November 23, 2021

Employees ready for hybrid work—employers, not so much

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

Global Workplace Analytics and Owl Labs, have released the annual State of Remote Work 2021 report. More than 2,000 full-time employees across the United States were surveyed to gain insights into who is still working from home, who has returned to the office. Also pandemic-related job and residential moves and the motivations behind them, dependent care issues, the pros and cons of hybrid communications, employee desire for flexibility, intent to leave a current job, employee productivity, stress and its causes, pet adoption during the pandemic, how office spaces are changing, and much more. (more…)

November 19, 2021

Only half of employers are confident they’ll treat employees evenly and fairly

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

New research has highlighted concerns over the treatment of staff in the world of hybrid work. The Mind the Gap report from WorkNest, which is based on a survey of over 490 employers and 1,000 employees, claims that only around half (52 percent) of employers are confident that office-based and home-based employees will be treated evenly and fairly in the next 12 months. (more…)

November 17, 2021

Five million UK employees considering ditching home-working due to rising energy bills

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

Despite having to get up earlier, commute, and the heightened risk of Covid-19 transmission in the office, almost five million UK employees are considering ditching working from home this winter, due to concerns around rising energy costs. (more…)

November 11, 2021

Majority of employees lack confidence in their company’s return-to-work strategy

by Jayne Smith • News, Wellbeing, Working lives

Humanyze has released the second installment of the 2021 Future of Work Report, a holistic analysis of the evolution of work throughout the pandemic and employee sentiments about the post-pandemic future of the workplace. Nearly 2,300 survey responses were collected from individual employees and people managers, and compared to responses from the spring 2021 report, to identify key changes over the last 6 months. (more…)

November 11, 2021

Over half of UK employees believe AI skills will make their job easier

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology, Working lives

According to new global research from ABBYY, six-in-ten (64 percent) UK employees say their job is made more difficult through trouble accessing data in documents and one-in-four (27 percent) lose a full day of productivity per week searching documents for information they need to serve customers, higher than the global average. (more…)

November 1, 2021

Office still valued by UK employees, providing space for productivity and collaboration

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working culture

New research from Nespresso Professional claims that the office space is still highly valued by employees, with office workers naming seeing their colleagues (39 percent) as the thing they like most about being in the office. While a proper desk setup (31 percent) comes in second, office camaraderie (30 percent) took the third spot, showing the importance of the office environment for team building and relationships. (more…)

October 29, 2021

Workplace balance of power shifts in favour of employees

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace design

The workplace power dynamic has shifted in favour of employees, according to a new study released from BCW in partnership with Workplace from Facebook (now Meta of course). The inaugural International Workforce Insights Study (registration) reveals that more than half of all employees say they feel more empowered to influence change in their workplace compared to a year ago, including with their employer’s business strategy (54 percent), company culture (55 percent) and their work experience (59 percent). This feeling of empowerment is most pronounced among Generation Z and Millennials. (more…)

October 7, 2021

Male employees not accessing mental health support

by Jayne Smith • News, Wellbeing

Women in the workplace are twice as likely as their male colleagues to ask for help with emotional wellbeing, according to the very latest figures provided by Towergate Health & Protection, prior to World Mental Health Day on 10th October 2021. (more…)

October 6, 2021

Disconnect between executives and employees on returning to the office

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working culture

Future Forum, a consortium launched by Slack to help companies reimagine work in the new digital-first workplace, has released the latest findings from the Future Forum Pulse, a global study that claims a huge divide between executives and non-executives on returning to the office: “the Great Executive-Employee Disconnect.” (more…)

October 1, 2021

Almost half of UK employees say workplace has negatively impacted wellbeing during pandemic

by Jayne Smith • News, Wellbeing

New research by Edays, who surveyed employees across the UK to determine the impact of the workplace on employee wellbeing, and changes to employee perceptions over the past two years, claim that 41 percent of the workforce feel that their workplace has negatively impacted on their wellbeing during the pandemic. (more…)

September 23, 2021

Resilient companies need the trust of their employees more than ever

by Kate Field • Comment, Workplace

Since offices reopened, there has naturally been a much greater focus on health and safety. Office managers everywhere have deployed one-way corridors, anti-viral disinfectant wipes, and daily temperature checks in order to ensure that those who have returned to the office feel safe. Globally, businesses have learned to cope with these adverse circumstances, but there are other lessons from the past year that we should use to refresh the workplace as well. (more…)

September 23, 2021

One in five employers have changed employees’ terms and conditions since pandemic onset

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

One in five employers (22 percent) have made changes to employees’ terms and conditions of employment between March 2020 and July 2021, according to new research from the CIPD. The most common changes were to location of work (49 percent), followed by hours of work (47 percent) and pay levels (44 percent), redundancy/terms pay (22 percent) and access to enhanced contractual entitlements/incentives (20 percent). (more…)