Search Results for: employee experience

Support for flexible working an increasing challenge for IT managers, claims survey

by • Flexible working, News, Technology

Flexible workingOne of the greatest challenges currently facing IT managers is providing secure and robust technological infrastructure for flexible working, and it is set to become even greater as more and more firms adopt Cloud based working, according to a new report  from technology specialists ControlCircle. The survey of 250 UK based CIOs, ‘IT Growth and Transformation’ found that over the next five years the increasing mobility of the workforce is going to present them with a range of increasingly important challenges, with IT leaders predicting that security (56 percent), cloud (46 percent) and mobility (41 percent) set to become the biggest challenges they face. The survey also revealed that nearly half (48 percent) of respondents experience hourly, daily and weekly technology availability issues and a fifth (21 percent) experience business downtime daily or hourly as a result.

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Flexible working benefits are undermined by short sighted employers

by • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

Flexible work

There has been a growing perception that flexible working practices are now commonplace in the workplace. However a recent report from Working Families, a charity set up to help working parents and carers find a balance between their responsibilities at work and at home, suggests this is a myth. Their report reflects growing concerns based on experiences and queries from their helpline that employers are in fact, becoming more rigid. The report suggests that working parents are coming under increasing pressure to give up their flexible working arrangements. It highlights “a growing number of callers to the helpline reporting the family-friendly working pattern they have had in place for years being changed or withdrawn virtually overnight, with no opportunity for them to express their views”. Ironically, despite the Government’s championing of flexible working it seems the imposition of employment tribunal claim fees could be behind the backlash. More →

Employers fail to monitor wellbeing and mental health alongside staff engagement

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Mental ill health still not being addressedMonitoring of employee engagement and wellbeing by FTSE 100 companies improved over the past year, but organisations are failing to measure or address the psychological health of employees. The latest Business in the Community (BITC) Workwell FTSE 100 benchmark showed an increase in the average company scores from 21 per cent to 25 per cent while reporting across the five identified areas of BITC’s Workwell Model; Better Work, Better Relationships, Better Specialist Support, Better Physical and Psychological Health and Working Well increased from 53 to 63. 86 per cent of companies now report on four or five of these themes. But despite this, there was almost no evidence that psychological health is being measured or addressed, and the provision of mental health support continues to be a low scoring area (11%). More →

Flexible working practices could help disabled people stay in work, claims report

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

A million futuresAccording to a new report from one of the UK’s leading disability charities, one of the main obstacles for disabled people when it comes to finding and remaining in work is a lack of flexible working opportunities. Nearly half of the 700 respondents to a survey carried out by Scope and published yesterday in a new report called ‘A Million Futures’ claimed that flexible working could have helped them to stay in work. The report claims that last year alone some 220,000 more disabled employees left work than found a new job, many of them because they were not allowed to work in ways that would help them to manage significant life changes related to their disability and work around their treatment and meet other demands of their lives. Only around a third felt they had been offered the flexibility they needed.

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The six most important dimensions of wellbeing in the workplace

by • Facilities management, News, Workplace design

B-Free working choiceDesigning an office environment using six key elements of wellbeing will benefit both employers and their staff, leading to a healthier, more productive workplace finds a new report. Steelcase’s WorkSpace Futures global research team, which included a psychologist, a designer and an ergonomist conducted an in depth study on existing wellbeing research, surveys, indicators and theories and found that the key to physical and mental wellbeing is the emotional experience, which can be influenced by a person’s surroundings, actions, and way of perceiving the world. The six dimensions of wellbeing that can be impacted by the design of the physical environment are; optimism, mindfulness, authenticity, belonging, meaning and vitality. Together these create what Steelcase refers to as an “interconnected workplace,” that offers employees choice and control over where and how they work.  More →

Moderate stress levels can enhance performance, claims new research

by • Knowledge, News, Workplace

StressA new research project conducted jointly by the University of Reading and Ashridge Business School claims that managers can perform better and make better decisions when they are exposure on a regular basis to stressful situations. The research applied principles from the science of neurobiology in measuring changes in the heart rates of 350 managers aged from 26-55 to analyse their performance under pressure. All of the participants in the research were current students on an Ashridge management course who took part in simulated high-pressure executive situation, such as conflict resolution, high-level decision-making and handling difficult employees and conversations. Their physical and psychological responses were continually monitored over two days, including sleep patterns, heart rate and psychometric tests.

