Search Results for: four day week

February 8, 2019

A worthwhile workplace trends list, permanent beta, nudge nudge, think think and some other stuff

by Mark Eltringham • Features, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace design

If there’s just one thing that makes my heart sink more precipitously than the word ‘trends’, it’s when it’s preceded by the words Top and Ten. So it’s nice to have been surprised by this list of workplace trends that displays the wherewithal and insight to call on those people in the sector who might have something informed and interesting to say about where it all might be headed this year. Don’t be put off by the headline, even if you’re as jaded as I am.

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February 1, 2019

Are these the 2019 Top Employers to work for in the UK

by Neil Franklin • Company news, Wellbeing, Workplace

The Top Employers Institute, a certifier recognising employers that provide world-class employee conditions, has released its list of Certified UK Top Employers for 2019. Over 600 HR professionals gathered at London’s Hilton on Park Lane, on the 31st January 2019, to recognise the best employers in the UK. (more…)

January 31, 2019

Third of employers now offer agile working and this is set to rise

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Just over a third of employers now have an agile working policy, claims Aon’s Benefits and Trends Survey 2019 (registration required), with 98 percent of respondents saying employees now expect more flexible working hours and 89 percent saying staff expect agile/home working to be available. While currently a third (36 percent) of employers have agile working policies in place, where business requirements allow, Aon expects this to increase in popularity. Almost one-third of respondents do not know how many requests have been made for flexible working, but among the rest of the respondents, it is common for around 20 percent of employees to make a request. (more…)

January 23, 2019

Work’s not working; to be productive we need to get creative

by Zoe Humphries • Comment, Workplace design

Productivity in the UK workforce is dropping; output per hour fell 0.4 per cent in the last quarter of 2018 compared with the previous and grew just 0.2 per cent on the third quarter of 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics. Yet the UK workforce log the longest hours in Europe, working 42.3 hours per week on average. Clearly something isn’t lining up. So we must surely ask the question, what is going wrong and what can we do to improve the situation?

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November 29, 2018

OECD, UN Environment and World Bank call for a radical shift in infrastructure thinking

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Environment, News

The OECD, UN Environment and World Bank Group have this week called on leaders of G20 countries to do more to enable a radical shift of investment into low-carbon, climate-resilient infrastructure as a way to limit the impact of climate change. Delivering a new report, Financing Climate Futures: Rethinking Infrastructure, to the G20 at its Summit in Buenos Aires, the three International Organisations said governments need to adopt a more transformative agenda on low-carbon, climate-resilient investments if they are to meet the Paris Agreement goal of cutting CO₂emissions to net zero in the second half of the century and build resilience to climate change.

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November 5, 2018

Employees call for radical new approach to address stress at work

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

Today marks the start of International Stress Awareness Week, 5th – 9th November 2018, and new research claims that two-thirds of employees (64 percent) have ‘poor’ or ‘below average’ mental wellbeing according to the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS). The research, conducted by The Stress Management Society and commissioned by workplace consultants, Peldon Rose found that over a third (36 percent) of people say their workplace stress has been on-going for the past five years.

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October 30, 2018

The workplace world responds to the UK Autumn Budget

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Workplace

Yesterday, the Chancellor Philip Hammond announced the details of the UK government’s latest budget. While Brexit and austerity inevitably cast their shadows over the whole thing, there were a number of announcements relevant to the workplace, construction, tech and built environment sectors, some of which have been broadly welcomed by commentators, industry bodies and experts. Some are decidedly less popular. Among the announcements in the budget were new plans for infrastructure and property, skills and training, tax regimes for the self-employed, productivity, business rates and mental health.

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October 10, 2018

Long waits for mental health treatment lead to life changing problems, RCPsych study finds

by Neil Franklin • News

A quarter of people (24 percent) with a diagnosed mental health condition reported waiting more than three months to see an NHS mental health specialist, a poll for the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) has found. Some (6 percent) say they waited more than a year to see an NHS mental health specialist – one man interviewed following the poll said he waited 13 years to get the help he needed. Where respondents’ mental health got worse, these waits led to relationship problems including divorce (36 percent), financial troubles (32 percent) and work problems including job loss (34 percent).

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October 5, 2018

Developing a resilient mindset to cope with stress

by Portia Hickey • Comment, Wellbeing

Earlier this year, The New York times reported on a company in New Zealand that reduced its employee’s work time to four days a week whilst paying them for five. The idea came to the CEO after he read research that showed that employees generally only spend three hours a day on actual productive work. The change was highly successful, employees were as productive over the four days as they were over the five but the wellbeing of employees improved dramatically.

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October 2, 2018

Flexible and part-time workers outperform full-time colleagues

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

A new report from the charity Working Families assessing the flexible, agile, and family-friendly working policy of its employer members claims that flexible and part-time workers appear to outperform their full time colleagues. The 2018 Top Employers for Working Families Benchmark report captures the experience of 630,000 employees across some of the UK’s leading public, private, and third sector organisations. The report was launched to mark the National Work-life Week, Working Families’ annual campaign to encourage employers and employees to talk about wellbeing at work and work-life balance.

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September 19, 2018

The main challenge of modern working life: finding the place just right to meet ⁰

by Jim Ware • Facilities management, Features, Flexible working, Work&Place, Workplace design

Every physical setting sends distinct signals to meeting participants – signals that set the tone and provide a context for the conversation, even when they are subtle or not in anyone’s conscious awareness. You understand instinctively that the place where a meeting occurs has an impact on the nature of the conversation. Just imagine the difference between a conversation around a large formal conference table with expensive executive chairs and one that takes place in an informal employee lounge, with the participants seated in a circle on soft bean-bag chairs. (more…)

September 17, 2018

AI will be commonplace in the working lives of staff very soon

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

Experts at Henley Business School have announced that the majority of the graduate workforce in the UK will be working with artificial intelligence on a daily basis by 2030, with technology such as ‘AI assistants’ expected to be commonplace in the next decade. New research released at the Henley annual World of Work 2030 conference, claims that a third (35 percent) of UK workers are excited about the prospect of their own personal AI assistant. With the average worker currently spending 3.5 hours a week on admin tasks, assistants’ could give workers back 12 working days a year (over two working weeks) by taking on these activities and freeing up time for more productive tasks.