Search Results for: employers

March 25, 2015

Report identifies the challenges and opportunities of workplace wellbeing

by Mark Eltringham • Briefing, News, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

Much of what has been called workplace strategy in recent years has been more about cutting costs than supporting people, often to the detriment of the latter. That is the central claim of a new report authored by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish of Global Workplace Analytics and sponsored by office furniture maker Knoll. The paper, What’s Good for People? Moving from Wellness to Well-Being, explores how better workplaces, processes and practices can improve workplace wellbeing, employee engagement and organisational performance. The study starts from the premise that people are dealing with unprecedented stresses and pressures in the workplace which now need to be addressed in the context of a recovering economy, the limits of an approach that focuses on doing more with less and an increasingly scant pool of human resources and talents.

March 24, 2015

Guidance published for SMEs on management and wellbeing of older workers

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Since the the Default Retirement Age (DRA) was abolished in 2011, there’s been a growing awareness that the UK population is ageing at a rapid rate. One in six people in Britain are now over 65, with eight million workers aged 50 and over. But what is often overlooked is that the majority of older workers work for small and medium sized businesses. Of the 8 million workers who are 50 and over, 5.2 million work for businesses with less than 250 employees. Now in the first of its kind to specifically target smaller employers, new guidance published by Healthy Working Lives, part of NHS Health Scotland, aims to provide advice on hiring and managing older employees. Managing Healthy Ageing Workforces has been written by Dr Matt Flynn, Director of Newcastle University’s Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, and Kathleen Houston, Development Manager for Healthy Working Lives.

March 20, 2015

Happiness and wellbeing must be at the heart of the economy finds new report

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

To mark International Day of Happiness, a major new report has revealed that a country’s GDP fails to reflect levels of people’s happiness, which, it says, “are not easily reducible to monetary values”. Wellbeing and policy was commissioned by the Legatum Institute, which established the Commission on Wellbeing and Policy to advance the policy debate on social wellbeing and is chaired by the former head of the civil service Lord Gus O’Donnell. It finds there is growing recognition that the measures of a country’s progress need to include the wellbeing of its citizens. The report adds that with job satisfaction on a long-term downward trend in most advanced countries, and people ranking time spent with their manager as among their least happy moments in the day, there’s a lot more employers can be doing to address levels of wellbeing and happiness at work.

March 17, 2015

How facilities management brings organisational values to life. Or not

by Alan Williams • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace

We have used stories to pass on information for thousands of years and they remain the most powerful way we know to communicate. Indeed, the power of story is magnified in today’s super-connected, transparent world – the truth gets out fast and can be widely communicated – to millions of people all over the world – in such a short space of time. Here is a story which illustrates how employees’ “felt experience” every day strongly shapes their perception of an organisation and how the impact compares to official “corporate messaging”. This, in turn, highlights the critical (often under appreciated) role played by facilities management in reinforcing organisation brand and values. What are the implications for the role of FM and the wider HR agenda?

March 17, 2015

New guidance helps businesses engage staff in a sustainability strategy

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News, Workplace

While any far-seeing organisation might develop environmental and corporate social responsibility initiatives, it is important to ensure employees are fully informed and committed to their employers’ aims. The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) argues that while the leadership may set expectations, it is employees and managers who make it happen. To aid this process, a new toolkit, the GEMI Quick Guide for Engaging Employees in Sustainability: has been designed to advise corporations on how to successfully engage and motivate employees to participate in their sustainability strategies. The guide explores potential ways of fostering employee connections to sustainability, implementing an engagement strategy, and understanding the role of corporate culture within it.

March 16, 2015

Employee benefits policies still not family friendly, claims new report

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

Fewer than half (48 percent) of UK employers offer enhanced maternity pay to staff, claims a new study by Croner. According to the Croner reward employee benefits report, based on a survey of 127 employers, the most commonly offered enhanced scheme was 3 months leave at full pay. The research also found that fathers fare even worse with less than a third of firms offering paternity leave above the statutory minimum, with 62 percent offering full pay for a period of two weeks. Commenting on the findings, Viv Copeland of Croner says: “While some family friendly benefits such as flexible working and childcare vouchers have really grown in the last few years, the offer of enhanced maternity and paternity leave and pay still has a long way to go. The recent legislation around shared maternity/ paternity leave should bring some fresh thinking to this area from parents and employers alike.”

