Search Results for: culture

Attitudes towards flexible working still at odds with needs of modern life, claims report

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Flexible working fatherThere is still a stigma attached to flexible working and employers are still reluctant to offer it to staff, according to a survey of UK employees carried out by parenting website Netmums and charity the Family and Childcare Trust. According to a third of just under 1,800 respondents, there remains a degree of resentment from work colleagues towards those who  enjoy some form of flexible working. And, while, 80 percent of people think it is very important that employers offer flexible working to staff , a mere 15 percent feel it is offered in practice and another 20 percent have no idea whether it is available to them or not. The result is a mismatch between the desires and expectations of individuals and the reality of working life with the upshot that nearly a third (29 percent) of respondents claim to have left a job because they were unable to balance it with other aspects of their lives.

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Workplace features heavily in latest round of Government cuts and cost reductions

by • Facilities management, News, Property

WhitehallThe workplace features heavily in the latest round of cost savings announced by the UK Government. Of the £14.3 billion of cost reductions, £5.4 billion has been cut in the procurement of goods and services, with the Cabinet Office drawing particular attention to the use of consultants (which is probably the bulk of it), and the use of printer cartridges and paper (which isn’t). In addition, around £600 million was saved with the divestment of unused buildings and an increase in the number of departments sharing offices. The savings are driven by the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) which was set up by the Treasury and the Cabinet Office in the wake of the 2010 general election, and works with departments to make savings and address what it considers wasteful spending. This year’s savings follow £10 billion saved for 2012 to 2013, £5.5 billion in 2011 to 2012 and £3.75 billion in 2010 to 2011.

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The boardroom knows tech is important but leaves IT decisions to others, claims report

by • News

BoardroomThere is a recognition within the boardroom of the importance of information and communications technology (ICT), but business leaders see tech as something for technology managers to worry about and many are unable to make effective decisions anyway because they are digitally illiterate (and some are proud of the fact). Those are some of the findings of a new report from Sunguard Availability Services, published in partnership with Professor Joe Peppard of the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. The study claims that the growing strategic role of technology offers chief information officers (CIOs) a chance to elevate their position and drive the wider business agenda. But also that this can be held back by a lack of engagement, or even the boardroom taking no account of ICT whatsoever, with strategic IT alignment remaining an afterthought for many organisations.

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Deloitte increases flexible working rights to attract future female leaders

by • Company news, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace

Deloitte increases flexible working rights to attract future female leadersAs employers prepare for new flexible working legislation, which comes into place at the end of this month; Deloitte UK has announced it is to allow its 12,000 employees more say in where, when and how they work. The firm has introduced a range of new and adapted, formal and informal agile working arrangements to incite a change in the day-to-day culture at the UK firm. Deloitte already offers all employees the right to request a formal flexible working arrangement; it will now also enable them to request a block of four weeks unpaid leave each year, without reason or justification. These arrangements support its wider measures that encourage a more agile workplace, including the introduction of collaborative and adaptable working spaces, an environment that supports open conversations about agile working and improvements to technology that make it feasible. (more…)

Money alone isn’t enough to attract and hold on to Gen Y employees

by • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

Gen YThe retention of Gen Y employees is key for all organisations. No organisation wants to invest in their next generation of management only to find that they leave, and someone new needs to be trained. But the 20-30 year old workers of Gen Y exhibit a new-found job mobility. Which makes for a ticking time-bomb of potential cost and disruption to their employers. The iOpener Institute has gathered and studied questionnaire responses from over 30,000 professionals across the world, gaining insights into how employers can retain their Gen Y talent. The research clearly shows that while pay and financial rewards are important to Gen Y (i.e. they are not prepared to be under-paid for their work), there is no significant correlation between increased levels of pay and greater talent retention.

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Workplace design and management of TMT sector aped by other firms

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

Male midlifeThe publication of a report last week by the British Council for Offices highlights the wider impact of workplace design trends and commercial property arrangements  in the increasingly important Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) sector. Not least it suggests that they are having a transformational influence on the way firms in other sectors approach leases, workplace design and the changing nature of work. It is no coincidence that the TMT sector is the one most commonly associated with the employment of the much-talked-about Gen Y demographic, nor that the business practices most commonly associated with this overly-stereotyped group are those that are having the greatest influence in the way we design and manage offices.

