Search Results for: culture

January 18, 2019

Working environment, not time of the year has most negative effect on staff wellbeing

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

Half of employees say that their working environment has a negative effect on their mental health (51 percent) and wellbeing (49 percent) and two-thirds (67 percent) say that they only ‘sometimes, rarely or never’ feel valued at work. The research by Peldon Rose shows that two-thirds of employees (64 percent) currently have poor or below average mental wellbeing and that the majority (56 percent) claim increasing workloads, followed by a lack of time to focus on wellbeing and exercise (46 percent) are the leading causes of their stress. While half of employees think introducing exercise facilities will help them to better tackle their workplace stress (50 percent) – less than a fifth of workplaces (16 percent) currently provide these facilities, something employers should consider when looking to boost the morale of their workforce.

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January 17, 2019

Flexible working employees find it difficult to detach from work

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

New findings from health and wellbeing provider, BHSF, suggest that home workers struggle to switch off, and this could be negatively affecting their work/life balance. Flexible working provides huge benefits for employees – it means they can avoid lengthy and stressful commutes, work at times that fit them and their families, and focus clearly without other distractions. However, all these positives may be lost if employees continually work beyond their contracted hours, warn the study’s authors. Prolonged working outside of hours can seriously affect employees’ ability to stay fresh and mentally alert.

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January 15, 2019

Overstretched UK employees are disengaged and unproductive at work

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing

New research has found that over 2 million UK workers think about quitting their job every day and this figure was significantly higher amongst younger workers, aged 18-24, with 12 percent of those surveyed stating they think about this daily. The research by CABA, a charity supporting the wellbeing of chartered accountants and their families, also highlighted that 38 percent of employees regularly encountered stressful situations at work. Women were most likely to feel this way, with 41 percent revealing they deal with stressful circumstances at least once a week. Comparatively, only 34 percent of male employees admitted to encountering such situations on at least a weekly basis. Many factors were cited as contributing to employees feeling stressed, including unrealistic expectations and unmanageable workloads. Regardless of how it manifests itself within the working environment it can have a negative impact on employee wellbeing, with over 1 in 10 (12 percent) missing at least 52 family events or personal commitments each year.

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January 15, 2019

Workplace productivity plummets during January

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

Around a quarter (26 percent) of British workers believe that January is their least productive month with the nation still recovering from the Christmas period, according to a new report from Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance. The report also claims that December is the second least productive month (14 percent) whist 32 percent surveyed suggested that they’re equally unproductive across the entire year. Residents of the Welsh capital Cardiff were found to be the least productive in January (34 percent) closely followed by Southampton (31 percent) and Sheffield (30 percent).

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January 14, 2019

The problem with predictions, the cult of Facebook, WeWork woes and some other stuff

by Mark Eltringham • Features

If it makes you feel better about Blue Monday (today – ‘officially’ the year’s glummest day), it also marks the closure of the Predictions Window in my view. If somebody still has an unpublished list of forecasts for the coming year on their specialist topic, they’ve missed their chance. At least with us they have. But not to worry, there’s a good chance they can trot most of them all out again next year and they’ll be just as relevant. Anything else can be quietly dropped.

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January 14, 2019

Tackling mental ill health in the workplace requires changes at the top

by Patrick Watt • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace

The collective effort to improve mental health awareness has gained real momentum in recent years and in the workplace there’s growing recognition that mental wellbeing among employees is good for business. But the way we’re working – the ‘always on’ culture, innovation moving at breakneck speed, and a global workforce operating 24/7 – is creating a mental burden among employees that is generating more mental health challenges. According to the City Mental Health Alliance, 44 percent of employers are seeing an increase in reported mental health concerns. Our own research of international business leaders has also shown that two thirds of them have suffered from mental health conditions. This is not only worrying for the individuals but problematic for the wider business, as culture is driven from the top.

