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December 23, 2016

Presenteeism doesn’t aid productivity, so employers should set workers free ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working

At this time of year, the days are short, the morning commute can be hellish and traffic grid-locked. Wouldn’t it be ideal if more employers recognised this and offered a solution involving flexible hours, remote collaboration or even home-working? And not just at Christmas, but the whole year round? More and more companies are switching on to the benefits this can bring in terms of their employees’ well-being and productivity. Firms can allow colleagues to occasionally work from home or a third place, provide tools that enable them to work remotely and support an agile working agenda. This can be done in parallel with making provision for a hi-tech and collaborative workplace where colleagues can get together regularly to connect, get work done and be part of an effective team.

December 22, 2016

British workers find it increasingly difficult to unwind after work ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A large proportion of British workers are struggling to switch off from work when they finish for the day, according to new research. The study of 1,011 UK adults in full or part-time employment, conducted by Cascade HR as part of the firm’s The Stress Report, claims that more than three quarters (76 percent) are unable to unwind immediately and instead experience residual stress after leaving the office. The data found it takes on average 1 hour and 39 minutes for UK workers to relax after they have left work for the day, while almost a fifth say they often take work home with them and so don’t ever fully unwind. This residual work stress isn’t just encroaching on employees’ free time after work, but time spent on annual leave, according to the study. When they go on annual leave, it takes UK workers an average of 2.63 days for them to relax, and 10.31 days of annual leave for them to return to work feeling truly refreshed. This equates to just over half of the UK’s statutory allocation of annual leave per person, per year.

December 15, 2016

KPMG first UK firm to publish socio-economic make-up and diversity of staff ⁰

by Sara Bean • Company news, Legal news, News, Workplace

The first business in the UK has published detailed workforce data outlining the socio-economic make-up of the firm as a way of understanding its workforce diversity. KPMG has published data, which measures employees’ parental occupation and education and the type of school employees attended along with graduate and school leaver socio-economic data from the past three years. It reveals that the vast majority of the workforce – 74 percent of respondents – received a state school education: 60 percent attended a non-selective state school and 14 percent attended a selective state school, with 23 percent receiving private education. Additional detail on parental education shows that 48 percent have a parent or guardian with a university degree, while 43 percent do not. On parental occupation, 58 percent have parents in a higher managerial, administrative and professional occupation, 16 percent have parents employed in a manual occupation and 11 percent have parents in intermediate occupations. KPMG is the first business in the UK to share details of the parental occupation of its workforce, which is recognised by social mobility experts as a strong indicator of socio-economic background.

December 14, 2016

Lack of free childcare dissuades workers from shared parental leave ⁰

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

Just 5 percent of new fathers and 8 percent of new mothers have opted for Shared Parental Leave (SPL) since its introduction in April 2015 a new report claims. Just one organisation in five (21 percent) said they had received requests from male employees to take up SPL since April 2015 and in two-thirds (67 percent) of organisations with mothers eligible for SPL, none have opted in. This low take-up of (SPL) and the lack of affordable childcare options for parents with 0-2 year-olds are both major problems that need to be addressed to support working parents more effectively, according to ‘Labour Market Outlook: Focus on Working Parents’ from the CIPD. The survey of over 1,000 HR professionals also suggests that the lack of free childcare for 0-2 year-olds could be having a negative impact on women returning to work after maternity leave.

December 14, 2016

Surge in take up of London commercial property defies Brexit storm ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

London commercial property has managed to weather the Brexit storm with a late surge of City deals over the past three weeks set to see Central London take-up in line with its long-term average level of 10 million sq ft in 2016. According to the latest figures from JLL, despite take-up in Central London being subdued in the lead-up to and immediate aftermath of the referendum, City take-up has surged during the last quarter, and is expected to reach 5.3 million sq ft by year end, just 6 percent below the long term average. This is offset by strong take-up in East London, where the recent deal to the GPU at Canary Wharf propelled take-up to 8 percent above its long term average level. The most notable deals of 2016 included – The Government Property Unit (GPUK) took 542,000 sq ft at 20 Cabot Square, E14 which was a sub-lease from Barclays; Apple pre-let 500,000 sq ft at Battersea Power Station, SW8 and will be paying a rent in the high £50 per sq ft; Thompson Reuters acquired 315,362 sq ft at 5 Canada Square, E14, paying a rent of £40 per sq ft; 33 Central, EC4 was pre-let to Wells Fargo who took the entire building, totalling 227,689 sq ft and New Look pre-leasing 127,096 sq ft at R7 Handyside Street, N1C for £77.50 per sq ft.

December 12, 2016

Can an organisation simply buy employee motivation? ⁰

by Matias Rodsevich • Comment, Workplace

It’s the end of the year and like in most companies it’s probably time to start calculating and reassessing your employee’s compensation. But can you actually use money to motivate and retain your employees? A study by Willis Towers Watson found that only 20 percent of employers in North America actually believe merit pay is effective in driving high performance. Traditionally money was seen as the main incentive used to motivate employees. Higher productivity results in higher salaries and bonuses. For companies, it’s been used as the main tool to attract, retain and engage their people. Today we’ve learned that the key to motivation is much more complex than that.