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Information overload is a big problem for ‘infobese’ UK workers

by • Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

Information overloadWe all know –or should – that we have a real problem with information. We are not only deluged with the stuff, we appear increasingly willing to wallow in it voluntarily, even when we know it’s bad for us. The full extent of the challenge we face managing information is laid bare in a new report from Microsoft called ‘Defying Digital Distraction’.  The study is based on a survey carried out by YouGov which found that 55 per cent of 2,000 British office staff experience some form of information overload at work. A similar proportion feel they are distracted by information, just under half (43 per cent) experience stress as a result, a third (34 per cent) feel overwhelmed by it and 28 per cent believe it affects their personal wellbeing. The report is fronted by Dave Coplin, the Chief Envisioning Officer of Microsoft UK who we interviewed last year and coincides with the publication of Dave’s new book called The Rise of the Humans: how to outsmart the digital deluge.

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Design skills cited as one reason why London is the world’s best city

by • Environment, Events, News, Workplace design

Clerkenwell design weekFor the first time, London is the world’s best city for business, culture and finance, according to the latest edition of PWC’s annual Cities of Opportunity report.  And the city’s reputation as a global leader in design is cited as one of the main reasons. The index of thirty of the world’s most important cities claims that London’s sheer economic clout, technological infrastructure and its design and development skills are just a few of the factors that led to the city usurping New York for the first time. When the survey was last carried out, it was ranked third. London is ranked one of the top three best places for intellectual capital and innovation alongside Paris and San Francisco and has leapt from eighth place last year to joint first place (with Seoul) in terms of its technological readiness.

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Trust in ethical behaviour is linked to the size of the business, claims report

by • Architecture, News

Ethical behaviourThe larger the firm the less likely it is to trust its employees to behave ethically according to a new report from the Association of Accounting Technicians. The research also found that UK’s most ethical businesses are small architectural practices. According to the research, conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of AAT, only 37 per cent of SMEs trust their staff to do the right thing compared to 66 per cent of microbusinesses. The report also found that firms in the architectural sector have more faith in the ethical decision making of their employees and are more concerned about the ethical behaviour of suppliers than in any other industry. Interestingly, the report highlights the fact that, as the number of employees increases, businesses are more likely to dedicate a member of staff dedicated to fostering ethical behaviour and have a formal code of conduct.

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We need to add another dimension to meet the stress management challenge

by • Comment, Workplace, Workplace design

The Eternal TriangleAs always, any discussion of stress starts with the headline figures. Work-related stress is evidently the UK’s biggest cause of lost working days. According to the HSE’s most recent data, around 10.4 million days were lost to it in 2012, the most significant cause of absenteeism and a massive 40 per cent of all work-related illnesses. The financial cost to the UK has been estimated at £60 billion, largely due to the psychological and physical harm stress does us. The reasons for this are clear in the minds of many: the demands made on us by employers and ourselves are intolerable. Our private time is eroded, we spend too much time at work in the first place, we’re under excessive pressure to perform when we are there and as a result we’re all knackered, unfulfilled, stressed, depressed and anxious. It’s no wonder we are so keen on stress management

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HR and Facilities Management bodies to collaborate on future of workplace

by • Facilities management, News, Workplace

Facilities managementOne of the main themes at the ThinkFM conference yesterday was the acknowledgement that facilities management and HR need to break down the silos that often exist between the two disciplines. This was the message of Chris Kane, CEO of BBC Commercial Properties, who explained that the British Institute of Facilities Management will be collaborating with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development on a number of projects to investigate how both communities of professionals are evolving and adapting to the changing workplace. It marked the end of a conference which began the day with a talk by Peter Cheese, the CEO of the CIPD, who remarked that both professions were in the business of getting the most of people in the working environment and why it is vital that those tasked with managing these key resources within organisations need to work together to maximise the value of its workforce. (more…)

Employers fail to monitor wellbeing and mental health alongside staff engagement

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Mental ill health still not being addressedMonitoring of employee engagement and wellbeing by FTSE 100 companies improved over the past year, but organisations are failing to measure or address the psychological health of employees. The latest Business in the Community (BITC) Workwell FTSE 100 benchmark showed an increase in the average company scores from 21 per cent to 25 per cent while reporting across the five identified areas of BITC’s Workwell Model; Better Work, Better Relationships, Better Specialist Support, Better Physical and Psychological Health and Working Well increased from 53 to 63. 86 per cent of companies now report on four or five of these themes. But despite this, there was almost no evidence that psychological health is being measured or addressed, and the provision of mental health support continues to be a low scoring area (11%). (more…)

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