Search Results for: economy

June 23, 2016

Demand for professionals to fill London’s creative hub remains high ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, News, Technology, Workplace

As we reported last week, the success of the tech and media sector in London is driving the Capital’s offices market. Now new research has shown that demand for professionals in London’s creative occupations remains high, with over a third of jobs in the sector found within the UK’s main creative hub. The latest Professional Recruitment Trends report from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) based on data provided by Burning Glass, claims that 33.5 percent of all creative occupation postings were found in Greater London. The South East ranks second with 16.1 percent of creative roles followed by the West Midlands in third with an 8.1 percent share of total job postings. The list of ‘in demand’ skills for creative roles is mostly dominated by coding and programming languages. However the report suggests that the skills in the highest demand, excluding those specific to IT based roles, are communication, creativity and writing.

June 16, 2016

London market for flexible workspace outstrips conventional space ⁰

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

The UK market for flexible workspace has grown 11 percent in just the last 12 months. The main driver of the upsurge is inevitably London, which saw the biggest increase of flexible space at 16 percent and now represents a third of the whole UK market. According to the new research by The Instant Group, traditional occupier inquiries for London grew at a lower rate (nine percent), meaning the supply of flexible workspace in London has outstripped conventional office space by some margin over the last year; a trend the report suggests that seems set to continue into the future. Double digit growth for flexible workspace was also been seen across the UK’s regions, with suburban locations seeing some of the UK’s most aggressive growth in terms of workstation rates and inquiries, despite a 12.5 percent increase in supply, as occupiers have chosen cheaper locations with good transport links over the highly competitive market in central London.

June 15, 2016

Edinburgh most attractive city for commercial property investors outside London ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property

Edinburgh is the most attractive British location for commercial property investment outside of London, according to new research by law firm and real estate consultancy Morton Fraser. Research amongst investors by the law firm’s commercial real estate division ranks a list of ten British cities outside of London according to their attractiveness as investment options. Edinburgh, Bristol and Manchester are the most appealing regional locations for investors, based on an indexed score of how many more investors found them attractive propositions compared to those who did not. However, the remaining seven cities did not appeal to the majority of investors, with more rating them an unattractive investment proposition rather than an appealing one. Aberdeen is rated the least attractive location for investors, coming after its energy-dependent economy was hit by falling oil prices, leading to thousands of job losses and the contraction of the oil and gas industry.

June 14, 2016

Home workers happier, able to balance responsibilities despite long hours ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

New research claims that home-based employees are choosing to work more hours than those who work in traditional offices. According to the study carried out by homeworking agency Sensée, despite opting to work more hours daily, home workers are generally happier because they’re empowered to choose the hours they work so they can still attend to family responsibilities. Three quarters of home workers (77 percent) stated that working from home enables them to achieve more, including caring for family members or friends and exercising more. Time and money saved on commuting – along with more control over their day – were cited among the top three benefits of working from home. The research also claims there is a desire to work from home among office-based employees. Three-fifths (81 percent) of office-based employees said they would take the opportunity to work from home either full time or part time to care for a family member or friend.

June 13, 2016

Culture change needed to stem senior female executive attrition rate ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

With less than 10 percent of FTSE 100 companies in this country having a female CEO, a cross party group of MPs from the Women and Equalities Select Committee have been enquiring into ways of increasing the significant under-representation of women at executive levels. The introduction of quotas and regulation has been suggested to address this lack of gender diversity. In its submission to the committee consultant’s Mercer argue that although measures such as quotas can have a visible impact in the short term, the most effective and sustainable way of getting women into senior and executive roles is by focusing on growing and developing a pipeline of female talent in an enabling and supportive environment, tailored to their unique skill-sets, financial, and health needs. Its recently launched study ‘When women thrive, businesses thrive’ shows that senior women leave at much higher rates than men, which supports our argument that the prevailing business culture doesn’t support working mothers.

June 13, 2016

UK faces digital skills gap … but simply hiring Millennials won’t close it ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

Although the UK remains a global tech leader, the country remains in the grip of a digital skills crisis which is holding back productivity and costs around £63 billion each year, according to a report published today by the Commons Science and Technology Committee. The report claims that 12.6 million UK adults lack even basic digital skills, and nearly half of these people (5.8 million) have never even used the internet. Meanwhile, a coincidental report published by Cisco claims that those organisations who apparently assume they can close the gap by merely employing so-called Millennials, will be disappointed because there’s no great correlation between age and confidence in using digital technology. The Digital Culture Clash report found the only meaningful correlations were between the type of work an individual does, their level of employment and their competence and confidence in using technology.

