July 29, 2020

Remote work and office life go hand in hand in a flexible future

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Property

The COVID-19 pandemic changed numerous aspects of how we live and work and led to a massive remote work experiment. A JLL survey of more than 3,000 employees working in multi-national companies across the globe claims that 71 percent of people have worked from home during the pandemic, and that 58 percent missed the office and 44 percent missed human interaction and socialising with colleagues. The largest cohort who missed the office was the under 35s, or millennials, with 65 percent citing poor home-office environments and missing support from their managers.

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July 8, 2020

Nearly all businesses are aware of disability issues, but more needs to be done

by Neil Franklin • News, Working lives

A new study of 120 global brands shows how over 90 per cent of businesses now recognise the importance of disabled employees and customers. The study is the first to consider how businesses are serving the needs of disabled people at a global and local level and how to share best practice. (more…)

July 2, 2020

Leaders need to develop a high care quotient for the new challenges they face

by Chris Parke • Comment, Wellbeing, Working lives

Everything has taken a hit in 2020. Nothing has gone unscathed or unchanged – and the same goes for leadership. From boardrooms to living rooms, meeting rooms to spare rooms, leadership has moved away from face-to-face interactions to digital communications. Meanwhile, forward-thinking initiatives, spurred on by continuing diversity imbalances and widening gender pay gaps, have been put on hold. Following government guidance, only half of businesses published their 2018-19 gender pay gap report – which could reportedly push gender equality back a whole generation. We are risking losing sight of what’s important to us – and unless we’re intentional about how we make systemic, much-needed organisational changes, they’re not going to happen if we only focus on more ‘critical’ things, or keeping the lights on. (more…)

June 19, 2020

We are in danger of reanimating some bad ideas about work

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Working culture

Did you hear the one about a Swiss court ruling that firms should pay to rent space in the homes of remote workers? It’s a hell of a thing, especially when so much has been made of the cost savings of a reduction in office space. It’s a notion that is extremely likely to be tested in other countries, so brace yourself. It also illustrates why so many of the narratives about working life after lockdown aren’t as straightforward as they might appear. (more…)

June 11, 2020

The lessons learned under lockdown will help us grow and improve

by Alicia Michael • Features, Workplace design

As the global community navigates the Coronavirus crisis, the nature of the workplace will be more important than ever. We have been working remotely on an unprecedented scale, and the benefits are clear – flexibility, time with family, and reduced commuting as a start. In some form, working from home is here to stay, even as returning to the physical office becomes possible. However, we have also discovered the limitations to remote working. While teams have been able to stay connected virtually, this cannot substitute for face-to-face collaboration, which is essential to fostering innovation. (more…)

June 5, 2020

Vast majority neglecting breaks when working from home

by George Eltringham • Flexible working, News

A new study claims that “microbreaks” have decreased for 95 percent of employees during home working, as lockdown sees people glued to our desks more ever before. The ‘Working from home’ study, conducted by Wildgoose, asked employees from 133 companies throughout the UK how their working day differs at home compared to in the office, whether they wanted to continue working from home after lockdown has finished, and how companies could improve home working practices. (more…)

May 29, 2020

Organisations still adjusting to reality of `gig economy`

by Neil Franklin • News

A new report from Aon claims that the so-called gig economy will continue to flourish but many employers are still adjusting to its realities. Using research from HR and gig workers across Europe, the report, Gig Economy: Financial Security or Greater Control, claims that 26 percent of European HR directors believe their workforces will have 51-75 percent of gig workers in five years’ time, while 18 percent of UK HRDs believe 75 percent or more of their workforce will be made up of contractors in 5 years’ time. Nearly all HRDs believe providing health and benefits packages would improve gig worker recruitment (94 percent), engagement (93 percent), productivity (88 percent) and retention (95 percent). (more…)

May 27, 2020

Corporate wellbeing is too focused on sick workers

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Corporate wellbeing initiatives are often too focused on sick individuals, and firms should be addressing the root causes of physical and mental health by building healthy organisations instead. That is the main claim of a new report from the Corporate Research Forum (CRF) report, supported by Lane 4 and Mercer. The report is based on interviews with 150 HR leaders from FTSE 100 and similar sized businesses. (more…)

May 20, 2020

People miss the office but most do not want to return full time

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

The latest report on the attitudes of people towards their working lives after lockdown comes from Okta, Inc. in its report The New Workplace: Re-imagining Work After 2020, which claims to highlight the technological and cultural challenges office workers have faced as well as the lesson businesses can take to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. The research, which was conducted by YouGov, surveyed 2,000+ office workers across the UK, also found differences about the impact our new way of work has had on London based workers compared to workers in the rest of the country. (more…)

May 1, 2020

Organisations should seize this opportunity to look at their values

by James Morley • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

Not since 911 has one event triggered such global impact and uncertainty across all businesses and industries. The unprecedented speed and scale of organisational change has challenged even the prepared leadership team. (more…)

April 22, 2020

An optimistic take on the future of work

by Chris Hood • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Setting aside the drastic personal tragedies, the financial devastation and the strain the virus has placed on government infrastructure, business, finance, and healthcare systems worldwide, the coronavirus has been able to achieve what legions of workplace strategists and change managers have been unable to do: encourage middle managers to give remote working a try. (more…)

April 10, 2020

Microsoft Teams data shows how the way we work is changing

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

?In light of the numerous changes in daily behaviour across the world because of the coronavirus,?Microsoft has published the first edition of its?Work Trend .?It uses the Microsoft Graph of usage data to analyse productivity trends and observe how remote working scenarios are changing the way we connect with each other. (more…)