Search Results for: employee

February 22, 2017

MPs criticise the Government’s response to gender pay gap recommendations ⁰

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

If the Government will fail to achieve its goal of eliminating the gender pay gap in a generation if it continues to ignore the evidence which it is being given, a cross-party committee of MPs has said. The Women and Equalities Committee is disappointed with the Government’s response to a series of recommendations it put forward last March, which it says shows that the Government is not effectively tackling the structural causes of the gender pay gap. While the Government’s recognises the business case for reducing the gender pay gap and acknowledges structural factors contributing to the pay gap, including women doing jobs for which they are overqualified, concentration in part-time work, and being penalised for taking time out of work to raise children; it rejects most of the Committee’s seventeen evidence-based recommendations for addressing these issues. Instead it highlights gender pay gap reporting, as “key to accelerating progress,” and maintains that current policies on Shared Parental Leave, flexible working, and supporting women back into work are adequate.

February 22, 2017

New book offers a roadmap for workers in the age of smart machines ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

University of Virginia Darden School of Business Professor Ed Hess and Katherine Ludwig have released a new book, Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age (Berrett-Koehler, January 2017), where they wrestle with the defining workplace question of our era and offer workable solutions for employees to stay relevant. In the book, Hess and Ludwig argue that workers of the world stand at the brink of an unprecedented transformation, as a coming age of smart machines promises to eliminate tens of millions of jobs across the socioeconomic spectrum. The transition to an era of widespread automation will be tumultuous for both companies and employees, and its effects on the fabric of society have not yet been fully considered by workers, government entities or global corporations.

February 21, 2017

We need to rethink everything we know about self-employment and the gig economy ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

The rise in self-employment is being led by workers in relatively ‘privileged’ high-skilled, higher-paying sectors such as advertising and banking rather than the gig economy. Their considerable tax advantages over employees, rather than new technology and the gig economy, are central to the rapid growth in self-employment, according to a new analysis published by the Resolution Foundation. Self-employed workers in the larger but slower growing ‘precarious’ sectors that have dominated the recent public debate, enjoy a much lower tax advantages over employees but still miss out on important pay and employment rights. The analysis shows that 60 per cent of the growth in self-employment since 2009 has been in ‘privileged’ sectors, despite them making up just 40 per cent of the self-employed. The fastest growing sectors have been advertising (100 per cent growth), public administration (90 per cent), and banking (60 per cent). The remaining 40 per cent of the growth in self-employment has come in more ‘precarious’ sectors, such as construction and cleaning. The Foundation notes that despite the focus on Uber in recent years, the sector that includes taxis is actually only up 7 per cent since 2009, a third of the 22 per cent growth in self-employment up as a whole.

February 21, 2017

Older workers increasingly marginalised at work despite their growing numbers ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Wellbeing, Workplace design

Older workers are at risk of being marginalised in the workplace according to a new survey of office workers from workplace consultants Peldon Rose, which claims that there are significant differences in the wellbeing, attitudes and motivations of the workplace’s oldest and youngest employees. The over 50s now account for more than 30 percent of the UK’s working population (9.4million people), but according to the study older workers are the least content of all employees with less than a quarter (23 percent) of the 55+ age group feeling appreciated by their company and 80 percent suffering from or having suffered from workplace stress. In contrast, the workplace’s newest recruits, the under 25 year olds, are the office’s most positive employees with over half (55 percent) feeling appreciated by their company and 60 percent – the lowest of all age groups – suffering or having suffered from workplace stress.

February 21, 2017

Executive pay should be linked to health and safety performance, claims industry body ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Workplace

Leaders would have and even greater incentive to improve health and safety if their performance was more transparent and executive pay and bonuses were linked to it, suggests the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). This is one of nine summary recommendations made by IOSH in its response to the UK Government’s Corporate Governance Reform Green Paper proposals, which follow public concern about serious failures, such as those at Sports Direct. IOSH agrees with the Prime Minister’s views, expressed in her foreword to the green paper published last November, where she said: “…big business must earn and keep the trust and confidence of their customers, employees and the wider public”. The suggestions IOSH makes contribute constructively to those aims.

February 20, 2017

Digital workplace is ineffective without workers’ technical empowerment ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Technology

Shifting digital dynamics are reshaping the way organisations operate and are recasting the traditional route to business success, claims new research into the rise of the digital workplace. Ricoh’s new report into digital workplace trends produced in partnership with polling company Censuswide, argues that the latest technology strategies are rendered useless without proper commitment to skills training and the empowerment of those workers who will be making use of it. It advises that businesses need to work on improving the workforce’s digital dexterity by creating an office culture fit for sharing ideas and skills across social, video and digital platforms. The report identifies digital skills training as a key differentiator for employees seeking a new job. Over a third of UK office workers (37 per cent) say they would move jobs to a company which offered better digital skills in the workplace. Likewise a modest 18 per cent of respondents rated their skills as ‘excellent’ whilst 51 per cent said ‘good’ and 30 per cent considered themselves ‘average.’