June 3, 2016

Uncertainty about the consequences of Brexit in construction sector ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News, Property

Uncertainty about the consequences of a possible UK vote to leave the EU is having an adverse effect on the country’s construction pipeline, according to the Markit/CPS survey of activity in the market. According to the study, new building orders declined during May for the first time in three years although at 51.2, the index remains above the neutral 50 threshold which indicates that the trend remains positive. The May study specifically asked respondents how their work had been affected by the Brexit vote with one third saying it had had a negative effect. Meanwhile, an April study from CBRE found that demand for office space in London had remained robust through the first quarter despite fears that uncertainty about the market and the wider economy related to the referendum would dampen demand. Meanwhile, a new survey from the IEMA claims that two-thirds of members believe environmental issues will be given lower priority if the UK leaves the EU.

May 26, 2016

Two in five managers oppose employees working from home ⁰

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

Flexible working may be growing in popularity among employees but there is evidence of a gap in expectations between employers and employees on where work should take place. A new report from Randstad found that only around a third of UK employees (35 percent) still want to work in the office every day of the week, with a majority (62 percent) wanting the option of working from home. Employers it seems feel very differently, as a report by Cornerstone OnDemand and IDC reveals that cultural attitudes are a major obstacle for the full acceptance of flexible ways of working, preventing employers from viewing it as a legitimate work practice. Two in five line managers (40 percent) admit that they do not want their employees to work from home, and crucially, even if a company facilitates remote working, bosses’ attitudes are keeping their employees in the office, with just 13 percent of employees actually choosing to work from home when given the option.

May 25, 2016

An out of hours email ban and why we all need the ‘right to disconnect’ ⁰

by Adrian Lewis • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Work&Place, Workplace

The recent announcement from President Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party that they plan to give French employees the “right to disconnect” by pushing through measures for an email ban out of hours has been the subject of great debate. Although many commentators have argued the need for employers to encourage people to ‘switch off’ when they aren’t in work, to date there have been no legal guidelines on this specific issue, despite several negative reports about modern technology blurring the boundaries between home and work, which some claim is creating a stress epidemic. In the UK, the Working Time Regulations specify that no worker should work more than 48 hours per week. However, there has been no case law as to whether or not checking work emails outside working hours would fall within this limit – and many UK staff check and respond to work emails outside work hours, even on holidays.

May 18, 2016

What the imminent arrival of driverless vehicles will mean for the way we work ⁰

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

Game changing technology doesn’t come any more disruptive than driverless vehicles. The problem is that we may find the whole idea easy to dismiss based on our past experiences of this sort of thing. Autonomous vehicles carry the whiff of Tomorrow’s World about them, yet they are about to go mainstream far sooner than we might think and their advent will have a major impact on the way we work and live. Both Ford and BMW have announced they intend to have fully autonomous vehicles on the roads within five years. That doesn’t mean the test models that are already on the roads but commercially available vehicles; Volvo will have 100 customers in Sweden and the UK using the vehicles next year. Tesla claims its cars will be driverless in two years. And it’s not just car makers who are intent on grabbing a share of this new market but computer makers like Google and Apple as well as sharing economy pioneers like Uber.

May 17, 2016

Employers need to step up to retain older workers and carers, claims CIPD ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

With people living longer and fewer young people entering the labour market, Europe’s employers are increasingly reliant on the skills and talents of older workers. However, the ageing population also means that there will be around nine million carers in the UK by 2037, many of whom will be trying to juggle care and employment, according to new research released by the CIPD. It claims that, although the UK’s policy framework for supporting older workers and creating fuller working lives is well-developed in comparison to other European countries, there is a crucial need to turn this thinking into practical action to avoid losing the skills and experience of employees who choose to work beyond retirement. With around 30 percent of the UK workforce currently over 50 compared to 20 percent in the 1990s, the CIPD is urging employers to put the tools and culture in place to support older workers as they represent and increasingly significant proportion of the labour market.

May 17, 2016

Lack of productivity growth continues to impact on UK employment ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The Government to be more interventionist in its support and work in partnership with business to help improve organisations’ productivity to improve salaries and performance, the CIPD has said. This follows the second quarter in a row when the CIPD’s survey of employers has anticipated a pay figure below the Government’s official inflation target of 2 percent. The Labour Market Outlook highlights how low inflation, expanding labour supply and the lack of productivity growth are working in combination to reduce the economic pressure for employers to pay their staff more. The UK is now in its eighth year of a productivity slump, which for employees means that pay growth is likely to remain sluggish until at least the end of the decade and for employers means that low productivity leads to tightened budgets. This ‘jobs-rich, pay-poor’ economy is set to continue as pay awards are expected to only rise by 1.7 percent in the next year.