December 8, 2016

Book review…. HQ:Nerve Centres of the World’s Leading Brands ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Case studies, Comment, Workplace design

Some people would have you believe that the office is dying out. But the absolute dead giveaway that it is not is the creation of tech enclaves and palaces around the world that exists solely to bring lots of people to work together in real space and real time. Some of these buildings are presented in a new book called HQ: Nerve Centres of the World’s Leading Brands from Irish publishers Roads (link is to Amazon but please try to order from a local bookshop if possible). The high tech homes of the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Vodafone are presented alongside similar examples from eight other business sectors: Finance, Retail, Motoring, Media, Drinks, Fashion, Sport and Design & Innovation.

December 8, 2016

Half of UK firms will hold Christmas parties but just a fifth offer bonuses or extra time off ⁰

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

We’re entering the office party season now so it’s time for the usual flurry of Christmas related research. We kick off the season with this from XpertHR which claims that the majority of companies it has polled will host company-wide parties (50.8 percent) or departmental Christmas lunches (47.2 percent), but there will be fewer Christmas gifts, bonuses awarded or additional time off for employees this year. Employers plan to spend an average of £93.33 and a median of £50 per employee on their Christmas celebrations – a figure which hasn’t changed significantly since the last time XpertHR conducted this survey in 2012/13, when the median spend was £42.82. However, fewer than one in five organisations (17.9 percent) will be offering employee gifts this year compared to 21.1 percent in 2012/2013 and just 18 employers will award Christmas bonuses, with no increases planned compared with last year.

December 7, 2016

Business as usual for recruitment and retention in post-Brexit Britain … for now ⁰

by Oliver Watson • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

On 24 June 2016 Britain voted for Brexit. The shock (and narrow) victory caused country-wide concern among the 48 percent of the voting public that favoured remain – apprehension seemingly justified by the immediate weakening of the pound, Cameron’s resignation and the start of ongoing political in-fighting. Speculation over job losses and potential hiring freezes added to a general sense of uncertainty, leaving some UK workers fearing their job security. Since then however, recruitment experts have somewhat softened their predictions for the UK job market as recent reports of month-on-month vacancy growth and record high employment rates have served to inspire confidence. Five months on, how has job applicant sentiment changed in the UK since the EU referendum vote? And what does this mean for businesses hiring in post-Brexit vote Britain? As part of our ongoing tracking of candidate confidence levels in the job market and their career prospects we analysed the responses of almost 28,000 job applicants across the UK and Republic of Ireland – from all ages, experiences and sector disciplines – to gauge how perspectives might have changed pre- and post-Brexit.

November 25, 2016

Workplace professionals should look to the consumer sector for boosting engagement ⁰

by Jeff Flanagan • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

More and more businesses are recognising the power of the workplace experience to drive employee performance and engagement. Global brand Airbnb, for example, has now renamed its head of human resources as “chief employee experience officer.” This is good news for workplace design and management professionals. We are well placed to capitalise on this shift in business opinion, but if we want to make a tangible impact, we need to bring practical solutions to the table. First and foremost, these need to be backed up by research. There have been few studies specifically into what makes a healthy and productive work environment. However, there are a number of research projects that examine how a human being’s surroundings impact their mood and behaviour, and in particular how consumer environments shape customers’ perception of and engagement with a brand. As workplace professionals, we can learn a great deal from this consumer research and this is why workplace design and management teams should look towards consumer-facing industries for inspiration.

November 23, 2016

Gender earnings gap in tech sector is significantly higher than national average ⁰

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

The high tech sector may pride itself on offering some of the most attractive and modern workplace environments, but when it comes to equal parity between the sexes it seems out of date. New research from Mercer claims that at 25 percent, the gender earnings gap in the UK’s high tech sector is significantly higher than the national average (18 percent). The consultancy also found that small companies have the largest gap, with a 30 percent difference in (median) pay between all male and female employees, and a 26 percent gap when considering mean base salaries. This difference reduces as company sizes grow. Where the data allowed comparison of pay between women and men in equal job roles, the pay gap was much smaller, typically 8 percent. This is comparable to the UK norm of 9 percent for this type of analysis. The reasons for this gap is due on further analysis to a multitude of factors including the reluctance of many women to enter the tech field, not enough effort being put into promoting women and a lack of will in promoting flexible working patterns.

November 16, 2016

Two thirds of female professionals’ jobs downgraded after career break ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

A lack of flexible roles means that two thirds of professional women who return to work after a career break, work fewer hours than they prefer or go into lower-skilled or lower-paid roles, claims new research by PwC, in conjunction with Women Returners and 30% Club. 427,000 UK female professionals are currently estimated to be on a career break and likely to return to the workforce in the future. Of those, three in five (249,000) are likely to enter lower-skilled roles when they return to work. This has serious implications for earnings as this downgrading is associated with an immediate 12-32 percent reduction in hourly earnings, depending on whether the woman remains with the same employer. A further 29,000 women returning to part-time work would prefer to work longer hours but are unable to due to a lack of flexible roles. Altogether, two-thirds of (or around 278,000) women could be working below their potential when they return to the workforce.