Search Results for: business

June 19, 2018

Many fathers are unaware of their parental leave rights

Nearly half (46 percent) of working fathers are unaware they are entitled to take shared parental leave on the arrival of a child, according to new research. The survey, conducted by Aviva, also claims that one in 10 dads (11 percent) took no time off whatsoever when their most recent child arrived. Businesses are therefore being urged to do more to make sure their male staff know their rights, to enable them to spend precious time with their newborn or adopted children. Crucially, the survey of UK parents with dependent children found that 86 percent of fathers would have taken more time off at the arrival of their children, but felt restricted by financial factors and employer constraints.

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June 18, 2018

Employers and government need to work together to address looming Brexit skills gap

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

As the UK continues to navigate a period of uncertainty ahead of its exit from the European Union, new research published by the City & Guilds Group and Emsi claims that nine in 10 employers already struggle to recruit the skilled staff they need. With most industries expected to grow between now and 2024, a significant number of skilled workers will be needed to meet demand. However, People Power, a study based on City & Guilds Group interviewing over 1,000 C-Suite employers in the UK and work with Emsi to undertake extensive economic modelling, has found that two thirds of UK employers think that the skills gaps in their businesses are likely to get worse or remain the same in the next three to five years.

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June 18, 2018

World Green Building Council launches Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment

by Neil Franklin • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) has launched its new Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment as part of Building Lasting Change 2018 with WorldGBC Congress Canada in Toronto, and called on market leaders in the sector to join as signatories. The Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment challenges businesses and organisations across the world to take advanced climate action by setting ambitious targets to eliminate operational carbon emissions from their building portfolios by 2030 in order to meet the Paris Agreement ambition of below 2 degrees of global warming.

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June 17, 2018

Fathers Day offers a chance to ponder the disadvantages faced by many working dads

by Julia Waltham • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

Father’s Day – a day when fathers up and down the UK are supposed to feel valued – whether it’s hand print cards from their 2-year old, a pair of socks from their teenager or BBQ accessories from their fully-grown son or daughter. Fathers looking to the government for an offering will be disappointed. Its response to the Women & Equalities Select Committee’s excellent recommendations on fathers and the workplace is the equivalent of a nicely wrapped box with very little in it. For self-employed fathers, the box appears to be empty.

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June 15, 2018

Four key points to consider when creating a digital workplace

by Jonas Andrén et al • Features, Technology

As the use of digital technologies and data to create new value propositions and operating models becomes more commonplace, workplaces across the world are being affected across sectors, from manufacturing to local government. Almost all areas have been touched by the megatrend, whether from own initiatives or to keep up with competitors. However, Arthur D. Little’s Digital Transformation Study reports that almost 80 percent of companies surveyed were only “digitally adaptive”, with digital efforts limited to products and services at best, and no comprehensive approach to adapting their mind-sets. To help traditional organizations adapt sufficiently to compete with digitally minded start-ups, we have identified four key questions to consider when developing digitalization strategies and the creation of a fully digital workplace.

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June 15, 2018

Noise pollution in offices is worsening and people are leaving jobs as a result

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

The majority of executives and employees report near-constant noise in their workplace and many say they lack quiet space for meetings or to focus, a new report from Oxford Economics, commissioned by Plantronics has claimed. According to the report, conditions are much worse now than three years ago when Oxford Economics conducted its first study. The report polled senior executives and non-manager employees in the UK and across the globe to learn more about productivity and collaboration as it relates to the open office. It found that open offices aren’t delivering on collaboration and productivity goals. Instead, employees are finding alternative ways to find quiet space and focus. In fact three quarters of employees say they need to take walks outside and 32 percent listen to headphones to focus and block out distraction, while employees in the noisiest office environments are more likely to say they’ll leave their job in the next six months.

