December 5, 2016
The strange future of work + New edition of Work&Place + Workplace irritations 0
In this week’s Newsletter; Mark Eltringham dissects the current obsession with engagement and motivation; and from the Winter 2016 issue of Work&Place which is now available to view online; discusses the future of work and place in the 21st century. We discover why creativity in the workplace is a prime engagement tool; that 85 percent of employers believe workplace automation will create more jobs than it will replace; however, in the now, technology issues cause the most lost time for SMEs. One in three lawyers would not feel comfortable even beginning the conversation about flexible working with their employer; a fifth of employees are distressed by political discussions in the workplace and employers urged to develop strategies to help retain older workers. Download our new Briefing, produced in partnership with Boss Design on the link between culture and workplace strategy and design; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.
August 8, 2016
Universal basic income is an idea whose time has come at last 0
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing
It is no longer a question of whether one of the world’s major economies will introduce a universal basic income for all of its citizens, but when. Over the weekend, the leader of the UK’s Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn announced in an interview in the Huffington Post that he was ‘instinctively looking’ at an idea that is already being discussed and piloted in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada. Corbyn may be one of the current glut of what would have once been political outliers in the Western World, but the idea of a universal basic income is one that is increasingly accepted in mainstream economic thinking. The RSA continues to campaign for it and has even put a number on it, suggesting that every UK citizen should be offered £308 between the ages of 25 and 65. Andrew Flowers offers up a masterful and detailed analysis of the economic and political issues involved in this piece on fivethirtyeight.com.
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