July 14, 2022

UK ranks 17th worldwide for remote work

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Technology

The UK ranks 17th in the world for remote work, according to a new report released by NordLayer. The report evaluated 66 countries in total. The report claims that the two biggest factors in the UK’s score are a relatively low cybersecurity ranking and a lower than expected digital and physical infrastructure ranking. The report concludes that the UK is not necessarily unsafe to work digitally but is taking longer than other countries to adapt and evolve digital practices and standards. More →

July 13, 2022

Confetti launches new collection of team building experiences as demand for DE&I in business increases

by Freddie Steele • Company news

With McKinsey & Company reporting that businesses with more diverse teams —whether that’s racially, socio economically or educationally— are 35 percent more profitable than organisations that are not, tech start-up Confetti, a website for booking virtual corporate development and team building events, has launched a new Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) collection of 27 distinctive team building experiences, aiming to release five new experiences every month. More →

June 23, 2022

We need to stop misusing the term ergonomic

by Guy Osmond • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design, Works Magazine

You don’t have to search for long to find the word ergonomic; it pops up everywhere, in connection with every sort of product and device for the workplace (and elsewhere). You can – so the marketeers will tell you – buy an ‘ergonomic’ chair, desk, keyboard or mouse. What’s wrong with that? An awful lot actually. The word ergonomic has a particular meaning. Ergonomics (note the crucial addition of an ‘s’ at the end), from the Greek ‘Ergos’ for work or labour and ‘Nomos’, meaning natural law, is the discipline of designing and arranging an environment to optimise the comfort and performance of the individual. More →

June 22, 2022

UK is third most attractive place to work in Europe

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The UK is the third most attractive place to work in Europe and experienced a stronger “brain-gain” than other major economies, according to a report from job site Indeed. It analysed nearly one billion data points including more than 800 million cross-border job searches and over 100 million job postings and found that cross-border searches by European jobseekers are up 13 percent from their pandemic low of -32 percent. At the same time, Europe has become increasingly popular to jobseekers outside of the continent: inbound searches from jobseekers based outside Europe are a staggering 38 percent above the 2017-19 average, up from the pandemic low of -31 percent. More →

June 21, 2022

Flexible working options can support women in the workplace

by Dr Gabriella Rosen Kellerman • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

As of May 2022, more than one hundred years after the passage of the Sex Disqualification Removal Act – legislation which opened the workplace equally to women – more than half of the UK’s female professionals are at risk of leaving their jobs. As a recent study showed, 52 percent of women in the UK say they are either considering leaving or have already left a role due to lack of flexibility. The widespread nature of this “Flexidus” is chilling. The pandemic has already set back women’s participation in the workforce back 22 years behind men. How can businesses respond with the flexible working choices that many women are seeking? More →

June 20, 2022

Birmingham BT HQ shows road ahead for its offices and the city

by Mike Hills • Cities, Features, Property, Workplace design

In January of 2020, shortly before that thing happened and before we knew much about the UK Government’s ‘levelling up’ programme, Birmingham was already a city on the rise. It had recently been announced that it was to host the Commonwealth Games in 2022 and was riding the crest of a number of high-profile developments and regeneration projects, not least those that arrived on the back of the controversial high speed rail station. More →

June 13, 2022

To provide people with better indoor air quality, we need a major upgrade of buildings

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Government must seize the post-pandemic opportunity to mandate long-term improvements to infection control in commercial, public and residential buildings to improve indoor air quality, reduce the transmission of future waves of COVID-19, new pandemics, seasonal influenza and other infectious diseases, according to a report published by the National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC). Infection control must also be coordinated with efforts to improve energy efficiency and fire safety, to support the three goals of safe, healthy and sustainable buildings. More →

June 9, 2022

Digital transformation of small businesses could provide massive economic boost

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology

The new Digital Britain [automatic download] report from Sage claims that over half of Britain’s economic potential from tech adoption is as yet untapped. But ongoing concerns amongst small and medium sized business about cost, skills and knowledge are holding them back from taking on the digital transformation that will ensure their success and provide a massive boost to the economy. The report claims that the use of technology by small and medium businesses (SMBs) contributes £216 billion to the UK economy; but if SMBs unlock the full benefits of technology, this could add an extra £232 billion, boosting the value of tech use to the UK economy by almost double to £448 billion annually. More →

June 7, 2022

Are these the best countries in Europe for work-life balance?

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

A new study from recruitment firm Remote claims to analyse how European countries are looking after the work-life balance of their employees. The report sets out to take an ‘holistic’ view on work-life balance taking into account of factors such as minimum wage, maternity leave, statutory annual leave, sick pay, the country’s healthcare system and the country’s overall happiness level to help workers determine the best locations for life-work balance. The UK comes in a lowly 28th place, in case you didn’t want to click on the report link. More →

June 1, 2022

Not busy-ness as usual: how boredom may be one of the keys to creativity

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology

The modern world seems geared to help us avoid boredom. But there’s a problem. Artists have long recognised that boredom can drive creativity. The great Italian writer-philosopher Giacomo Leopardi described boredom as “the most sublime of all human emotions because it expresses the fact that the human spirit, in a certain sense, is greater than the entire universe. Boredom is an expression of a profound despair at not finding anything that can satisfy the soul’s boundless needs.” More →

June 1, 2022

Simone Fenton-Jarvis on the new era of human-centric workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Premium Content, Wellbeing, Workplace

Plain speaking doesn’t always go down well, especially on social media and especially when cultural differences come into play. I recently had a friend intervene on my behalf to explain to an increasingly exasperated LinkedIn adversary that I wasn’t being rude, I was just ‘Northern’. This may well be a stereotypical Northern trait. If so, it is one that is shared by Simone Fenton-Jarvis, although then again it is one of the very few stereotypical things about her. More →

May 11, 2022

Job dissatisfaction is rife among senior executives – and hybrid working doesn’t help

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Widespread job dissatisfaction means a large proportion of senior executives from top US companies plan to leave their organisations in the next two years, according to a new report from KellyOCG. According to the 2022 KellyOCG Global Workforce Report – Re:work – there’s a significant disconnect between employees’ expectations and the support employers provide. Through a survey of C-suite leaders, board members, department heads, directors, and managers in 12 countries, including the United States and Canada, the report claims that 78 percent of US executives and 52 percent of Canadian executives, compared to 72 percent of leaders globally, aim to leave their jobs by 2024. More →