Search Results for: financial

February 12, 2018

Business leaders increasingly optimistic about benefits of artificial intelligence in the workplace

Executives at major organisations increasingly believe that pairing humans alongside machine intelligence will create a more effective, engaged, and meritocratic workplace, according to a new study released by software provider Pegasystems Inc (registration required). The authors surveyed 845 senior executives working globally across industry sectors including financial services, insurance, manufacturing, retail, telecommunications and media, and government, on the increased role of automation and artificial intelligence in the workplace of the future. The potential impact in the workplace seems to outweigh any lingering fears, the report claims. Around 69 percent of of respondents say “workforce” will refer to both humans and machine intelligence in the future. Nearly three-quarters of executives said using machines to augment human abilities would lead to increased efficiency. Over 60 percent said it could be used to improve customer service.

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February 12, 2018

Finance workers are amongst most stressed people in the world

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Finance workers in the UK are among the most stressed in the world, according to a study by Robert Half UK. The survey of 2000 people including 200 senior finance managers claims that 78 percent of Chief Financial Officers in the UK believe stress levels will rise in the next two years, with over a third (31 percent) saying they would grow significantly. CFOs believe that increased workloads (51 percent), growing business expectations (49 percent) and a lack of staff (40 percent) will send stress levels soaring.

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February 8, 2018

Skills gaps will increase this year and shortages will worsen following Brexit, predict employers

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Half of employers believe that Brexit will worsen the UK skills gap and nearly a quarter (23 percent) believe that Britain is not prepared to compete on the global stage, which will become even more important following the UK’s exit from the European Union in 2019. These are the findings of a research paper entitled “Solving the UK Skills Shortage” from Rober Walters, totaljobs and Jobsite which claims that almost two thirds of employers (65 percent) believe that they will be negatively impacted by skills shortages in 2018, with this shortage predicted to be most acute at junior and mid management level according to over half (52 percent) of employers. According to the research, employers may have to look to different industries to find the transferable skills that are essential to grow. This means that there will be more opportunities for skilled candidates to use their knowledge and experience in different sectors, providing them with new challenges and opportunities in industries that they may not have considered before.

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January 30, 2018

Millions of UK workers unaware of employer’s policy on statutory sick pay

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

Over 2.5 million UK workers are unaware of their employer’s policy on statutory sick pay and would face a significant salary shortfall if they were unwell and unable to work, claims new research from Direct Line. Just 4 percent of employees know how much they would be paid in statutory sick pay if they fell ill and many mistakenly believe that on average they would receive full salary for three and a half months if they were unable to work due to illness. In fact, 43 percent of firms reduce an employee’s wages to statutory sick pay after two weeks of an employee being off sick and one in six firms reduce wages to statutory sick pay after just four days. It is not only salaries people lose out on if they are off sick; one in five (21 percent) firms that pay bonuses withhold these if an employee has been off work on long term sick leave. More than a third of firms (33 percent) will pay bonuses based on pro-rata analysis of days worked and 14 per cent will pay a discretionary reduced rate.

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January 29, 2018

New RSA report highlights increasingly precarious and diverse nature of work

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

Britain is dividing into seven new classes of worker as the gig economy grows, according to think-tank the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). Striving, Thriving or Just About Surviving has been published to coincide with the launch of the RSA’s Future Work Centre, following RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor’s employment review for Theresa May last year. The report warns of a 30:40:30 society: while around 30 percent live comfortably, economic insecurity is “the new normal” with 40 percent just managing and a bottom 30 percent not managing to get by.

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January 29, 2018

Self-employed work an extra month each year compared to full time employees

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

One in seven British people work an additional month every year, according to a new survey of 1,000 self-employed workers. The report claims that the self-employed work on average an additional 14 hours per week, compared to permanent roles. The survey, commissioned by online accounting firm Crunch also claims that January is the most stressful time of the year for a third (31 percent) of self-employed workers. The report claims that two thirds (66 percent) of respondents find it difficult to switch off and get to sleep because of work stress, with 72 percent saying financial concerns keep them awake at night, and over one in ten (15 percent) saying it is due to business deadlines, such as the looming self-assessment tax deadline on 31st January.

