Search Results for: automation

Smart cities infrastructure investment to top US$375 billion in 2030

Smart cities infrastructure investment to top US$375 billion in 2030

smart citiesAccording to technology intelligence firm ABI Research, investments in urban infrastructure aimed at implementing new visions for smart cities will reach US$375 billion by 2030 as cities invest in brownfield and greenfield projects. Drivers behind urban innovation are numerous but both the digitalisation of lifestyles, accelerated by Covid-19, and the increasingly pressing need to address climate change are powerful engines for metropolitan transformation. Additional agents of change include the call for more equity and inclusiveness, scalable economic development, and more affordable living. More →

Over half of UK employees believe AI skills will make their job easier

Over half of UK employees believe AI skills will make their job easier

employeesAccording to new global research from ABBYY, six-in-ten (64 percent) UK employees say their job is made more difficult through trouble accessing data in documents and one-in-four (27 percent) lose a full day of productivity per week searching documents for information they need to serve customers, higher than the global average. More →

Increased workload does not dampen many people’s preference for remote work

Increased workload does not dampen many people’s preference for remote work

increased workload flexible workingAccording to a Kaspersky survey of 4,303 IT workers, 56 percent of employees have reported an increased workload since switching to remote working, with 19 percent describing the increase as significant. 40 percent did not notice a change in volume, and only 9 percent noted a decrease in the scope of work due to new working conditions. More →

Net zero target will be missed by over half of organisations, claims report

Net zero target will be missed by over half of organisations, claims report

missing net zeroJust 41 percent of UK organisations are on track to meet the Government’s target for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to new research released by Dr Chris Brauer, Goldsmiths, University of London in partnership with Microsoft. The findings suggest strong ambition and strategic vision on sustainability within UK organisations, but most leaders are struggling to translate that intent into action, with almost three quarters (74 percent) described as having “one foot in and one foot out” on sustainability. More →

Employers worry about remote work productivity, but majority fail to invest in solutions

Employers worry about remote work productivity, but majority fail to invest in solutions

productivityNew research released by Ricoh Europe claims that employers are failing to invest in technology to maintain productivity across their remote workforce, despite concerns about their output. More than 18 months since the Coronavirus pandemic took hold across Europe, forcing businesses to adopt remote working practices, just over a third (36 percent) of employers say their organisation has provided the tools and technology to maintain employee productivity while working from any location. More →

Low earners have lost out on job satisfaction to high paid staff

Low earners have lost out on job satisfaction to high paid staff

job satisfactionHuge changes in the world of work over the past 30 years have led to people having a greater attachment to their work, but also rising levels of stress and falling levels of control, which has coincided with low earners losing their ‘job satisfaction premium’ over higher paid colleagues, according to new research from think tank the Resolution Foundation. More →

I’m a Luddite. You should be one too

I’m a Luddite. You should be one too

The leader of the Luddite movementI’m a Luddite. This is not a hesitant confession, but a proud proclamation. I’m also a social scientist who studies how new technologies affect politics, economics and society. For me, Luddism is not a naïve feeling, but a considered position. And once you know what Luddism actually stands for, I’m willing to bet you will be one too — or at least much more sympathetic to the Luddite cause than you think. More →

HRIS software sets out on a people-centric future

HRIS software sets out on a people-centric future

HRISIn the past, Human Resources Information System (HRIS) software was largely created with the needs of HR professionals and system administrators in mind. The future of HRIS however, is an employee-centric system which has been come to be known as an Employee Experience Platform (EXP). PeopleSpheres is an EXP that centralizes all HR functions within a single portal. With this tool, employees and HR teams alike can seamlessly navigate between the different HR applications within their organisation while being confident that they have the best tools on the market to manage each part of the employee life cycle. More →

Firms don’t use artificial intelligence much, so the current hype is tripe

Firms don’t use artificial intelligence much, so the current hype is tripe

a long road ahead for artificial intelligenceMany governments are increasingly approaching artificial intelligence with an almost religious zeal. By 2018 at least 22 countries around the world, and also the EU, had launched grand national strategies for making AI part of their business development, while many more had announced ethical frameworks for how it should be allowed to develop. The EU documents more than 290 AI policy initiatives in individual EU member states between 2016 and 2020. More →

HR should play a more strategic role in business resilience

HR should play a more strategic role in business resilience

HR and resilienceAlmost every organisation now knows it must become more resilient as the economy emerges from the pandemic. As well as coping with crises and global events, organisations must excel in the face of the many less high-profile disruptions that hit an organisation – from supply chain bottlenecks to shifts in demand and sudden skills shortages. HR departments have a major role to play in this but to do so successfully requires a change of mindset, taking a step back from traditional administrative functions and reviewing the entire business as if they were an outsider. More →

Cities could be more important post-pandemic, not less, suggests report

Cities could be more important post-pandemic, not less, suggests report

Manchester, one of the UK's great citiesParadoxically, more in-person work environments and the concentration of jobs in cities could be a medium- to long-term impact of the pandemic’s shift to remote working, suggests Citi GPS Technology at Work: The Coming of the Post-Production Society, a report produced by Citi and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. The report cites the automation of manufacturing and clerical tasks alongside the potential for professional services jobs that can be done remotely to be done cheaper overseas as the start of a foundational shift in developed economies. The future of work in these countries, it suggests, could be based largely on innovation, exploration and creative thinking which require face-to-face interaction and geographic proximity. More →

Surge in use of digital learning in wake of COVID-19

Surge in use of digital learning in wake of COVID-19

digital learningThe COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in digital learning with seven in ten organisations (70 percent) reporting an increase in use of digital or online solutions over the last year, according to the latest Learning and Skills at Work report from the CIPD and Accenture. More than a third of organisations (36 percent) have also increased their investment in learning technology in the last year. More →