February 18, 2022

Hybrid working now just a fact of life for those people able to work flexibly

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Hybrid working has become commonplace for those employees able to work from home, a survey of firms has suggested. More than 80 percent of people said their employers had adopted hybrid working, most of them since the pandemic, according to the survey for the Chartered Institute of Management (CMI). However a majority of business are also actively encouraging employees to return to the office as part of their new working culture. More →

January 31, 2022

Business leaders have undue confidence in the idea of hybrid working

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology

Flexible working has overtaken salary as the top benefit to employees (59 percent), highlighting that flexibility and autonomy over the working day is now more important than financial reward for most workers. This is according to a new report from Jabra; the Jabra Hybrid Ways of Working 2021 Global Report carried out amongst 5,000 knowledge workers in five countries worldwide, including the UK. However, the report also suggests that many business leaders have a false sense of confidence in their ability to implement hybrid working.

January 27, 2022

Flexible working models best for mental health of parents, research claims

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Employees who are able to split their working time between home and a formal workplace are 40 percent less likely to experience mental health difficulties, new research has shown. Wellbeing charity stem4 surveyed 1038 working parents and carers across the UK to mark Parent Mental Health Day (27th January). It suggests that four in ten overall (39 percent) were experiencing problems – most commonly stress (62 percent), depression (54 percent) and anxiety (50 percent). More →

January 26, 2022

Hybrid working is now the dominant business model for knowledge workers

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Future Forum, a consortium launched by Slack with founding partners Boston Consulting Group, MillerKnoll and MLT has released the latest findings from its Pulse study, which shows that hybrid working has become the dominant work model for knowledge workers around the world. The report claims that the percentage of people working in hybrid arrangements has increased to 58 percent (from 46 percent in May 2021), as the share of workers who say their teams work exclusively either from home or from the office has declined sharply. More →

January 25, 2022

Hybrid working? Let’s put on a show

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working

I’m currently rereading Art Kleiner’s masterful book The Age of Heretics which describes the history of ground-breaking thought in management in the 20th Century and the lessons we forget. It remains a relevant book for the new era of ‘hybrid working’ because the book draws a distinction between two fundamental schools of thought in management theory. One of these sees management as a numbers game in which people are inherently problematic and so must be directed what to do based on data and routines of desirable activity and behaviour. And the other sees people as well meaning, capable and adaptable with managers there to facilitate and channel their abilities and help them develop. More →

January 21, 2022

Half of companies still not ready to meet the demand for flexible working

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Property

Companies are unprepared for the structural shift to flexible working and must do more to create responsible, personalised and experiential workplaces, a new report from JLL suggests. Intensive experimentation and piloting are needed to achieve flexible working models that will deliver a unique workplace experience for all. The JLL research claims that globally organisations are looking to continue flexibility for where and when people work with 82 percent expecting employees to work remotely into the future at least part of the time – spending on average two days every week away from the office. Yet 48 percent of organisations in Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) still have not developed a future of work programme to meet the rising demands and expectations of their staff for greater work flexibility, exceptional and sustainable workplaces and increased wellbeing. More →

January 7, 2022

The way we talk about hybrid working can reflect a failure of imagination

by Paul Jervis-Heath • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

The events of the last 18 months have given us a once in a generation opportunity to reinvent work. Our generation can create a discontinuity between the assumptions of the past and the opportunities of the future. To capitalise on these opportunities though we have to dispense with the assumptions we hold about work and the places where work takes place, including many of the assumptions we hold about hybrid working. We have to re-examine the purpose of the office and what form it might conceivably take in the future before we can decide if it has any place in our plans. More →

January 4, 2022

Hybrid working will demand leaders develop new communication skills

by David Mills • Comment, Flexible working

Keeping on top of communication barriers in the business world can feel like an endless game of Whac-A-Mole, especially now in the new era of hybrid working. The usual culprits are well-known by now: patchy WiFi connections, crashing computer programmes, cloud syncing issues, important emails sneaking into spam folders – the list goes on. All can impede our ability to get the job done. More →

December 16, 2021

Employers admit they would likely terminate an employee’s contract if they were homeless

by Jayne Smith • News, Working lives

Four out of ten employers (42 percent) from across the UK have admitted they would likely seek to terminate an employees’ contract if they were homeless, despite nearly one in four households in England being at risk of or experiencing homelessness, claims a new report by Crisis. More →

December 10, 2021

Full time remote working doesn’t allow employees to connect with company culture

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working culture

The majority of U.K workers (83 percent) believe that those who work remotely full time cannot meaningfully connect with workplace culture. Just 17 percent feel that time in the office is unnecessary for fostering company culture. These are the findings from O.C. Tanner’s 2022 Global Culture Report which analysed the perspectives of over 38,000 employees, leaders, HR practitioners and executives from 21 countries around the world, including over 2,500 from the U.K. More →

December 2, 2021

Majority of employers agree flexible working requests should be a day-one right

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

The majority (57 percent) of employers agree that the right to request flexible working should be a day-one right, claims research from the CIPD. Agreement is highest from those in the public sector (69 percent) compared to those in the private sector (54 percent). In addition, larger organisations of 250+ employees were more likely to agree than SMEs (62 percent compared to 51 percent). More →

December 2, 2021

Seven in ten HR managers support greater flexible working in their workplace

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Seven in 10 (70 percent) of UK HR managers now say flexible working could work for their business – claims a new TUC poll. Half (49 percent) of UK HR managers polled said that greater flexible working could work for their business as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, building on the one in five (21 percent) who say that their business already enabled significant flexible working before the pandemic. More →