March 16, 2015

Multi generational workplace could boost economy by £25 billion

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

The Government has published a new report which describes the challenges faced by the UK’s over 50s in the workplace and sets out ways in which more of them can stay or move into work. The report is the culmination of eight months’ work by a team led by the Government’s ‘ageism tsar’ Ros Altmann and highlights why action is needed based primarily on the twin issues of demographic change and increasing life expectancy. The report, Retain, Retrain, Recruit, recommends action that would help older workers thrive and ensure individuals, industry and the economy can reap the financial and social benefits of a multi generational workplace. The report outlines how businesses could recruit more older workers, retrain existing staff and provide greater flexibility to retain them as well as setting out measures that should be taken to reflect the multi generational workforce in the media and policy making.

March 12, 2015

Firms not offering staff the technology they need, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

More than half (55 percent) of UK employees believe they do not have access to all the technology needed to do their jobs, according to research by Fujitsu. The study, Digital Inside Out, was based in a survey of just over 1,400 UK based employees and claims to reveal a significant disconnect between the needs of a digital-savvy working population and the digital services UK employers are currently providing. According to the report, 73 percent of UK employees believe that digital is vital to the future success of their organisation. However despite this, only 45 percent of employees feel they are provided with access to the technology services and applications they need to do their job sufficiently and 29 percent state that their ability to do their job is being hindered due to poor digital services. The report argues that the mismatch can be very costly for organisations.

March 11, 2015

Two new reports highlight potential benefits of flexible working for women

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Two new reports published this week highlight the potential benefits of flexible working for both employers and staff, especially women. According to a Workingmums.co.uk Best Practice Report, only 36 percent of employers have a flexible working policy despite over half thinking it improves retention, particularly of women, and over a third saying it makes people more efficient. Meanwhile, a study from the TUC claims that around half of the net growth in female employment in 2014 came from women moving in to lower-paid part-time jobs. The analysis claims that while full-time employment accounted for all of the net growth in male employment last year, for women full-time employment accounted for just 47 per cent of net female jobs growth. The TUC also claims that women who moved into part-time jobs during 2014 were typically employed on much lower rates of pay than those in full-time work.

March 11, 2015

How a big, stupid idea can be more attractive than a small, effective one

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Comment, Property

We’re going to be hearing a lot of big ideas over the next few weeks. Politicians will be sharing their ‘visions’ with us and letting us know exactly how ‘passionate’ they are about them and anything else Twitter tells them we care about. It’s going to be boring and infuriating, but we only have ourselves to blame. We fret when politicians don’t give us a handy label on which we can rest our hopes or lay the blame, depending on whether we agree with whatever the big idea is or not. Of course, David Cameron’s vision of choice when he became Prime Minister in 2010 was The Big Society. I won’t get into the rights and wrongs of that but I think we can all agree that The Big Society has been kicked unceremoniously into The Long Grass and we won’t be hearing much about it in the build up to this year’s General Election. Nor will we be hearing much about another of David Cameron’s pet projects even though that has actually gone on to be something of a success.

March 5, 2015

Majority of UK workers concerned about their ability to retire

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Workplace

A new report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development claims that the majority of UK workers are concerned that their current pension arrangements won’t allow them to retire. It found that the average employee pension contribution to a workplace-defined contribution pension scheme is currently 5 percent, but most employees think they should be saving almost double that (9 percent). Four in ten (43 percent) think they should be contributing more than 10 percent of their salary to their retirement savings and almost a quarter (22 percent) admitted they didn’t know how much they should be contributing. The shortfall between what employees are paying in and what they think they should be paying is highlighted by the fact that over half of UK workers have considered how they might work past state pension age and one in ten people (13 percent) are worried that they will never be able to afford to leave paid employment.

March 5, 2015

People with mental-health issues should be helped to stay at work, says OECD

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Around 30 percent to 40 percent of all sickness and disability caseloads in OECD countries are related to mental-health problems finds a new OECD report. Fit Mind, Fit Job: From Evidence to Practice in Mental Health and Work reveals that the total cost of mental illness is estimated at around 3.5 percent of GDP in Europe. People with mild to moderate disorders, such as anxiety or depression, are twice as likely to become unemployed. They also run a much higher risk of living in poverty and social marginalisation. But although most people with mental health problems are in work they struggle; with 7 in 10 of them in 21 countries of the European Union reporting that they are underperforming at work. While a heavy workload and stress may add to mental health problems, the evidence shows that staying at work is also part of the solution if appropriate support is provided.