Search Results for: employee experience

May 13, 2017

From footprint to footfall: how the experiential workplace is set to take over the world ¹

by Freddie Steele • Briefing, Facilities management, Premium Content, Property, Workplace design

From the archive. This piece was originally published in 2016. The culture within which we work determines how effective, successful, fulfilled and well we are in both our professional and personal lives. The organisations for which we work – on whatever basis that might be – the physical surroundings they create, and the other places in which we choose to work are now woven into the fabric of our lives as never before. The technological immersion that allows us to work in new ways also means that each day becomes a series of experiences. Because we are free to work wherever and whenever we choose, we are increasingly able to determine the nature of those experiences. For those who design and manage offices this represents both a great opportunity and an unprecedented series of challenges.

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May 9, 2017

People in the gig economy need autonomy and good work too, argues RSA ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

Gig economy workers should be given more power to hold companies to account under the law as a first step to making the new er of work fit for the future, according to a new report and survey published by the RSA. Good Gigs: A fairer future for the UK’s gig economy recommends the burden of proof be shifted to companies to prove gig workers are not employees, and that penalties should be strengthened against companies who use clauses that prohibit employment status litigation. As part of the project, the RSA undertook the largest ever survey on Britain’s gig economy, which reveals that there are currently 1.1 million people working in Britain’s gig economy, making it almost as big as NHS England.

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April 25, 2017

Study confirms effect of workplace autonomy on wellbeing and job satisfaction ⁰

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

New research into workplace culture has found that employees with higher levels of autonomy in their work reported positive effects on their overall wellbeing and higher levels of job satisfaction. Researchers at the University of Birmingham Business School examined changes in reported well-being relative to levels of autonomy using two separate years of data for 20,000 employees from the Understanding Society survey. The research, published in the journal Work and Occupations, found that levels of autonomy differed considerably between occupations and by gender. Those working in management reported the highest levels of autonomy in their work, with 90 percent reporting ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of autonomy in the workplace. The finding backs up research from Cass Business School, the German Institute for Economic Research, Abraham Maslow and elsewhere.

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April 12, 2017

Research shows how the gender pay gap can be directly related to motherhood ⁰

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

A new piece of academic research provides more evidence that the underlying reason for the gender pay gap is the discrepancy between the way women with children are treated compared to men, and other women without children. According to new research from Université Paris-Saclay, mothers are paid 3 percent less for every child they have compared to their female colleagues who do not have children, while fathers suffer no such penalty at all. The figures were compiled from a 16-year study of data from organisations in the French private sector between 1995 and 2011 by Lionel Wilner, Director of Graduate Studies at engineering and statistics school ENSAE, a founding member of Université Paris-Saclay. He separated the effect of childbirth from other firm-specific wage determinants, and accounted for full-time and part-time work, to find that the difference between mothers and non-mothers is approximated a 3 percent lower hourly wage. The effect was found to be more pronounced after the birth of the first child. (more…)

April 5, 2017

Drastic changes needed to workplace laws as age of automation dawns ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Technology

The rise of robots and automation in the workplace will lead to drastic changes to laws across the world, a new report suggests. The present wave of automation, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) – the development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence – is creating a gap between current legislation and new laws necessary for an emerging workplace reality, states a report published by the International Bar Association Global Employment Institute (IBA GEI). Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace focuses on potential future trends in AI, and the likely impact intelligent systems will have on the labour market, companies, employees’ working time, remuneration and the workplace environment.

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April 5, 2017

Bumpy ride and slow uptake in first two years of shared parental leave rules ⁰

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

It is two years since the introduction of Shared Parental Leave (SPL), where couples were given the ability to share leave surrounding the arrival of a new addition to their family; and while sharing leave is seen to have a profound beneficial impact for the family, there are still plenty of barriers. According to research from My Family Care, one of the largest is that there is a sense that it involves a big risk with real concerns around the impact on a father’s career if they were to take more than two or three months off. A second report from the charity Working Families found that despite the initial slow take up of new rights, more than half of fathers would use Shared Parental Leave. However, snapshot figures for the first three months of 2016 showed that 3,000 new parents were taking up the new right. If the maternity leave figure is taken as indicative of the number of couples with new babies at the time the new figures are in line with the bottom of the government’s 2013 estimated take-up range – between two and eight per cent of fathers.

