Search Results for: Gen Z

January 14, 2019

Tackling mental ill health in the workplace requires changes at the top

by Patrick Watt • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace

The collective effort to improve mental health awareness has gained real momentum in recent years and in the workplace there’s growing recognition that mental wellbeing among employees is good for business. But the way we’re working – the ‘always on’ culture, innovation moving at breakneck speed, and a global workforce operating 24/7 – is creating a mental burden among employees that is generating more mental health challenges. According to the City Mental Health Alliance, 44 percent of employers are seeing an increase in reported mental health concerns. Our own research of international business leaders has also shown that two thirds of them have suffered from mental health conditions. This is not only worrying for the individuals but problematic for the wider business, as culture is driven from the top.

January 14, 2019

Government and employers unite to kick-start stalled flexible working

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

The Flexible Working Task Force, a partnership across government departments, business groups, trade unions and charities, has today launched a campaign to increase the uptake of flexible working. Members of the task force are collectively using their ability to reach and influence hundreds of thousands of employers to encourage them to advertise jobs as flexible by using the strapline Happy to Talk Flexible Working in their job advertisements, regardless of level or pay grade.

January 11, 2019

Good managers shown to play a crucial role in enhancing worker performance

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Employers make extensive investments in their employees; investing in hiring and retaining workers that match the firm’s needs. Now new research summarized by Kathryn Shaw, Stanford University, USA suggests that the hiring and training of good bosses may carry even more weight when it comes to workers’ performance. The study in the new IZA World of Labor Report shows a good boss can enhance the performance of their employees and can lower the quit rate. Good bosses have some universal traits: they coach and teach and offer insight into the strategy of the firm. According to Shaw economists are increasingly finding better data to measure the effects of bosses on workers’ performance, as well as the sources of these effects. A recent study of workers in a large firm that performs technology-based service (TBS) jobs found that the move from an average quality boss to one in the 90th percentile raised worker productivity by six units per hour, on a mean productivity of ten units per hour. Thus, when workers move from an average boss to a high-quality boss, productivity could rise by 50 percent. The study also showed that workers were more likely to quit when faced with bad bosses.

January 10, 2019

Overwhelming majority of workers have changing workplace expectations

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

New research from Aon claims that 97 percent of employers agree that employees’ expectations of their experience in the workplace are changing. Aon’s Benefits and Trends Survey 2019 (registration required) suggests that employers are saying that employees’ top priorities now include flexible working hours, agile working, mental health, diversity and inclusion and parental leave. Aon’s Benefits and Trends Survey, now in its ninth year, is formed from the responses of over 200 employers of all sizes, including those with fewer than 100 employees to many thousands, who work across a broad range of sectors, with 75 percent of them working internationally. This year, a number of new questions were introduced, including changing workforce demographics, to support employer benefit strategies and provide industry analysis.

January 10, 2019

Essay collection challenges the cliches about the future of work

by Mark Eltringham • AI, News, Technology

The RSA Future Work Centre has published a new essay collection which it claims presents fresh perspectives on the future of work. The report claims that there are four basic problems with the mainstream narrative about work: that there is a fixation with certain technologies, especially artificial intelligence and robotics; that this in turn leads to a distorted perception of the effects of technology; that this analysis ignores reality in favour of potential; and that technological change does not take place in a vacuum and has a number of knock-on effects that aren’t always considered. Worth noting that the authors of the essays are predominantly academic and the report focuses almost exclusively on the effects of technology.

January 10, 2019

Disability and age discrimination are top concerns for UK employees

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

More than half of employees say the inclusion of disabled people is an area that requires the greatest improvement within their organisation; with the diversity of age groups coming in a close second at just under half. This is according to the latest findings from Wildgoose’s Diversity and Inclusivity in the Workplace survey. The results suggest a shift in the areas that employees prioritise when it comes to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and raises the concern that dual discrimination based on disability AND age is common practice in the workplace. Other significant findings from the research show that nearly half (47 percent) of male employees don’t consider the gender pay gap to be a major issue, in comparison to the three quarters of females that do; a statistic that is particularly concerning given the recent publication of major organisations’ gender pay gaps and continued media coverage of the issue. Interestingly, the gap between men and women narrows when it comes to equal promotional opportunities.

