Search Results for: wellbeing

February 8, 2019

Half of HR departments plan to offer new employee benefits

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

According to Gallagher’s Benefits Strategy & Benchmarking Survey (registration required), 45 percent of HR practitioners are planning changes to current employee benefit offerings amid a highly competitive labour market. The survey shows an increasing number of organisations are fully aware of the measurable impact that benefits have on engagement and productivity. Among HR practitioners planning changes, 72 percent are seeking to enhance benefits, thereby improving their employer brand and becoming more competitive in recruitment. The second-most popular planned change is improving flexibility in benefits, with 47 percent attempting to bolster flexible options to extend individual choice. More →

February 7, 2019

Maybe the time has come to shoot the workplace messenger

by Rob Harris • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design

I spent some time with Frank Duffy recently, releasing a stream of memories of working with him, first as an employee at DEGW during the 1980s, and then as a client while directing developer Stanhope’s research programme during the 1990s. Along with his long-term business partner, John Worthington, and thinkers including Franklin Becker, Gerald Davis, Michael Joroff and Jack Tanis, to name a few, Frank helped sketch out the grand scheme of what we now call ‘workplace’. Much of the work of their successors has involved filling in the matrix of detail within the grand scheme. But further reflection has caused me to ask whether, in filling in the finer details, we have recently somehow lost our way. Are we, the ‘workplace profession’, instead of standing on giants’ shoulders, now just pandering to fads and fancies? Or, even more radical, might it be that ‘workplace’ is now done, and that we’ve run out of meaningful things to say? More →

February 5, 2019

A morning adrenaline rush improves workplace productivity

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new academic study has found the benefits of taking part in adrenaline boosting activities before work. Researchers from the University of Essex School of Sport, Rehabilitation and Exercise Science, tested workers from the International Quarter London (IQL), the gateway to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and discovered that taking a 40 second ride down the world’s tallest and longest tunnel slide at the ArcelorMittal Orbit improved levels of happiness, productivity, creativity, energy and focus in workers. The impacts of exercise on wellbeing have been well-documented; however, this is the first time that research has shown that similar affects can be achieved from a quick adrenaline boosting activity.

February 5, 2019

Working parents continue to grapple with inflexible, long hours work culture

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

The UK’s working parents are penalised for working part-time and suffer from poorly-designed jobs that force them to work extra hours, according to a new study published by Working Families and Bright Horizons. The 2019 Modern Families Index claims that parents working part time – most of whom are women – have just a 21 percent chance of being promoted within the next three years, compared to 45 percent for their full-time counterparts. More →

February 5, 2019

Over three quarters of UK workers reluctant to ask for time off for a health-related issue

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

More than three quarters (79 percent) of UK workers admit to forcing themselves to go in to work despite feeling ill, two thirds (66 percent) still go to work when suffering from a cold or flu and over a fifth (22 percent) when suffering from stress, or an emotional crisis. Perhaps this is due to two fifths (40 percent) feeling their boss did not believe they were genuinely ill when they have previously taken a sick day. For those who are brave enough to bite the bullet and call in unwell, more than two thirds (67 percent) said they feel guilty for taking time off work due to illness, or health related issues. This could explain why so many are reluctant to speak to their employer about their health and wellbeing. Nearly a third (30 percent) admitted they are too scared to talk to their boss about needing time off for a health-related issue, whilst almost three quarters (72 percent) say there are times their current employer does not do enough to look after their physical and mental wellbeing. More →

February 4, 2019

Getting back to environmental basics in the Anthropocene era ⁰

by Alison Kitchingman • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

A new word has recently entered the public discourse on the environment. It describes the current epoch of geological time as the period in which humans have had an impact on the world’s climate, geology and ecosystems. Although yet to be formally recognised by the mainstream scientific community, it has been in existence for a short time and last year the Working Group on the Anthropocene (WGA) voted to formally designate the current epoch the Anthropocene. The principle was presented for recommendation to the International Geological Congress on 29 August 2016. Its general usage has grown but it seems only a matter of time before it becomes the norm to describe an era in which the Earth’s most important environmental characteristic is the activity of people. More →

February 4, 2019

Financial services firms slow in offering flexible working to all employees

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

New research from TeleWare claims that 94 percent of employees in financial services firms believe it is important for them to be able to choose the hours they work and where from. Yet, only just over a third (36 percent) of employees in the sector work for firms that offer flexible working. Of those firms that do offer it, more than a fifth (22 percent) of employees said it isn’t available to all employees – only those of a certain level of seniority.

February 1, 2019

Employee experience of the workplace does not match employer rhetoric, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

A new report (registration needed), based on a survey of UK employers and employees, claims to reveal a significant and increasing gap between employees’ experience of being employed and what employers believe this experience to be. Barnett Waddingham’s four research papers claims that while the majority of employers (61 percent) believe the levels of wellbeing in their organisation to be high, only 19 percent of the employees surveyed report high wellbeing. According to the authors, this suggests employers do not sufficiently know or understand the needs of their people.

February 1, 2019

Are these the 2019 Top Employers to work for in the UK

by Neil Franklin • Company news, Wellbeing, Workplace

The Top Employers Institute, a certifier recognising employers that provide world-class employee conditions, has released its list of Certified UK Top Employers for 2019. Over 600 HR professionals gathered at London’s Hilton on Park Lane, on the 31st January 2019, to recognise the best employers in the UK. More →

January 31, 2019

Get ready for the next wave of technological innovation, or get left behind

by Bruce Barclay • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Technology

The natural world is a story of constant change and evolution. Animals, plants, insects and micro-organisms exist in an ecosystem, adapting to relentless changes in their environment, influenced by habitat, climate and their cohabitors. They respond to change faster than the human world, because they are not tied by the same restraints and conventions. They are interdependent and reliant on each other, competitors and cohabitors for mutual advantage. As humans move into what has been called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there is much we can learn from nature, particularly within the workplace environment. The transformation of an organisation’s real estate, facilities management, IT and HR functions into a workplace ecosystem, as proposed by the Stoddart Review, has been discussed for some time.

January 30, 2019

Working mothers disproportionately more stressed, study claims

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Biomarkers for chronic stress are 40 percent higher in women bringing up two children while working full-time than for women with no children, new research suggest. Working from home and other forms of flexible working have no effect on their level of chronic stress – only putting in fewer hours at work helps, says an article in the journal Sociology.

January 23, 2019

Work’s not working; to be productive we need to get creative

by Zoe Humphries • Comment, Workplace design

Productivity in the UK workforce is dropping; output per hour fell 0.4 per cent in the last quarter of 2018 compared with the previous and grew just 0.2 per cent on the third quarter of 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics. Yet the UK workforce log the longest hours in Europe, working 42.3 hours per week on average. Clearly something isn’t lining up. So we must surely ask the question, what is going wrong and what can we do to improve the situation?