February 17, 2017

HR set to be the powerhouse of business in the open economy of 2020 ⁰

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

A new report commissioned by Samsung claims that by 2020, the impact that changes in society and technology will have upon the future of the workplace will elevate Human Resources (HR) to a powerful new role. The arrival of what Samsung calls the open economy will create a new environment in which a breed of ultra-flexible freelancers will prosper. Their arrival will present great opportunities for those organisations that embrace them but there will be significant challenges as well. Automation will be increasingly prevalent, but human skills will also rise in value as whole new job categories will be created around creativity, human judgement and intuition capabilities –positioning HR at the forefront of dealing with the significant industry changes. Emerging technology and artificial intelligence will undoubtedly create great change in many industries but it will also release human workers from mundane and repetitive tasks, liberating a workforce where human judgement and expertise becomes the centre of any organisation’s human resources.

February 17, 2017

CIPD calls for more ethical approaches to pay and reward ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

The CIPD and the High Pay Centre have launched a formal partnership to advocate fairer and more ethical approaches to pay and reward. Together they are calling for a major re-think of corporate governance to improve CEO pay transparency and ensure boards recognise their broader responsibility towards the workforce when decisions on executive pay and business investment are made. In their joint response to the Government’s green paper on corporate governance, which seeks views on how to curb excessive CEO pay and boost employee voice at board level, the CIPD and High Pay Centre point out that if FTSE 100 CEO pay continues to increase at the same rate for the next 20 years as it has for the last two decades, the average ratio between a CEO and average pay would increase from about 129:1 to more than 400:1. The CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese argues in the report that current levels of executive pay undermine both trust and sustainability and making small adjustments to current system isn’t the right approach.

February 16, 2017

Germany most popular country for career relocation, despite lack of flexible working ⁰

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

Nearly three quarters of European employees would consider career opportunities abroad, with Germany voted the most desirable place to work claims a new study of nearly 10,000 working adults across Europe. According to research by ADP which looked at how employees feel about the future of work, international competitiveness and talent management, European employees have a strong appetite for international work, as almost three quarters (74 percent) would consider other countries for career opportunities. At 21 percent, Germany tops the list of most popular places to relocate, with the United Kingdom (15 percent) and France (12 percent) in second and third place; with North America surprisingly coming in much further down the list in 12th place. Despite their popularity, Germany, the UK and France aren’t particularly strong in any of the areas measured in the survey, such as skills and development, flexible working options and stress in the workplace.

February 15, 2017

UK employment rises to record levels (and productivity is up too) ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News

The UK’s employment rate rose to 74.6 per cent in the final three months of last year, the highest rate recorded since data started being collected in 1971, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics published today. The data also showed that UK productivity grew by 0.3 percent in Quarter 4 of 2016, following an increase of 0.4 percent in Q3, and that average earnings were 2.6 per cent higher over the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2015. The growth in employment is seen to reflect a decline in the proportion of adults who are inactive but not seeking work. The unemployment rate remained at 4.8 per cent, the lowest level since 2005. The number of people in full-time employment rose by 45,000 in the three months to December. This was partly offset by a 7,000 fall in the number of people working part-time.

February 15, 2017

Demanding working culture in City of London creates ticking stress timebomb ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Demanding bosses and increased work pressures are turning up the pressure and stress levels for City workers with staff expected to be always available, new research from MetLife claims. Its study of 104 senior decision makers from financial institutions and investment banks found 95 percent say they are expected to be always available for work with weekends seen as a continuation of the normal working week. They work on average 23 weekends a year, with 50 percent of executives saying weekends have been disturbed by work at least 25 times in the past year. Complaining about stress makes no difference – just one in seven (14 percent) of those questioned say bosses have taken action when they have complained about pressure at work.

February 15, 2017

Millennials now less likely to give up job security, but still want flexible work ⁰

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

Millennials are less likely to leave the security of their jobs this year as the events of 2016; terror attacks in Europe, Brexit, and a contentious US presidential election appear to have rattled their confidence. This is according to Deloitte’s sixth annual Millennial Survey of nearly 8,000 millennials from 30 countries, which found that the “loyalty gap” between those who saw themselves leaving their companies within two years and those who anticipated staying beyond five years has moved from 17 percentage points last year to seven points. The desire for security is also apparent in the finding that, while millennials perceive across-the-board advantages of working as freelancers or consultants, nearly two-thirds said they prefer full-time employment. Those in highly flexible organizations appear to be much more loyal to their employers and are two-and-a-half times more likely to believe that flexible working practices have a positive impact on financial performance than those in more restrictive organizations. Three-quarters of those offered flexible working opportunities say they trust colleagues to respect it, and 78 percent feel trusted by their line managers.