing leave is seen to have a profound beneficial impact for the family, there are still plenty of barriers. According to research from My Family Care, one of the largest is that there is a sense that it involves a big risk with real concerns around the impact on a father’s career if they were to take more than two or three months off. A second report from the charity Working Families found that despite the initial slow take up of new rights, more than half of fathers would use Shared Parental Leave. However, snapshot figures for the first three months of 2016 showed that 3,000 new parents were taking up the new right. If the maternity leave figure is taken as indicative of the number of couples with new babies at the time the new figures are in line with the bottom of the government’s 2013 estimated take-up range – between two and eight per cent of fathers.

March 28, 2017

Communication key to allaying employee concerns about automation ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Organisations need to strike a balance between capitalising on the benefits of automation and managing employee concerns, according to a study by Capita Resourcing. The research claims that whilst over half (54 percent) of UK organisations are already automating business processes once performed by people, employees are concerned about the social impact this will have on the workplace. The ‘Workplace More Human’ report claims that the majority of employees (67 percent) fear that the rise of robotics will make the workplace less sociable and friendly in the future. The biggest concerns around introducing more automation in the workplace were the loss of their job (36 percent), losing the social relationship with colleagues (27 percent) and having to reskill/train to do another job (23 percent).

March 28, 2017

Surge in the number of people working into their seventies ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The number of British people working past 70 years old has increased markedly over the past four years. Poor pensions, personal choice, greater life expectancy and changes to pension laws have all been highlighted as factors behind the increase in the latest report on demographic trends from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The largest increase was seen amongst women, with the proportion of women working into their seventies doubling from 5.6 percent in 2012 to 11.3 percent last year. Around 150,000 women over seventy are now thought to be working. Meanwhile, the number of men working past the official state pension age has also increased, but at a slower rate, from 10 percent in 2012 to 15.5 percent last year.

March 28, 2017

Over half of employees in small and medium firms regularly work unpaid overtime ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Long working hours are embedded into Small and medium sized firm’s (SME) culture, new research by AXA PPP healthcare has claimed, with 47 percent of employees in SMEs across the UK regularly working four or more hours of overtime per week, 27 percent of these putting in seven or more hours and for half (52 percent), the extra hours are unpaid. In addition, 22 percent of employees take fewer than 30 minutes for lunch, 19 percent have cancelled family time and 19 percent have missed a child’s event such as a school play due to working over and above their contracted hours. Over half (54 percent) of employees have continued to work after putting children to bed. With Britain’s small and medium sized firms making up 99.9 percent of the UK’s private sector businesses, employing nearly 3/5 of its workforce and accounting for 48 percent of the turnover this accounts for a lot of workers.

March 27, 2017

Up to a third of UK jobs to be displaced by robots in near future ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

The latest report to examine the disruptive potential of robots in the workplace has been published by PwC as part of the firm’s regular Economic Outlook series. The study claims that up to 30 percent of existing UK jobs will be susceptible to automation by robots and Artificial Intelligence by the early 2030s, although in many cases the nature of jobs will change rather than disappear and the change will increase productivity and wealth. This is lower than the US at 38 percent and Germany at 35 percent, but higher than Japan at 21 percent. The report looks in detail at the composition of jobs in different industry sectors and occupations, using machine learning techniques to model the potential impact of AI in the future based on OECD data. The likelihood of automation appears highest in sectors such as transport, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail, and lower in education, health and social work.