February 17, 2019

Century Office begins experiment into six hour working day

by Neil Franklin • Company news, Flexible working

Century Office will soon be commencing an experiment into a shorter working day. In collaboration with the University of Essex, Century Office will be shortening the working day down to 6.5 hours. They expect that, although it remains to be proven, that employees will become more focussed and productive as the desire for more leisure times and time for self-care, family, hobbies etc outweighs the tendency for idle chat and periods of low productivity. It is also hoped that participants will feel less anxious or tired as they have more time to pursue personal endeavours and come out of work mode.

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 →

January 31, 2019

Third of employers now offer agile working and this is set to rise

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Just over a third of employers now have an agile working policy, claims Aon’s Benefits and Trends Survey 2019 (registration required), with 98 percent of respondents saying employees now expect more flexible working hours and 89 percent saying staff expect agile/home working to be available. While currently a third (36 percent) of employers have agile working policies in place, where business requirements allow, Aon expects this to increase in popularity. Almost one-third of respondents do not know how many requests have been made for flexible working, but among the rest of the respondents, it is common for around 20 percent of employees to make a request. More →

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

Landsec becomes latest major property firm to offer coworking space

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Coworking, Property

Landsec has launched its new flexible office brand, Myo, which it claims will provide customised office space for businesses looking for flexibility to enable future growth from April of this year. Coworking in other words. The move is the latest example of a major commercial property firm entering the market for flexible offices and coworking space in the wake of its recent boom. Myo will operate as a standalone brand, offers flexible leases ranging from 12 months to three years for businesses that need space for between 15 and 80 people.

January 17, 2019

Flexible working employees find it difficult to detach from work

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

New findings from health and wellbeing provider, BHSF, suggest that home workers struggle to switch off, and this could be negatively affecting their work/life balance. Flexible working provides huge benefits for employees – it means they can avoid lengthy and stressful commutes, work at times that fit them and their families, and focus clearly without other distractions. However, all these positives may be lost if employees continually work beyond their contracted hours, warn the study’s authors. Prolonged working outside of hours can seriously affect employees’ ability to stay fresh and mentally alert.

January 16, 2019

Flexible working mothers more likely to work the most unpaid hours

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Flexible working is supposed to be a boon to working parents, but it seems it’s not without its disadvantages, as a new academic study has found that part-time working mothers who have the ability to control their own schedule often end up working an increased amount of unpaid overtime. The research from the University of Kent found that for those who gained schedule control over their work there was an increase in the amount of unpaid overtime worked, as on average in the UK men work an extra 2.2 hours a week in unpaid overtime while for women it is about 1.9 hours.

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.

December 13, 2018

Flexible working should not mean employers ask people to work all the time

by Oliver Shaw • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

Talking about the role of technology within the flexible working arena is hardly ground-breaking. For decades, technological advancements have been hailed as pivotal to developments within the employment landscape. But this year, conversation appears to have reached another level. In an article for Open Access Government in June 2018, for instance, Richard Morris, UK CEO of International Workplace Group (IWG), explained the extent to which technology-driven shifts have caused significant social change. And in September, HR headlines homed in on a study by Capita and Citrix, which stressed that an inability to quickly introduce new IT services is restricting organisations’ flexibility proposition, and consequently their competitiveness.

November 21, 2018

Go Home On Time Day highlights one of the least discussed workplace issues

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Today is National Go Home on Time Day (in Australia at least) and the 10th annual report by The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work published to coincide with it estimates that Australian employees will work 3.2 billion hours of unpaid overtime for their employers this year, worth an estimated $106 billion in wages. It’s refreshing to see a figure applied to this issue, because most of the stuff we get tends to highlight how much time employers are losing to the myriad of distractions, responsibilities, foibles, preferences, cock-ups and ailments that come with giving jobs to humans. An issue we satirise here. More →

November 15, 2018

Are you ready for the world of agile working we will experience in the 2020s?

by John Eary and Paul Allsopp • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Some organisations believe they have ‘done’ Agile Working. They have increased the ratio of people to desks and achieved a saving in accommodation costs. They have provided flexible working arrangements across the organisation and have enabled their people to work at home for part of their working week. Staff surveys show employees are pleased with the opportunities and benefits this provides them. But organisations cannot afford to become comfortable or complacent, there are greater opportunities to grasp. As in any transformation initiative, Agile Working is more than a project it is a cultural journey involving continuing change to achieve continuous improvement. Agile Working is moving on.

November 6, 2018

Working parents lead the charge of British workers into the side hustle

by Neil Franklin • News

A new study published by GoDaddy and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), claims that ‘side hustling’, in which people have small business ventures running alongside their main job, has risen by around a third over the last decade. The study claims that the UK’s side hustlers make a substantial contribution to the economy, with every 1000 side hustles creating 876 extra jobs. The report, Side hustle: a way of life, not work also claims that 44 percent of side hustlers are parents with at least one child under 19 living at home.