Search Results for: retirement

November 2, 2017

Pressurised staff say level of wellbeing in their workplace is insufficient

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A majority (80 percent) of employees perceive the level of wellbeing within their organisation to be moderate or low and a quarter are struggling to manage the pressures of the workplace, a new survey claims. Although 64 percent believe their overall happiness as happy or very happy two thirds of UK workers admit to coasting or struggling at work, with just 18 percent reporting they’re flourishing, finds the survey published by Barnett Waddingham. Why BWell 2017 also found a third of UK workers admit their job has a negative impact on their mental health, with the same number believing their overall wellbeing is not important to their employer. Moreover, 22 percent say negative attitudes from their managers at work hinder their ability to balance work and family commitments. The survey also looked at employee retention alongside employers’ understanding of staff engagement in the company objectives. Overall 25 percent admitted they couldn’t see themselves working for the same company in five years’ time and 36 percent feel they either didn’t understand their company’s overall strategy or didn’t know if they understood it or not.

October 27, 2017

HR Directors turning their attention to workplace design and experience

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace, Workplace design

The role of HR Directors is going to change in the future as they will increasingly become “curators” of the office, charged with generating the right atmosphere to inspire millennial workers, according to a study of 100 HR Directors by Unispace. The study claims found that there will be greater HR ownership of the physical workplace in the future as human resources becomes more focused on the employee “experience”. A key to future success will be ensuring workers are “engaged with the workplace” and enable them to collaborate in better ways and become more productive. A recurring theme identified during the interviews was a change to the overall decision-making process around physical space. Previously the remit of property and facilities management, it now includes HR representation as standard practice in large organisations. Bringing HR to the table enables the working environment to embody organisational values and contribute towards achieving strategic “people-led” business objectives, such as better staff retention and productivity.

October 6, 2017

Seven workplace stories you should read this week

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Property, Technology, Workplace design

Poland has a rapidly ageing population but has just cut its state retirement age

Why IBM is bucking the trend and demanding its workers return to the office

US cities are offering all sorts of incentives for Amazon to move there

India is looking to create ten billion sq. ft. of green smart cities

WeWork’s $20 billion punt on the future of work

Does colour really affect the way we think and behave?

The silent killer of productivity and wellbeing is lack of civility

October 3, 2017

Discrimination rife in the recruitment process and pregnant women face greatest stigma

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Three-quarters (74 percent) of HR managers have witnessed discrimination in the recruitment process – with a quarter (24.5 percent) calling it a regular practice; and less than a third of HR managers (32 percent) can confidently say they are unprejudiced themselves during the recruitment process. According to research from digital recruitment platform SomeoneWho, almost half (48 percent) admit bias impacts their candidate choice, while a further fifth (20 percent) said they couldn’t be sure. The research also found that female candidates face a number of stigmas when looking for work. One in 10 recruiters said they would avoid a female applying for a male dominated role. A further one in 10 said they’d be reluctant to recruit a recently married candidate, as they were more likely to go on maternity leave soon. Shockingly, a fifth of HR managers said they would overlook a pregnant candidate. One in 10 HR managers would be reluctant to hire someone with a thick accent. A further 10 percent said they’d be less likely to select candidates who attended a state school.

September 14, 2017

Millions of older workers fear poor health will shorten their working lives

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Even though the age of the working population in the UM continues to rise, more than half of over fifties people have concerns around work and its impact on their health as they age, with women (61 percent) particularly worried about this. According to the study from Aviva, 13 percent intend never to stop work completely although only 14 percent of older workers say their workplace culture is positive towards them. According to Aviva’s latest Real Retirement study, 55 percent admit to fearing that work will become detrimental to their health or they might not be well enough to keep working, including 13 percent who say this is already an issue for them. Fewer than one in five (17 percent) over-50s workers say they have access to wellbeing advice and initiatives in the workplace which could help prevent health issues from impacting their careers.

September 13, 2017

Banking sector will be ground zero for job losses from artificial intelligence and robotics

by Gordon Fletcher and David Kreps • AI, Comment, Technology

Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan has predicted a bonfire of industry jobs as automation takes hold across the finance sector. Every signal is that he will be proved right very soon. Those roles in finance where the knowledge required is systematic will soon disappear. And it will happen irrespective of how high a level, how highly trained or how experienced the human equivalent may currently be. Regular and repetitive tasks at all levels of an organisation already do not need to be done by humans. The more a job is solely or largely composed of these routines the higher the risk of being replaced by computing power. The warning signs have been out there for a number of years as enthusiastic reports about artificial intelligence have been tempered with fears about significant job losses in most sectors of the economy. Many roles have already all but disappeared in the march towards a fully digital economy. Older readers may recall typesetters, typists, and increasingly, switchboard operators and back room postal workers, as work of the last century. And the changing nature of work is relentless.