January 9, 2019

Digital transformation and an uncharted future for workplace design in 2019

by Cherie Johnson and Julie Yonehara • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

In some way, humans have touched every single thing on this planet. We’re stepping into unknown territory. We’re changing everything. Think about that. Now, think about digital transformation. New technologies are changing how we interact with our environment, how we work, how we play and how we live. Tech tools are being more readily adopted as they get better and more accessible and, as a result our attitudes about them are changing. These are big ideas. And, they are rapidly changing our work and the domain of workplace design around the world. More →

January 8, 2019

From nudge tech to listening tools, Gartner makes some workplace predictions for 2019

by Brian Kropp • AI, Comment, Technology, Workplace

Last year we saw businesses reporting their gender pay gap, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) taking effect, speculation on how Brexit will impact jobs and further impact on how technology is changing the way we work. Looking forward to the year ahead, Gartner has pulled together a fresh set of workplace predictions for the coming year. This includes the demise of employee surveys as the adoption of sophisticated listening tools accelerates; precious little progress in closing the gender pay gap, but the evolution of discrepancies in pay scales between new hires and existing employees; the rise and rise of the #MeToo movement, which could lead to more senior executives being ousted in 2019 than in 2018; and new technologies designed to nudge workers into action.

January 8, 2019

Record take up in Northern Ireland office market amid concerns over future investment

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

The Northern Ireland office market had a record year in 2018, with a 100 percent increase in take-up, according to the latest figures from CBRE. The Northern Ireland (NI) office sector enjoyed its most successful year on record with 885,023 sq ft of take-up reported across 84 transactions, more than double that achieved last year. Notable office deals completed in 2018 included the PwC move to Merchant Square, Northern Ireland Civil Service at 9 Lanyon Place, Allstate at Mays Meadow, TLT at River House and Baker McKenzie at City Quays 2, which is part of Belfast’s City Quays mixed-use regeneration project. However, according to CBRE’s Real Estate Outlook report, the office market in NI is hampered by a severe lack of investment deals in the face of ongoing local, national and international political uncertainty. This means that while the real estate market in Northern Ireland generally has performed well in 2018, the investment sector experienced a decrease in activity as a resulting knock-on effect of the current political situation locally at Stormont as well as ongoing Brexit negotiations.

January 7, 2019

Firms and their workers need to adapt more quickly to changing world of work

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Technology

Governments need to do more to help workers and firms adapt to the fast-changing world of work and drive inclusive growth, according to the new OECD Jobs Strategy. New evidence in the report claims that countries that promote job quantity, quality and inclusiveness – such as Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – perform better than those which focus predominantly on market flexibility. While flexibility and adaptability are essential to stimulate the creation of high-quality jobs in an ever more dynamic environment, the gains and costs need to be fairly shared between businesses and workers, according to the OECD.

January 7, 2019

Workers say finding people with the right skills is biggest issue this year

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Over half of workers (53 percent) believe that getting the right people with the right skills will be the biggest issue faced by their workplace in the year ahead. This is according to research published by Acas today, which commissioned YouGov to find out what UK employees identified as the most important workplace issues in the year ahead. The other two top issues identified were technological change (36 percent) and productivity (36 percent). Other issues identified by participants in the poll included fit and healthy staff (18 percent) and Equality and Fairness (17 percent). Acas Chief Exec, Susan Clews, said: “Employees feel that getting workers with the right skills is a key concern in the year ahead. This could be attributed to uncertainty around our relationship with the EU at the moment or general concerns around skills shortages.

January 4, 2019

No more blank slate, lots more workplace choice and some other stuff

by Mark Eltringham • Features

The Christmas and New Year break can prove a burial ground for content. This is a shame because there is as much great stuff around at this time of year as any other. And just as much casual dross. The workplace sector retains its tendency to consume and parrot comfortable, simplistic narratives, in lieu of the challenging and nuanced ideas that tell us far more about who we are and where and how we work. Unsurprisingly Neil Usher was one of the first out of the gates in expressing a wish for something new for the New Year.