Search Results for: business

Workers routinely conceal mental health issues from employer

Workers routinely conceal mental health issues from employer

Three-in-ten (30 percent) office employees have claimed to be physically ill when calling in sick despite in fact suffering from a mental health problem, according to a new survey of 2,000 white-collar employees in London by Helix Resilience. The responses suggest that 18-24-year olds are the most likely to conceal a mental health problem when calling in sick – with 37 percent of this age group reporting to have done this at least once. (more…)

There is more to lighting a space than meets the eye

There is more to lighting a space than meets the eye

The best lighting design is the one you don’t notice. Coco Chanel once said: “dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” It’s the same with lighting. If you notice the light sources, and you can feel annoyed by them, then the design just doesn’t work. Essentially, there’s more to lighting than first meets the eye. (more…)

Office furniture giant Steelcase achieves carbon neutral status

Office furniture giant Steelcase achieves carbon neutral status

office furniture and technologyUS based office furniture giant Steelcase has announced it has achieved carbon neutrality for its own operations. The company also announced new 2030 goals that have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. Building upon this momentum, the firm has established a goal to become carbon negative by 2030. (more…)

Working from home and the future of work. How quaint

Working from home and the future of work. How quaint

In 1962, a professor of communication studies called Everett Rogers came up with the principle we call diffusion of innovation. It’s a familiar enough notion, widely taught and works by plotting the adoption of new ideas and products over time as a bell curve, before categorising groups of people along its length as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. It’s a principle bound up with human capital theory and so its influence has endured for over 50 years, albeit in a form compressed by our accelerated proliferation of ideas. It may be useful, but it lacks a third dimension in the modern era. That is, a way of describing the numbers of people who are in one category but think they are in another.

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Job clusters and urban sprawl will become evident post lockdown

Job clusters and urban sprawl will become evident post lockdown

job clustersFor most of us the experience of working from home this year has, on balance, been positive – enough that it may well become the norm after the COVID-19 crisis ends. But modelling by Victoria University’s Centre of Policy Studies shows there will be costs alongside the personal benefits, with more urban sprawl, job clusters with a flight to the biggest cities and greater economic disparities between regions. (more…)

Workers only apply newly learned skills half of the time

Workers only apply newly learned skills half of the time

Employees are applying only 54 percent of the new skills they learn, despite the number of skills required for a single job increasing by 10 percent year on year, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner TalentNeuron data also claims that 33 percent of the skills needed three years ago are no longer relevant. (more…)

Furloughed workers feel insecure about their future

Furloughed workers feel insecure about their future

New data looking into the attitudes of  6,273 employees, commissioned by Perkbox, claims the considerable impacts of the furlough scheme and the prospect of returning to work to wellbeing. The research claims that 61 percent of furloughed workers have concerns over their future job security, and a further 42 percent have concerns about the future of their company due to their employer’s participation in the scheme. This is despite almost half (45 percent) enjoying the time off and break from working that this time provided. (more…)

Survival, inquiry, sophistication – picking the right workplace battles

Survival, inquiry, sophistication – picking the right workplace battles

We know, and have for a long time, that the workplace is in a state of near constant flux. The meteor strike of lockdown is an accelerant, not a deviation. It has also laid bare -yet again – the faulty assumption that there is some sort of general evolution towards an idealised version of the office. That is why we see so many people routinely willing to suspend their critical facilities to make extravagant and even absurd predictions about the office of the future or even the death of the office. (more…)

People increasingly confident about return to offices

People increasingly confident about return to offices

Half (49 percent) of employed British adults feel positive about the prospect of returning to their place of work after lockdown, with less than one in five (18 percent) feeling negative, an Aviva study claims. The findings paint a relatively positive picture for businesses that have supported their people through lockdown, such as regularly communicating with workers and taking necessary steps to manage the risk of infection in the workplace. However, where businesses have not embraced risk management and prevention strategies, employees may decide not to return to work at all. (more…)

People plan to retain sustainable new habits after lockdown

People plan to retain sustainable new habits after lockdown

Britons are keen to continue with low-carbon lifestyle choices adopted during lockdown, according to research by Cardiff University and The University of Manchester. Two wide-ranging surveys conducted by the UK Centre for Climate and Social Transformation (CAST), which is coordinated by Cardiff University, suggested lockdown had upended people’s habits, from buying and travelling less, to reduced energy use and cutting down on food waste. (more…)

Rich, female and over- 45? It`s much more likely you thrived during lockdown

Rich, female and over- 45? It`s much more likely you thrived during lockdown

The characteristics that meant you were most likely to thrive during the Covid-19 lockdown have been identified in new research by emlyon business school. The researchers, from emlyon business school’s Lifestyle Research Center, have studied people’s lifestyle, circumstances, and behaviour during the Covid-19 lockdown period, to examine how it has impacted their mental and physical wellbeing. The data comes from a survey of over 1000 respondents, split evenly across France and the UK, gathered near the end of the lockdown period in May. (more…)

UK faces urgent AI skills gap, Microsoft report claims

UK faces urgent AI skills gap, Microsoft report claims

The UK is facing an AI skills gap that could leave companies struggling to compete with rivals from across the world, a new Microsoft report claims.  The research, entitled AI Skills in the UK, also found that businesses in this country use less AI than firms overseas, and when they do it tends to be less advanced. UK organisations are also less likely to be classed as “AI pros” compared to the global average (15 percent versus 23 percent), and the UK has a higher failure rate of AI than the global average (measured by the number of projects generating no commercial value – 29 percent versus 19 percent). (more…)