Search Results for: benefits

Leeds is latest UK city to roll out free Wi-Fi to transform local economy

by • Cities, Flexible working, Technology

Leeds Wi-FiLeeds is the latest UK city to announce the roll-out of free city-wide Wi-Fi. Although full details are yet to be confirmed, the contract with telecommunications firm aql will initially target areas of Leeds with poor levels of connectivity. Leeds City Council has already installed free Wi-Fi in over 100 council buildings including libraries, museums and leisure centres as part of the Government’s Super Connected Cities programme which was announced in 2012 to invest £100 million in the provision of ultrafast broadband in ten of the country’s major cities. In November of last year, Derry also announced the rollout of city-wide Wi-Fi as part of a plan to transform the local economy.

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Aging workforce driving uptake of flexible working in UK firms

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

older UK workforce flexible workingA growing number of employers see flexible working arrangements as an important tool for meeting the needs of their aging workforce, according to a new report from insurance industry trade association Group Risk Development (GRiD). The report highlights how changing attitudes, demographics, longer life expectancy and the abolition of the UK’s Default Retirement Age three years ago have encouraged employers to look at how to foster the wellbeing and meet the needs of older employees. Over a quarter (27 percent) of the 500 UK businesses who took part in the study had introduced flexible working specifically to meet the needs of their ageing workforce and many (22 percent) of employers said dealing with an ageing workforce was among their top three wellbeing issues.

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O2’s dogmatic approach to flexible working sends the wrong signals

O2’s dogmatic approach to flexible working sends the wrong signals

by • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

Flexible working dogmaAlthough we would normally offer the findings of a survey without comment, preferring readers to add their own pinch of salt, it’s sometimes interesting to question the way research is presented. This week a study by O2 claimed that in the six months since nearly all full time UK workers were granted the right to request flexible working, 23 percent of staff have taken advantage of the option. While there is nothing unusual in a mobile tech firm producing a survey about flexible working, what is interesting is that they have chosen to present this as ‘only 23 percent’ and many in the press have gone along with it. Now, unless I’ve missed something, isn’t it actually remarkable that nearly a quarter of UK employees have requested flexible working in a six month period?

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CIPD claims 2015 should be a ‘rollover year’ for workplace productivity

by • News

workplace productivityThe UK labour market will continue to expand at a strong rate in 2015 but there are unresolved issues relating to levels of pay and how best to increase workplace productivity to drive further growth, according to Mark Beatson, chief economist for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in a new report. While the report argues that the ongoing economic recovery and improvements in the labour market are good news for jobseekers and good news for businesses, it also considers it unlikely that we’ll see any real increase in wage growth until 2016. The author also warns that the UK’s steady growth remains vulnerable to developments in Europe and that the UK’s ‘workplace productivity puzzle’ is an urgent issue for policy makers and businesses to address in order to sustain growth.

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Government report highlights radical potential of Internet of Things

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Technology

Internet_of_ThingsAccording to a report published this week by the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, by taking the lead in developing the internet of things, the UK could transform the way the country lives and deliver huge benefits to the economy.  The internet of things – in which digital networks are connecting everyday objects so data can be shared – creates enormous opportunities for both the private sector and government. It also has the potential to be applied in many areas of everyday life, transforming the way we use energy, how we travel and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The number of connected devices could potentially reach up to 100 billion globally by 2020 and industry estimates also suggest that these technologies could have a global value of nearly £10 trillion by then.

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The latest Insight newsletter is now available to view online

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

Insight newsletterIn the latest issue of the Insight newsletter which is available to view online; Mark Eltringham takes issue with a growing intolerance of sitting, and counsels against making wild predictions about the effect wearable tech will have on the workplace. Maciej Markowski says homeworking brings easily measurable benefits, but can also diminish creativity and Charles Marks argues that the important point of flexible working is that staff are empowered to work in ways that are best for them. Adam Burtt-Jones examines the relationship between workplace design and its culture; Andrew Brown looks at the impact of the soft landings principle and Sara Bean reveals that the quality of management in the UK has seen little improvement over the last decade. Sign up to the newsletter via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar and follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

Many firms lack the trust, equipment and policies to offer flexible working

by • Flexible working, News

Businessman lieEven though many staff would forgo a wage increase if offered flexible working, a large number of employers still do not trust their employees to work flexibly, according to new research from Samsung. The survey of 2,000 employees and 200 business owners found that 28 percent of firms remain sceptical that employees are sufficiently trustworthy to work away from their main place of work and outside normal office hours. On a more positive note, over half (52 percent) of employers associate flexible working with greater productivity and more than a quarter of employees (27 percent) would prefer the chance to work flexibly than accept a pay rise. The report also raises serious questions about the preparedness of firms to offer flexible working, even if they believe in the idea, with many lacking the infrastructure and policies to allow them to do so.