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January 14, 2019

Government and employers unite to kick-start stalled flexible working

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

The Flexible Working Task Force, a partnership across government departments, business groups, trade unions and charities, has today launched a campaign to increase the uptake of flexible working. Members of the task force are collectively using their ability to reach and influence hundreds of thousands of employers to encourage them to advertise jobs as flexible by using the strapline Happy to Talk Flexible Working in their job advertisements, regardless of level or pay grade.

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January 10, 2019

Disability and age discrimination are top concerns for UK employees

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

More than half of employees say the inclusion of disabled people is an area that requires the greatest improvement within their organisation; with the diversity of age groups coming in a close second at just under half. This is according to the latest findings from Wildgoose’s Diversity and Inclusivity in the Workplace survey. The results suggest a shift in the areas that employees prioritise when it comes to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and raises the concern that dual discrimination based on disability AND age is common practice in the workplace. Other significant findings from the research show that nearly half (47 percent) of male employees don’t consider the gender pay gap to be a major issue, in comparison to the three quarters of females that do; a statistic that is particularly concerning given the recent publication of major organisations’ gender pay gaps and continued media coverage of the issue. Interestingly, the gap between men and women narrows when it comes to equal promotional opportunities.

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January 9, 2019

Digital transformation and an uncharted future for workplace design in 2019

by Cherie Johnson and Julie Yonehara • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

In some way, humans have touched every single thing on this planet. We’re stepping into unknown territory. We’re changing everything. Think about that. Now, think about digital transformation. New technologies are changing how we interact with our environment, how we work, how we play and how we live. Tech tools are being more readily adopted as they get better and more accessible and, as a result our attitudes about them are changing. These are big ideas. And, they are rapidly changing our work and the domain of workplace design around the world. (more…)

January 9, 2019

Podcast: embracing the punk spirit and the elemental workplace

by Mike Petrusky • Facilities management, Features, Workplace design

Neil Usher is an experienced senior property, workplace, facilities and change management leader who is currently an executive consultant for Unispace and workessence. He is also the author of “The Elemental Workplace” in which he describes “the 12 elements for creating a fantastic workplace for everyone”. In this new podcast, I ask Neil about the latest trends in the workplace and finds out his opinions on the open office debate, the impact of technology, and the importance of workplace experience. Neil argues that workplace is now being taken seriously as a contributor to performance and is a significant part of our organization’s culture, so we must establish “laws of workplace” that we can use as a foundation to build on in our practice. We discuss the origins of the punk rock music scene and agree that we must bring “the spirit of punk” to our work by being fearless about trying new things in our roles as workplace leaders.

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January 8, 2019

From nudge tech to listening tools, Gartner makes some workplace predictions for 2019

by Brian Kropp • AI, Comment, Technology, Workplace

Last year we saw businesses reporting their gender pay gap, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) taking effect, speculation on how Brexit will impact jobs and further impact on how technology is changing the way we work. Looking forward to the year ahead, Gartner has pulled together a fresh set of workplace predictions for the coming year. This includes the demise of employee surveys as the adoption of sophisticated listening tools accelerates; precious little progress in closing the gender pay gap, but the evolution of discrepancies in pay scales between new hires and existing employees; the rise and rise of the #MeToo movement, which could lead to more senior executives being ousted in 2019 than in 2018; and new technologies designed to nudge workers into action.

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January 7, 2019

What Leonardo da Vinci can teach us about the six hour working day ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing

The latest idea to grip the sometimes limited imagination of the world’s workplace chatterers is that of the six hour working day or the four day working week. This has its original roots in a Swedish experiment designed to limit the hours people work in an attempt to improve their work-life balance and possibly even increase their productivity. Now a growing number of firms are looking to introduce a nominal four day working week or restrict the use of emails outside of office hours. These are always commendable goals and you can see the logic. We know people find it increasingly hard to switch off, we know that this is bad for them and we know that long hours don’t necessarily equate to greater productivity.