Search Results for: employee

April 3, 2017

The point everybody is missing about the backtrack on remote working by IBM ⁰

by Andrew Mawson • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working

IBM recently announced that it was going to consolidate its 2,600 marketing department in six locations around the US. Nothing wrong with that you may say, but as part of the consolidation it has to told people to relocate so they can attend the office every day and workers that had been part of IBM’s home working initiative for decades told to turn up at the office every day or find another job. The reason for this radical and trauma creating shift for IBM’s people causing increased commute times, social upheaval and increased carbon emissions is ‘innovation’. IBM needs to transform itself, move faster and come up with new ideas faster. All makes sense…..or does it?

March 31, 2017

One bad night’s sleep can lead to misbehaving at work, new research claims ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

Just one bad night of sleep makes it more likely that employees who already displayed unwanted behaviour one day at work will display a similar type of behaviour the following day, according to a study at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM). Once an employee engages in unwanted behaviour in the workplace, such as taking longer breaks than allowed, leaving early without permission, or even stealing, it might be hard to step away from it. And that is a costly affair: such behaviour is estimated to cause companies up to $200 billion per year in the USA alone.

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.

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.

March 29, 2017

Third of HR professionals say Brexit will impact the profits of their business ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Today (29 March) the Prime Minister triggers Article 50 to begin the UK’s exit from the European Union, and a new piece of research claims that almost two thirds (62 percent) of HR professionals expect this to impact their HR strategy and more worryingly, over a third (35 percent) say that the leave vote will impact the profits of their business. According to the research from employee benefits specialist Secondsight, 37 percent have opted not to hire over the coming year, and 39 percent agreed that recruiting the right people into their business will now be more difficult than before the decision to leave was made. However, on a more encouraging note, 95 percent of the HR professionals surveyed will see their budget rise in 2017, and 18 percent plan to introduce new benefits in the year ahead.

March 29, 2017

Less rigid flexible working practices tend to produce higher performing staff ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Flexible working can increase employee job satisfaction and organisational commitment, but staff who work flexibly under an ad hoc arrangement appear to perform better than those who go through a more formal process, according to research from Cass Business School and Cranfield School of Management. The research focused on the relationship between flexible working arrangements designed to accommodate employees’ needs (e.g. remote working, flexitime, compressed working) and performance appraisals and considered the indirect effects of employee performance via job satisfaction and organisational commitment. An analysis of whether the associations varied according to whether the flexible working arrangement was set up via a formal policy or informal negotiation between the employee and line manager revealed that employees who established flexible working arrangements through informal discussion with their line manager were judged to perform much better than those who use formal flexible working arrangements.

March 28, 2017

Post Brexit UK sets out its case at MIPIM 2017 ⁰

by Anna King • Cities, Features, Property

Cannes-based international real estate fair MIPIM has always been a magnet for cities, determined to extoll their virtues to investors, developers and occupiers, but this year the UK was in charm overdrive. Buoyed no doubt in part by the presence of the UK government’s Department of International Trade (DIT), waving its ‘open for business’ flag for UK PLC, many of the towns and cities that would normally have ploughed their own furrow, instead came together to leverage critical mass. So Bradford and Leeds combined, conurbations across the central belt conjoined on a Midlands pavilion, and so on. Whether it was panic or confidence, the net result was an unusually prominent UK presence, up a quarter on last year. Of course the UK is just one nationality among the 24,200 real estate and city professionals from 100 countries who come together in Cannes every March.

March 28, 2017

Surge in the number of people working into their seventies ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The number of British people working past 70 years old has increased markedly over the past four years. Poor pensions, personal choice, greater life expectancy and changes to pension laws have all been highlighted as factors behind the increase in the latest report on demographic trends from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The largest increase was seen amongst women, with the proportion of women working into their seventies doubling from 5.6 percent in 2012 to 11.3 percent last year. Around 150,000 women over seventy are now thought to be working. Meanwhile, the number of men working past the official state pension age has also increased, but at a slower rate, from 10 percent in 2012 to 15.5 percent last year.

March 28, 2017

New wellbeing index measures level of support for staff with poor mental health ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Just over half (53 per cent) of staff who had disclosed poor mental health at work said they felt supported, and 72 per cent said they’d been made aware of the support tools such as Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs), counselling, staff support network or informal buddying systems, a new piece of research has disclosed. The data has been gathered by mental health charity Mind to give an insight into the mental health of 15,000 employees participating in Mind’s first ever Workplace Wellbeing Index, a brand new benchmark of best policy and practice when it comes to staff mental health. Thirty organisations participated in Mind’s first ever Workplace Wellbeing Index, including Deloitte, HMRC, the Environment Agency, Jaguar Land Rover and PepsiCo. Over half (56 per cent) of employees who reported mental ill health were offered reasonable adjustments or support measures, such as changes to hours worked or the nature of some of their duties.

March 23, 2017

The digital revolution is polarising the labour market and increasing wage inequality ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

The increasing ability of machines to perform cognitive, physical, and social tasks has polarised labour markets by “hollowing out” demand for middle-skill jobs, claims a new report published by IZA World of Labor based on research from economist Michael Gibbs of Chicago Booth School of Business. It suggests that analytical, problem solving, and social and communication skills are likely to be most valued in employees in the future. The new report finds that the advance of technology has opposing effects on jobs. It facilitates automation, creating fewer and less motivating middle-skill jobs. Conversely, it complements social and innovation tasks, creating more interesting low- and high-skill jobs. This causes labour market polarisation, “hollowing out” demand for middle-skill jobs, and increasing wage inequality.

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.”

March 22, 2017

HR needs to help employers better prepare for the digitised workplace ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

HR leaders must take responsibility for bridging the gap between leadership and employees to help ensure organisations deal with the challenge of an increasingly digitised workplace and create a shared sense of direction, values and collaboration, a new piece of research suggests. According to the report, ‘Leadership Connections: HR’s role in business transformation’ from Ipsos LEAD and Cirrus, HR leaders are the crucial drivers of transformation in UK businesses through their roles of promoting devolved decision making, employee engagement and collaboration. Figures have shown that while half of CEOs expect their industries to be substantially or unrecognisably changed by digital, as of late 2016 10 percent of employees claim to have seen no significant change in their organisations at all – according to MORI’s Representative Employee Data (RED). This presents a significant difference between what we are being told by senior leadership and what employees believe to be the case.