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June 15, 2018

The week in seven stories about work, technology and people

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Digital addiction: how technology keeps us hooked

Plumber wins gig workers’ rights battle

Why exhaustion is not unique to our overstimulated age

Ten red flags signalling your analytics program will fail

The CEO society and our culture of metric fixation

The bottom line on coworking spaces

It’s time we value our data – as people and society

June 14, 2018

Nearly half of employees still assigned to same place as the traditional office clings on

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property

The worry over a loss in productivity when people are able to work anywhere is entirely unfounded, and what we once called “alternative”, we have come to call current and future workplace strategies, a new report claims. Yet the new study, ‘The Once Alternative Workplace Strategies’, which was conducted and released by Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA), Global Workplace Analytics and Haworth Inc, found that nearly half of employees are still permanently assigned to one space; with no change since 2008. The research pinpoints five leading trends within today’s workplaces and compares the findings to the initial research from more than a decade ago. (more…)

June 14, 2018

Unlocking government’s mapping and location data will boost economy by £130m a year

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

The UK Government has announced that key parts of its OS MasterMap will now be made openly available for the public and businesses to use. It estimates that this will boost the UK economy by at least £130m each year, as companies and startups use the data. The release of OS MasterMap data is one of the first projects to be delivered by the new Geospatial Commission, in conjunction with Ordnance Survey. The aim is to drive forward the UK as a world leader in location data, helping to grow the UK’s digital economy by an estimated £11bn each year. The data can be used for a variety of purposes including navigating public transport, tracking supply chains and logistics. It is also essential for the application of drones and autonomous vehicle technology. Today’s announcement follows the launch of the first GovTech challenge in May this year – a competition designed to incentivise Britain’s tech firms to come up with innovative solutions to improve public services. These competitions will be delivered using the £20m GovTech fund launched in November 2017.

June 13, 2018

US companies are waking up to the benefits of caring for employee mental health

by Colleen O'Day • Comment, Wellbeing

In 2015, the American Psychological Association chose American Express as the inaugural winner of the Organizational Excellence Award, recognizing successful efforts to integrate psychology and prioritize behavioral health and emotional well-being in the workplace. American Express had an employee assistance program (EAP) for workers dealing with depression and other mental health challenges. The EAP was a telephone-consultation system and only about 4 percent of employees utilized it. After the firm added on-site counselors to meet with employees for free—and rebranded the EAP as part of its “Healthy Living” —the usage rate more than doubled.

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June 13, 2018

The CIPD says adoption of people analytics in the UK by HR is still too low

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Organisations with a strong people analytics culture are much more likely to report strong business performance claims new global research from the CIPD in association with Workday. However, the survey also highlights that the wide scale adoption of people analytics practice is still low and that more needs to be done to improve skills and confidence in the HR function, particularly in the UK which is lagging behind other markets in both capability and confidence. The research also highlights the importance of access to data. It found that access to people data improves outcomes but only 71 percent of HR professionals have access to this data, and just 42 percent of finance professionals do. For those with access to people data, just 22 percent use it daily in their decision-making and almost a quarter (23 percent) use it in decision-making just once a month or less. The research, People Analytics: driving business performance with people data, surveyed 3,852 business professionals globally – including HR and finance professionals – to understand attitudes towards people analytics and how it is being used in organisations.

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June 13, 2018

UK skills shift as organisations digitise and automate operations

by Sara Bean • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

Almost half (49 percent) of companies are struggling to find skilled workers as digitisation and automation cause significant change in the skills businesses look for in professionals, according to new data from Robert Half UK. As a result, one fifth (21 percent) are now looking to recruit candidates with exceptional soft skills, with a view to developing the desired technical skills on the job. In the Robert Half research, UK business leaders consider an openness to new ideas (28 percent), an openness to change (26 percent) and good communication abilities (19 percent) as key attributes and will prioritise these areas when considering new talent. Digitisation and automation are rapidly evolving the business world. Companies are having to quickly adapt to the changing world of work, and are looking for employees who can keep pace,” says Matt Weston, UK Managing Director at Robert Half.