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Flexible working is best built on the foundations of a great office

by • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace design

flexible working loungeIt’s getting on for two years since Yahoo’s much talked about decision in 2013 to ban its staff from homeworking but, in many ways, the fallout has continued ever since. Certainly a lot of commentary on the subject refers back to CEO Marissa Mayer’s trend bucking decision. This can only be because it was a defining event in what is an enduring debate about where we work and what that means for a range of factors including our productivity, wellbeing, sense of belonging, access to information, the way we structure our time and our ability to communicate with and develop relationships with our fellow human beings. If those things were the same regardless of how and where we worked, there would be no discussion in the first place. But they do make a difference and there is a discussion.

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Wearable tech will change the workplace in unexpected ways

by • Comment

diceThe idea that we are all about to be supplanted by a new generation of artificially intelligent robot overlords has been in the news a great deal recently, partly as a result of Stephen Hawking’s recent pessimistic intervention on the subject. Whatever the truth of this apocalyptic musing, a more imminent generation of tech products means we are already testing the law of unintended consequences with regard to the stuff we create to help us. As technology firms clamber over each other in their attempts to be the first to open up the lucrative frontiers of wearable tech, a range of understandable concerns have been raised about some of the more obvious potential problems of security and privacy. But if we have learned one thing about our relationship with technology over many years, it is that whatever we expect from it will usually be wrong, sometimes spectacularly so.

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UK technological infrastructure not meeting demands of businesses

by • Flexible working, News, Technology

infrastructureThe UK’s technological infrastructure is failing to keep pace with the availability of broadband and mobile services and not meeting demands of small businesses and homes, according to Ofcom’s Infrastructure Report 2014. The report outlines the challenges facing the Government as it seeks to deliver appropriate technological infrastructure for both businesses and consumers. The report suggests that  although there is an overall improvement in the availability and quality of broadband services, many remote and rural areas aren’t being connected quickly enough, there are too many urban ‘not-spots’, a lack of superfast broadband for small businesses and no discernible plan for the uptake of the next generation of ultrafast broadband. The report found the average UK household or small business is downloading 53 Gigabytes (GB) of data on their fixed broadband line every month.

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Third of European workplaces to introduce wearable technology in 2015

by • Facilities management, News, Technology

Third of European workplaces will introduce wearable technology in 2015

One third of European businesses plan to introduce wearable technology to the workplace next year, but the majority of organisations have yet to introduce a policy to deal with the change. A European online survey by Ipswitch to determine the readiness of businesses for wearable technology in 2015 has discovered that despite the widespread adoption of the latest BYOD devices  over the next 12 months, very little thought has been given to the impact wearable technology could have on network performance and security. In fact, over three quarters of businesses in the UK, France and Germany (77 percent) admit they have no policy for managing the impact of wearables joining the corporate network and only 13 percent of organisations report that they have a policy in place to cover managing the impact of wearable technology. (more…)

UK employers lag behind on the importance they place on workplace health

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

UK employers lag behind on the importance they place on workplace health Two in five (40%) of UK employees say their employer offers no health or wellbeing benefits, a new study on workplace health has revealed. Although the research, conducted by Bupa, found that two thirds (64%) of UK employers agreed that a healthy workforce is a more productive one, two in five (40%) employees said their employer offers no health or wellbeing benefits. Three in ten (28%) employees went as far as saying that when it comes to wellbeing, their company is all talk but no action. UK employers lag behind many other countries on the importance they place on workplace health. Just 57 per cent of UK employers agreed that good health makes good business sense compared to 85 per cent in Australia and 82 per cent in Poland. Meanwhile just over half (58%) of UK employers think that an unhealthy workforce is a risk to business performance compared to 81 per cent in New Zealand and 80 per cent in Spain.

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