Search Results for: economy

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.

May 16, 2016

Yet more evidence that flexible working is now mainstream ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Although flexible working remains an idea that is still often presented as some sort of novelty, challenge to the natural order of things, ‘trend’ or (spare us) a ‘craze’, at some point a lot of people will have to accept that it’s just the way an awful lot of people work nowadays. Earlier this year, The Work Foundation published a report suggesting that half of UK employers will offer flexible working by next year. Now, job site Monster.co.uk has published its own survey suggesting pretty much the same thing. It found that around a third of British employers already offer their staff some sort of flexible working arrangements and 26 per cent already offer them to all employees as a matter of course although it tends to apply somewhat disproportionately to senior employees. However, the research also claims that more than a fifth (21 per cent) of employees don’t know what their company’s policy is which is obviously a major constraint on its uptake.

May 3, 2016

Remote working may be the answer to the housing crisis, claims report ⁰

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

A new report from techUK and Citrix claims that the UK’s housing crisis is exacerbated by the majority of workers (59 percent) working on the basis that there is greater potential for securing employment by living and working in large cities. The Housing Crisis: a Digital Solution (download) is based on data from YouGov research into the expectations of 1,243 UK knowledge workers with the potential to enjoy remote working. The report claims that the burden that location-dependent work places on large cities could be significantly reduced by allowing workers to work remotely, as over half of British workers (54 per cent) stated they would be likely to relocate to a rural area if they could still perform their role to the same level. However, while many workers would relocate if they could, connectivity, transport and corporate culture were all cited as challenges to achieving this especially when 48 per cent of rural premises don’t have access to high-speed broadband internet.

April 27, 2016

The digital future of work is more about humans than machines, claims study ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property, Technology

The claims that robots will render the human species redundant are largely exaggerated suggests a new report from Cognizant’s Centre for the Future of Work and the Economist Intelligence Unit. But we will have to find a new path and it may be one that emphasises human strengths and characteristics working alongside robots. The study of 420 managers in Europe and the US explores the future of the workplace in an increasingly automated world and suggest we will also see the emergence of new jobs involved in the design of augmented reality and avatars as well as a generally greater emphasis on robot-human partnerships in an increasingly digital world. The study claims, unsurprisingly, that the reliance on physical office space will recede, forcing businesses to employ intelligent workplaces which will monitor workers’ environment, needs and even moods.

April 22, 2016

LEED certified green buildings in Canada reach a significant milestone ⁰

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property, Workplace design

LEED certified buildings in Canada have led to a cumulative reduction of over one million tonnes of CO2e in greenhouse gas emissions – the equivalent of taking 238,377 cars off the road for a year. Along with this milestone the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) announced that in the first quarter of 2016 it certified the 1000th LEED Gold project in Canada. LEED Gold, the second most rigorous level of certification, now makes up 38 per cent of all LEED certified projects in Canada – the highest percentage of all levels. This is evidence of the industry’s enhanced capability to achieve higher levels of building performance. Among the most notable projects that earned LEED certification in the first quarter of this year was the certified LEED Platinum TELUS Garden Office Tower in Vancouver, BC, a one million square foot development in the heart of downtown Vancouver that features one of Vancouver’s largest solar panel collections on the office’s rooftop.

April 18, 2016

Great strides made towards fourth industrial revolution, but more to come ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Many countries and organisations are making significant strides in the development of the fourth industrial revolution, but there is much work still to do. Those are the conclusion of two new studies into the preparedness of firms and national economies with regards to the emerging digital economy. The Cisco Digital Readiness report surveyed technology decision makers in eight countries and eight industries, categorising them as either ‘forwards’ and ‘laggers’. According to the report, globally, the ‘forwards’ have an average score of 77. The UK’s score is 75 placing it largely at the forefront of developments. According to a second report from PwC, Industry 4.0: Building the Digital Enterprise, the digitisation of businesses is progressing well, but with a lot of scope for development. The survey of more than 2,000 global companies found that 33 per cent of firms rate their digitisation levels as high, but the value will hit 72 percent over the next five years.

April 9, 2016

TMT & workplace design + Real-estate decision making + Dutch productivity ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Property, Workplace

In this week’s Newsletter Andrew Brown explains why the Dutch are regarded as leaders in ideas on productivity; Mark Eltringham says the TMT sector may push the office design boundaries, but much of what they’re doing isn’t unique to them; and Sara Bean reveals just 1 percent of men have so far taken up the opportunity of Shared Parental Leave (SPL). In news; the global economy, workforce strategies and rising costs all influence real estate decision-making; Londoners are unsure and often un-consulted on the proliferation of high rise buildings; HR best practice proved to improve business performance and disturbing evidence that mobile phone users movements are being monitored. Download our Insight Briefing, produced in partnership with Connection, on how the boundless office can be freed from the shackles of time and place and access the latest issue of Work&Place. Visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

April 7, 2016

The global tension between cost and talent in corporate real estate ⁰

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

Concerns over the health of the global economy, workforce strategies and rising costs and pace of business are heavily influencing real estate decision-making for major corporations, a new survey by CBRE of global corporate real estate executives claims. More than 400 respondents from around the world participated in the survey. Nearly half (49 percent) cited economic uncertainty as their greatest challenge, while 43 percent identified it as cost escalation. Forty-eight percent projected a stable real estate footprint for this year. Seventy-nine percent stated that they are actively using space-efficiency initiatives to manage costs, combining ‘ground-up workplace strategies with top-down cost management initiatives’. Workplace strategies are also driven by initiatives that aim to improve collaborative working and enhance a firm’s pool of talent as well as address other workplace issues such as wellbeing and work life balance.

April 6, 2016

Just one percent of men have taken-up UK’s shared parental leave right ⁰

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

One year on from its launch and it’s emerged that just 1 percent of men have so far taken up the opportunity of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) while over half (55 percent) of women say they wouldn’t want to share their maternity leave rights. The main reasons why men have chosen not to take up SPL are financial affordability, lack of awareness, and unwillingness from women to share their maternity leave. A combined survey of over 1,000 parents and 200 businesses (HR Directors) from My Family Care and the Women’s Business Council found that taking up SPL was very much dependent on a person’s individual circumstances, particularly on their financial situation and the paternity pay on offer from their employer. It found that 80 percent of both men and women agreed that a decision to share leave would be dependent on their finances and their employer’s enhancement of SPL. More →