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January 25, 2018

Gender discrimination is rife across the workplace says management body

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

Gender discrimination is rife across the workplace says management body

More than four in five (85 percent) of women and 80 percent of men report that they have witnessed gender-discriminatory acts at work suggests the results of new research by the Chartered Management Institute. The CMI’s latest report ‘A Blueprint for Balance: time to fix the broken windows’ looks into gender diversity best practices, and found patchy results. Despite some leading exemplars, the majority of organisations are still struggling to make a meaningful difference to achieving a gender balanced workplace. According to the report’s survey of 856 managers, just one in four (25 percent) say that their peers and senior leaders ‘actively and visibly champion gender initiatives’. The lack of action cascades down the ranks, with only 19 percent of junior and middle managers believing their senior leaders are committed to the target of gender balance in their organisations. This is in spite of a recent study by management consultants McKinsey that found globally the most gender diverse businesses are 21 percent more likely to financially over-perform than their peers.

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January 24, 2018

Business in the community aims to improve the quality of work for lowest-paid staff

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Financial concerns are increasingly affecting the performance of workers across the UK, with one in eight UK workers (3.7 million) now living in poverty. According to the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, a quarter of the UK workforce are, to some extent, experiencing financial insecurity. One in five employees (21 percent) report that they are just about managing financially, while a further 5 percent say they are finding things difficult. Aside from the undue stress this causes families, this can also have significant repercussions for employers, in terms of recruitment, retention and productivity. This has prompted Business in the Community, (BITC) with support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, to make the case for all employers to improve the quality of work for their lowest-paid staff. Its new campaign, Good Work for All draws on best practice from forward-thinking organisations including Starbucks, Royal Mail and Sodexo, and over a third of BITC members have reported taking company-wide action on low-paid work with successful outcomes.

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January 24, 2018

Majority of global business leaders believe world economy will grow this year

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Well over half (fifty seven percent) of business leaders say they believe global economic growth will improve in the next 12 months – almost twice (29 percent) the level of results from the annual survey carried out by PwC . Launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the survey found that optimism in the economy is feeding into CEOs’ confidence about their own companies’ outlook. As 42 percent of CEOs said they are “very confident” in their own organisation’s growth prospects over the next 12 months, up from 38 percent last year. Looking at the results by country though, it’s a mixed bag. In the UK, with Brexit negotiations only recently reaching a significant milestone, business leaders’ drop in short-term confidence is unsurprising (2018: 34 percent vs. 2017: 41 percent). The survey also found that CEOs are determined to find the right talent needed to reap the benefits of the digital disruption, with investments in modern working environments and the establishment of learning and development programmes to help attract and develop digital talent.

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January 22, 2018

People who work in an open plan office feel worse and are less satisfied

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The ongoing debate about the impact of open plan offices on people’s wellbeing and productivity continues to divide opinion. While there is a large amount of data from the likes of Leesman Index and workplace expert Nigel Oseland to suggest that an open plan office is the best solution when applied in the right way and right context, a new study from Karlstad University claims the opposite. The more co-workers that share of a workplace, the less satisfied employees are, and the more difficult they think it is to work collaboratively.

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January 16, 2018

Businesses lost an estimated £20.2 bn from data breaches last year

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Hackers stole or compromised an estimated £20.2bn worth of records from businesses in 2017, new research claims. After news that Uber failed to disclose a massive hack in 2016, VPN (Virtual Private Network) comparison site BestVPN.com analysed more than 200 data breaches dating back to 2004, looking at the number of records compromised, the industries most likely to be affected and the value of those breaches. Late last year Equifax became the victim of one of the most high profile hacks in history, with 143m records stolen, equating to an estimated £15bn worth of data lost*. While there have previously been attacks where more records were compromised, such as Yahoo’s 1bn back in December 2016, the Equifax breach was notable because the data stolen included social Security numbers and personal identification. IBM revealed in its Cost of a Data Breach Study 2017 that the average cost of a stolen record was £104.25, or £2.7m per hack.

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January 15, 2018

Is there a link between creativity and depression?

by Mark Eltringham • News, Wellbeing

The link between creativity and depression or other mood disorders is something of a cliché, but one explored in a new meta-analysis published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. The study from Christa L Taylor set out to discover whether there was any truth to the twin ideas of the tortured genius and of misery as an inspiration for creativity. Based on 36 studies into the relationship between mood disorders and creative thinking involving very high numbers of people, the report concludes that there are often strong correlations but that causation is somewhat harder to pin down. The diagnosis of mental disorders and the incidence of creativity is also complicated by the fact that researchers may often be unable to distinguish between the two.