Search Results for: employer

June 6, 2016

How performance data can help enhance your employment metrics ⁰

by Andrea Hak • Comment, News, Technology, Workplace

The rise of data based applications has brought about a new era for the HR department. Processes developed in the 70s are now going through a transformation, with tools for gathering more accurate reports based on people analytics. But what exactly can you do with this information? The main objectives of every organisation, is to boost engagement, lower turnover, provide effective training & development and attract great talent. Aside from turnover, these objectives are difficult to measure. How do you measure engagement or the effect of a training programme? This is especially difficult when your company only tracks performance annually. Data based on continuous feedback is providing new answers. There are four ways it can help: by measuring and tracking engagement; give you better insights into the causes of turnover; helping you develop a feedback culture and enabling your organisation to create better hiring and recruitment strategies. We take a closer look at these below. (more…)

June 3, 2016

UK’s productivity crisis is not helped by lack of work-based training ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, News, Technology, Workplace

Despite the well-publicised productivity crisis in the UK, over a million of the country’s employees are spending more time on tea breaks than on any form of work-based training. Research from the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) has found almost a third (30 percent) of staff have never had any form of work-related finance training. Given this situation, nearly four in ten (38 percent) employees admit they search online to find out how to do their jobs better, in their own time. The survey of 2,000 workers, half who are employees and half of whom are managers working in finance/accountancy-related roles, also found discrepancies between attitudes towards training at work. A fifth of managers admit they think training their staff will only help them develop their own careers, not benefit their current role and a quarter (27 percent) believe training is good in principle, but disruptive in practice.

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June 2, 2016

People are happy at work but yearn for better tech and a second job ⁰

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

The recent riots across France sparked by mooted reforms to labour laws have been attributed to French workers objecting to the creation of working cultures akin to those in the UK and US. In which case, it would be interesting to see how our Gallic cousins might respond to the findings of a new report from Adobe which suggests that workers in both the UK and US as well as India see technology as the key perk they look for at work and many are perfectly happy to work more than one job and don’t expect long term commitments to (and from) their employers, although many of them also feel defined by what they do for a living and are happy at work. According to The Work in Progress report, a quarter of UK workers already moonlight and over two thirds believe that better technology would be the single most important way of improving their working lives. The same attitudes are also prevalent in responses from workers in both the US and India.

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May 26, 2016

Digital mobility to work anytime, anywhere is key to job satisfaction ⁰

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

In a further nod to the growing relevance of flexible working, the ability to work anytime, anywhere is now key to job satisfaction with well over a third (38 percent) of employees in a global survey rating this as the number one factor, with the UK (43 percent) scoring this the highest. According to the “Mobility, Performance and Engagement” report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Aruba, employees in Western countries report themselves to be happier in their jobs, more loyal to their employers and more productive in their work compared to their counterparts in Eastern markets. When it comes to securing loyalty, the ability to hot desk was seen as paramount by many employees, notably in Singapore (37 percent), UAE (31 percent) and the US (34 percent), while the ability to collaborate with other employees was the number one choice for employees in Germany (43 percent), France (37 percent) and Japan (35 percent).

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May 26, 2016

Two in five managers oppose employees working from home ⁰

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

Flexible working may be growing in popularity among employees but there is evidence of a gap in expectations between employers and employees on where work should take place. A new report from Randstad found that only around a third of UK employees (35 percent) still want to work in the office every day of the week, with a majority (62 percent) wanting the option of working from home. Employers it seems feel very differently, as a report by Cornerstone OnDemand and IDC reveals that cultural attitudes are a major obstacle for the full acceptance of flexible ways of working, preventing employers from viewing it as a legitimate work practice. Two in five line managers (40 percent) admit that they do not want their employees to work from home, and crucially, even if a company facilitates remote working, bosses’ attitudes are keeping their employees in the office, with just 13 percent of employees actually choosing to work from home when given the option.

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May 25, 2016

Limited budgets greatest challenge to wellness programmes at work ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Sixty-five per cent of respondents in a new survey across Europe, the Middle East and Africa claim that stress and mental health are the health and wellness issues they are most concerned about. Fifty-three per cent say that employees’ physical health is the biggest issue, while unhealthy lifestyles are judged to be the biggest issue by 49 percent. However, according to the study from Aon, only 32 percent of employers have emotional or psychological health programmes in place and 69 percent say limited budgets are their biggest challenge. While 93 percent of employers see a correlation between health and employee performance, just 13 percent of respondents measure outcomes of health strategies. The findings pinpoint areas for improvement and make recommendations to increase health benefits take-up, improve measurement on the impact of health initiatives and to maximise the return on investment that firms make in employee health.