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What the UK regional divide can teach us about the way we design offices

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Mind the GapIn the BBC documentary Mind the Gap, Evan Davis asks why London has an economy that is larger than and different to those of other UK cities, but also getting bigger and more differentiated. One of the main reasons he finds for this is something called agglomeration; the more skilled people you can put within physical reach of each other in an environment, the more productive and economically successful that environment will become.The problem for the UK is that not only is London of a different magnitude to its other cities, it does not comply with something called Zipf’s Law which states that in a typical country the largest city will be around twice the size of the second largest, around three times the size of the next largest and four times the size of the fourth largest and so on. It shouldn’t be taken too literally but it does illustrate the important economic principle of agglomeration and explains why there is such a widening divide in the UK economy.

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International Women’s Day: odds still stacked against women in the workforce

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Odds stacked against women in workforceThe 110th International Woman’s Day took place this weekend, and, aside from highlighting the continuing struggles of women across the world, comes research that reveals how in this country, the odds are still stacked against women at work. More than four in 10 (42%) women aged between 18-34 said they have personally faced a gender barrier, followed by 34 per cent of those aged between 35-54 and 26 per cent of women aged 55 and over. Of those women who have experienced inequality at work, over a third (35%) say they believe male colleagues at the same level earn more than they do.  Thirty one per cent indicate they are assigned work that is below their level and are therefore unable to demonstrate their abilities, while almost one in five (19%) say that junior colleagues don’t take instructions from them, but will do from male colleagues of equal seniority. More →

Large and small firms demand greater transparency in government procurement

by • Company news, Facilities management

WhitehallThe whole thorny issue of public sector procurement is never far from the news, but this week gained new prominence as one contractor walked out on a £1 billion contract because it felt the Ministry of Justice hadn’t grasped the idea of intellectual property amongst other things, while the Confederation of British Industry raised the stakes overall by claiming that a culture of secrecy in government purchasing continues to foster mistrust and waste taxpayers’ money. The CBI goes so far as to claim that even the most high profile botched contracts over recent years have not deterred the government from its move to inculcate a culture of opacity rather than transparency when procuring goods and services. It called on the Government to move to open book contracts so that all parties are aware of contract terms and margins.

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Could personality profiling help create a more productive office environment?

by • Facilities management, News, Workplace, Workplace design

Could personality profiling you create the ideal office environment

 

Creating the most productive working space to help get the best from your people is an ongoing battle. What suits some doesn’t suit others. So if there was some way of assessing up front how people like to work and the environment that would make them their most productive, engaged and committed – before you rearrange the furniture, fittings and layout – would you leap at the chance of finding out? One approach could be personality profiling. If you could climb inside the minds of your current and future employees and assess how they best like to work, their personality and how this then drives them to be more productive in certain working environments than others – who wouldn’t want to have a delve around? Or are we in danger of pandering to personality stereotypes? More →

Employment is on the rise but pay not matching the rate of inflation

by • News, Workplace

employmentThe latest labour market statistics shows employment has continued to rise, but at a slower rate than seen last month. However, at 67.2 per cent, record-breaking numbers of women are now in work, the highest since records began. The figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the employment rate in the three months to December 2013 rose to 72.1 per cent, lower than the previous three months and with just a small rise in total pay of 1.1 per cent. This slower pace of growth in employment and pay is reflected in the latest CIPD/ SuccessFactors quarterly Labour Market Outlook survey, which reveals that, although recruitment intentions remain positive, the rate of increase has slowed significantly and the vast majority of organisations expect to give pay awards below the current rate of inflation. More →

Employers urged to offer flooded staff access to workplace facilities

by • Facilities management, News, Workplace

UK Floods

As much of the UK prepares to endure yet another winter storm, the TUC has issued guidance for employers on ways to support staff affected by the flooding, and offered advice on the sort of health and safety risks the floods could pose to workplaces. The guidance aims to help employers and employees ensure that workplaces situated within flooded areas are safe before anyone returns to work. This covers both journeys to work through flooded areas and the sort of dangers to look out for in affected buildings, including for example, from contaminants and faulty electrics. The union also urges employers to offer extra support to staff whose homes are either already partially submerged or are at risk from the rising floodwater; which for example could include allowing them to use showers and washing facilities at work. More →

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