August 21, 2017

American workers having to put up with difficult and hostile working environment, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The American workplace is physically and emotionally demanding, with workers frequently facing unstable work schedules, unpleasant and potentially hazardous working conditions, and an often hostile working environment, according to a new study. The findings come from research conducted by investigators at the RAND Corporation, Harvard Medical School and UCLA, and are from the American Working Conditions Survey, which claims to be one of the most in-depth surveys ever done to examine conditions in the American workplace. More than one-in-four American workers say they have too little time to do their job, with the complaint being most common among white-collar workers. In addition, workers say the intensity of work frequently spills over into their personal lives, with about one-half of people reporting that they perform some work in their free time in order to meet workplace demands.

August 7, 2017

New analysis reveals shrinking pool of younger workers in the UK workforce

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

An increase in the number of UK-born employees leaving the UK’s workforce, either through retirement or emigration is coinciding with a shrinking pool of younger workers, which a fall in immigration can no longer fill, a new report warns. An analysis of the UK’s workforce showed that the UK’s workforce grew in 2016-2017 only because of an increase in EU and non-EU workers. Mercer’s Workforce Monitor showed that retirement, opting out (i.e. due to caring responsibilities) or emigration saw around 143,000 UK-born employees leave the UK workforce with the loss of workers only being offset by the entry of around 147,000 EU-born workers and around 232,000 Non-EU workers. In sum, the UK’s workforce grew by an estimated 234,000 over 2016-2017. From Q1 2016 to Q1 2017, the number of workers over 50 in the UK economy grew by 230,000, the under 35’s grew by 50,000 while the number of workers aged 35-49 shrunk by 48,000. According to the analysis, if net migration into the UK levels off at 100,000 per year from 2020, the number of under 50s in the workforce will fall by 200,000 by 2025; the over 50s would increase by over 1 million while the number of under-25s in the population would fall by 100,000. This means apprentices and graduates numbers will be less.

July 12, 2017

The world has its say on the Taylor Review into modern working practices ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Legal news

Yesterday, the much-awaited Taylor Review into modern working practices was finally published. And by modern working practices, the report focussed primarily on what has become known as the gig economy. People have been speculating about the contents of the report for months and things ramped up last week after a partial leak to the media. So, things were already bubbling under nicely before the actual publication of the document brought things to a boil yesterday. Assuming the government do more than kick the whole thing into the long grass, always a possibility, debate will continue for a while. We’ll let politicians do their thing with it, but here are a few of the initial reactions from interested parties and the experts. More →

June 29, 2017

Self-employed would value receiving sick pay above other benefits ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

UK micro-business owners and freelancers would be more interested in receiving sick pay than any other statutory benefit, according to new research carried out in collaboration between cloud accounting software firm FreeAgent and The Freelancer & Contractor Services Associatio n (FCSA). A poll of nearly 900 UK micro-business owners conducted by FreeAgent and FCSA claims that sick pay provision is the benefit that self-employed workers would most welcome, coming way ahead of other benefits such as maternity pay, job seekers allowance and pension auto-enrolment. The survey claims that 76 percent of respondents currently do not have any method of providing sick pay, maternity/paternity leave, holiday or redundancy pay in their business. Projected across the country’s 5.2 million-strong micro-business sector, this potentially equates to millions of people working without the same kind of basic entitlements that employed workers have. Notably, people’s appetites for additional benefits varied depending on the structure of their business with sole traders more likely to value benefits (rating sickness provision 8.7 out of 10) compared to those working through their own limited companies who gave a score of 6.4 out of 10 for sickness provision.

June 20, 2017

Extending the length of working lives could boost UK GDP by £80 billion ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The UK could boost its GDP by around 4.2 percent (around £80 billion at today’s values) if the employment rate of workers aged over 55 could match that of Sweden, the highest performing EU country, according to a new PwC analysis comparing the employment of older workers across 34 OECD countries. There is a 12 percentage point gap between the employment rates of workers aged 55-64 in the UK and Sweden. PwC’s Golden Age Index is a weighted average of indicators – including employment, earnings and training – that reflect the labour market impact of workers aged over 55. The UK has remained middling in the rankings since 2003, falling by one place from 18th in 2014 from 19th in 2015. The report suggests that extending working lives could have a transformational effect on the economy.

June 20, 2017

Half of UK employees say the workplace has a negative impact on their wellbeing ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

UK employers are falling short of fully supporting mental health in the workplace, with half of UK employees say their workplace has a negative impact on their physical, mental and financial wellbeing, a new survey claims. And according to the Global Employee Benefits Watch 2017/18 from Thomsons Online Benefits of over 2,000 office workers around the world, multinational organisations are not using benefits effectively to improve employee wellbeing and provide a positive workplace experience. Almost 40 percent of employees cite improving mental wellbeing as a life goal, yet less than half of those (18 percent), feel that their benefits scheme supports this. The situation is similar for those wanting to get fit and healthy; 44 percent of employees are keen to do this, yet less than half of them (20 percent) say their employer is helping them to fulfil this ambition.