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May 25, 2016

An out of hours email ban and why we all need the ‘right to disconnect’ ⁰

by Adrian Lewis • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Work&Place, Workplace

The recent announcement from President Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party that they plan to give French employees the “right to disconnect” by pushing through measures for an email ban out of hours has been the subject of great debate. Although many commentators have argued the need for employers to encourage people to ‘switch off’ when they aren’t in work, to date there have been no legal guidelines on this specific issue, despite several negative reports about modern technology blurring the boundaries between home and work, which some claim is creating a stress epidemic. In the UK, the Working Time Regulations specify that no worker should work more than 48 hours per week. However, there has been no case law as to whether or not checking work emails outside working hours would fall within this limit – and many UK staff check and respond to work emails outside work hours, even on holidays.

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May 25, 2016

HR failing to inform European staff on implications of Brexit ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

The majority of non-British Europeans living in the UK don’t feel informed by HR about potential work policy changes caused by Brexit and nine out of ten are worried about what will happen should the referendum lead to an exit vote. The study of 1,000 Europeans by totaljobs also found that one in three (33 percent) would feel discriminated against if they were to look for a job in the UK in the current climate. Of those Europeans already living in the country, (87 percent) are worried about the potential impact of a Brexit vote, with half (49 percent) fearing for their job security and over a third (37 percent) for their personal lives. Worryingly for employers, nearly half (40 percent) of respondents said that the British decision to hold the Brexit referendum has negatively affected their opinion of the country and is forcing some (25 percent) to reconsider their career options outside of the UK.

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May 24, 2016

A fifth of staff experience more stress at home than in the workplace ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Home may not be the haven we might assume, meaning that employers who encourage staff to work from home may actually be adding to their stress levels. Around a fifth of employees find their domestic lives more stressful than their working lives and many either don’t want to discuss it with managers or feel unable to, claims a new report from MetLife Employee Benefits. According to Building Resilience in the Workplace, 19 percent of employees overall are more stressed at home than at work, with slightly more female respondents to the study claiming to be stressed more by their home lives than the workplace. Around 21 percent of women say their home life is more stressful compared to 15 percent of men. The research claims that 67 percent of employees say domestic issues – including childcare, looking after elderly parents and financial pressures – are having an impact on their work performance.

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May 20, 2016

New guide to Level 2 BIM compliance launched ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Facilities management, Legal news, Property, Technology

Anybody who is still confused about Building Information Modelling (there’s a lot of us) and its obligations under new legislation will welcome new free guidance published by the excellent Designing Buildings Wiki created by BRE, CIOB, BSRIA, ICE and others. Since last month, Level 2 BIM has been mandatory on centrally-procured public projects, with far-reaching implications for those involved. Clients, consultants, contractors and suppliers are now required to understand the finer details of the Level 2 process. But the 2016 NBS BIM Survey found 42 percent of respondents were just aware of BIM and 28 percent were not very, or not at all confident in BIM. The new guide aims to take users step-by-step through the Level 2 workflows, from the basics of storing project information to preparing employer’s information requirements. It is open access, meaning anyone in the industry can edit and improve the guide to reflect their experiences of using BIM in practice. It is aligned to Level 2 standard PAS 1192-2 and the 2013 RIBA plan of work.

May 20, 2016

Quarter of UK workers would choose home working over pay rise ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace

We reported earlier this week that flexible working has gone mainstream, with over a third of organisations now offering some kind of flexible working arrangement. The question is whether these flexible workers are more productive, as some employers persist in perceiving a flexible working request as a means of ‘shirking from home.’ Now new research to mark National work from home day, shows that 48 percent of workers are happier when they can work from home and nearly a third (32 percent) of British workers ‘feel more productive’ when they do so. The study by the Institute of Inertia, a partnership between comparethemarket.com and the University of Sheffield, found that nearly a quarter (24 percent or 7.5 million) of British workers would rather work from home one day a week than receive a pay rise, while seven million admit they suffer from ‘procrastination or inertia issues’ when working in an office.