Search Results for: employer

Employers managing multigenerations of staff “in the dark”

GRiD age research

The  latest example from a plethora of surveys is published today to add more fuel to the suspicion that “Generation Y NOT ME?” either needs slapping down or is being grossly misrepresented. “The Workplace Revolution”, by recruiter Adecco Group reports that half of those aged 34 and under – Generation Y – (47 per cent) want a promotion every two years, compared to just a fifth (22 per cent) of UK workers as a whole. But the report also warns that employers that fail to engage, motivate and retain their best employees across all ages risk damaging productivity and competitiveness.

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Staff development still tops European employers’ priorities

Image credit: <a href='https://www.123rf.com/photo_10259161_portrait-of-successful-young-businessman-showing-presentation-in-a-meeting-at-office.html'>logos / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

European employers are still maintaining ambitious staff development plans, despite the gloomier macro-economic climate. According to a study by Aon Hewitt, the proportion of companies that expect to add new jobs in 2012 has increased to 47 per cent, overtaking the number of companies foreseeing a reduction of their workforce (31 per cent). Explained Leonardo Sforza, chair of the European Club for human resources Scientific Committee: “The slow and painful road to economic recovery is not discouraging successful multinationals from continuing to invest in their human capital and from demonstrating the belief that their people remain the most powerful engine for sustainable growth and innovation.” (more…)

Employer confusion despite social media recruitment surge

social media

Seventy per cent of recruiters now actively use and support the use of social media and trust has grown significantly in online media over the past two years, according to new research. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are the three most used social media channels among HR professionals and recruiters, with occasional use of blogs and videos. However, the research by Global HR Services Group Penna Plc shows that while engagement with social media is increasing, a quarter of employers are still trying to restrict Facebook access at work and have no formal social media policy in place.

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Nearly all UK employers now offer flexible working, claims survey

Flexible workA  new report from the Institute of Leadership and Management claims that as many as 94 per cent of UK employers now offer staff some form of flexible working arrangement. The study of more than 1,100 UK managers found that around three quarters (73 per cent) of respondents said their organisation actively supported flexible work practices, 82 per cent were aware of the benefits of flexible working and nearly two thirds (62 per cent) said that senior managers led schemes by example. There is still work to be done in gaining universal acceptance however with 50 per cent of managers claiming flexible working is now standard practice .

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Flexible working seen as of more benefit to employers than staff

Flexible working

Nine in ten UK professionals think that flexible working will become the dominant employment model – but half think it will be adopted for business reasons rather than to benefit the workforce. According to research from specialist HR recruiter Ortus, just one in ten professionals (12 per cent) actually deem flexible working to be a vital benefit – lower than the proportion who said a free company mobile phone is vital to them. And just 1 in 10 said they thought it was being implemented to help with gender equality. In the survey conducted among 450 professionals across a variety of sectors, 51 one per cent felt the reason behind the growth of flexible working is efficiency and productivity – not to help people manage the number of hours they work. (more…)

Workers’ attitudes to data theft at odds with employers’

data theft

Half of employees who left or lost their jobs in the last 12 months kept confidential corporate data, according to a global survey from Symantec and 40 percent plan to use it in their new jobs. The results show that employees’ attitudes and beliefs about intellectual property (IP) theft are at odds with the vast majority of company policies. Employees not only think it is acceptable to take and use IP when they leave, but also that companies don’t care. The survey reveals 62 percent believe it is acceptable to transfer documents to PCs, tablets, smartphones or file sharing applications and the majority never delete the data they’ve moved because they do not see any harm in keeping it.
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Work-life balance proposals could cause employers to wobble

flexible work

Employment experts have raised concerns on the impact on employers of the Children and Families Bill, announced by the government this week, which introduces shared parental leave and extends the right to request flexible working to all employees. The idea behind the reforms is to give parents greater flexibility about how they ‘mix and match’ care of their child but Jonathan Exten-Wright, Partner from DLA Piper said: “Employers would no doubt welcome further guidance on how the new shared leave should operate in practice.”

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Employers overlook flexible working alternative to redundancy

Flexible

Only 22 per cent of UK managers believe their companies are very effective at redeploying employees rather than making redundancies. And according to new global research it’s a worldwide problem, with almost three in ten employers believing their organisations are “not effective”. Mark Hodgson, practice leader of Talent Management in Right Management UK & Ireland said: “The results suggest that businesses aren’t seeing redeployment as a feasible way of making savings and keeping staff. Businesses can’t afford to underestimate the importance of a flexible workforce in this tough economic climate.” (more…)

AI has yet to have any significant impact on UK employment levels

AI has yet to have any significant impact on UK employment levels

A new report suggests that fears of AI triggering widespread job losses in the UK have yet to be borne out by evidenceA new report suggests that fears of artificial intelligence triggering widespread job losses in the UK have yet to be borne out by evidence, with little indication so far of major disruption to employment. The study, published by think tank The Centre for British Progress, examines labour market data since the rapid emergence of generative AI tools and finds no clear signs that the technology has led to large-scale displacement of workers. Despite frequent predictions that AI could significantly reshape or reduce the workforce in the near term, the report concludes that such effects are not yet visible in aggregate employment trends. (more…)

Re-humanising the workplace: why prevention, support and standards matter more than ever

Re-humanising the workplace: why prevention, support and standards matter more than ever

There is growing recognition that the workplace needs to become more human again, not less.There is growing recognition that the workplace needs to become more human again, not less. For all the talk of performance, productivity and retention, too many organisations still treat stress, ill health and emotional wellbeing as secondary matters. They are not. They sit at the heart of business success. The figures from the Keep Britain Working report, an independent review commissioned by the UK government and led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, the former chair of John Lewis, are a wake-up call. The value at stake is enormous. Employers face an estimated £85 billion a year in lost output and costs linked to ill health. For government, the additional burden in welfare payments and NHS demand is around £47 billion annually. On top of this lies the wider cost to the economy through lower participation, and the human and social costs of lost opportunity, stalled careers and reduced life chances. (more…)

A word or two on what people tell you about work and workplaces

A word or two on what people tell you about work and workplaces

All of those surveys about work and workplaces must be telling us something about people and what they do, mustn't they? One of the many criticisms you could make of us as a business is a reliance on company sponsored surveys to generate news stories about workplaces. We don’t publish all of them, you’ll be relieved to hear. The ones we reject are usually too nakedly self-serving. Even the ones that have some degree of statistical cred must be viewed in the right context, distorted as they might be by loaded questions, self-reporting, deliberate lying and other response biases.  Our attitude towards these polls is that they often contain some element of truth, especially if results are repeated over a period of time. When surveys over many years tell you that noise is the biggest gripe about office life, you should believe them.    (more…)

Women working from home or on reduced hours at greater risk of damaging their career

Women working from home or on reduced hours at greater risk of damaging their career

Women working from home or on reduced hours are at greater risk of losing their professional and managerial careers, but men are not affectedWomen working from home or on reduced hours are at greater risk of losing their professional and managerial careers, but men are not affected, new research suggests. Women professionals not working a standard week in the office were more likely to end up in less prestigious careers than those in full-time work, the study found. Sizhan Cui, of the University of Oxford, analysed survey data on 11,981 British women and 9,829 men gathered from 2010-2024 to link changes in careers to the use of flexible working arrangements such as working from home, part-time work, job sharing and flexitime. (more…)