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April 4, 2017

Europe’s workers turn to the gig economy ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

European employees appear ready to embrace the ‘ gig economy ‘, according to research by ADP. The study of nearly 10,000 European working adults claims to reveal how employees across Europe feel about the future of work. As many as 63 percent of UK employees and 68 percent of European employees are interested in, or would consider self-employment or freelancing although the desire for this style of working does vary drastically across regions. According to the report a third (33 percent) of UK employees say work-life balance is a key motivating factor although pay is still the ultimate driver for all European employees.

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March 31, 2017

America’s corporate occupiers streamline portfolios due to economic uncertainty ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property, Technology, Workplace

While talent continues to reign supreme on the list of top concerns for US companies a growing number of respondents to CBRE’s annual Americas Occupier Survey cited economic uncertainty as a top challenge, up from 36 percent in 2016 to 52 percent. As a result, 87 percent of corporate occupiers report that they are managing to this uncertainty by disposing of surplus space and/or implementing more efficient workplace designs to prepare their portfolios for the future. Only 26 percent of respondents expect to expand their portfolios over the next two years, down from 38 percent in the 2016 survey. Approximately one-half of the 2017 survey’s respondents indicated that the size of their portfolios would remain stable with 2016 levels. However, while uncertainty is driving many real estate decisions, creating a workplace experience focused on talent remains top of mind for the majority of occupiers surveyed.

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March 30, 2017

Social technology has the power to make the workplace more humane

by Amanda Sterling • Comment, Technology, Workplace

Social technology can, and should, make the workplace more humane. That’s because it has the potential and ability to shift the power dynamic from the few to the many. It gives more people a voice: one that they’re not afraid to use. You’ve only got to look at the uprisings, and the overthrowing of governments, in Egypt and Tunisia, to see the power of greater connectivity enabled by platforms such as Facebook. What was dubbed the Arab Spring was change on a grand scale. But, as Seth Godin points out in his book Tribes, it’s “tribes, not money, not factories,” that will change the world. The consequences of this are not lost on the people and cultural practices within organisations. The functions of how we recruit, how we learn, and how we communicate are all under pressure to bring greater humanity into the approach.

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March 22, 2017

Employers in industries reliant on overseas workers will be hardest hit by Brexit ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Accommodation and food services, manufacturing, and transport industries will be hardest hit by limits on movement of EU and non-EU workers following Brexit, a new report has claimed. The latest edition of Mercer’s Workforce Monitor has highlighted how reliant certain sectors of the UK economy have become on EU-born and non-EU born workers, as respectively, 33 percent, 23 percent and 20 percent of accommodation and food services, manufacturing, and transport are made up of non-UK-born nationals, meaning companies in those sectors, and those reliant on them, are especially at risk from the changes in the UK’s migration policy. According to Gary Simmons, Partner at Mercer, “Since 2013, the UK-born workforce has been declining as people retire and we can see how reliant certain industries are on overseas workers filling the gaps. The UK is likely to impose more stringent migration controls in the future and this will reduce the number of overseas workers available.”

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March 20, 2017

Half of UK employers have now introduced wellbeing schemes ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Nearly two thirds (63 percent) of UK employees experience stress in their jobs, according to a new study of workplace wellbeing by Happiness Works on behalf of Robert Half UK. Of those who find their roles demanding, nearly one in 10 said their job was very stressful. To address the high-levels of stress and other issues among employees, organisations are introducing wellbeing initiatives to support the physical and mental health of employees at work. Nearly half (48 percent) of businesses offer tools designed to promote wellbeing in the workplace, with one in seven providing stress management seminars or training and annual leave for personal and mental wellbeing. Other initiatives being introduced include counselling (17 percent), leaving work early on a Friday (17 percent) and limiting the amount of overtime that employees can do (11 percent).
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March 14, 2017

Age remains the biggest obstacle to career progression in Europe ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

European employees feel that age is the biggest factor preventing them from progressing in their career, according to research of nearly 10,000 European working adults by ADP. A fifth of employees name age as their biggest obstacle, followed by favouritism (7 percent), lack of opportunities with current employer (7 percent), qualifications (5 percent), and family needs (5 percent). Age is a particularly cited obstacle in the Netherlands (24 percent), Switzerland (21 percent) and the UK (20 percent). This issue increases as workers get older, with 46 percent of over 55s and 27 percent of those aged 45-54 feeling this way. This situation may reflect the increasing generational diversity of the workforce, as five generations of employees will soon be working side by side. Advancing technologies and more significant age differences in the workforce are likely to be isolating older workers, who may feel outdated by a younger, tech-ready generation.