July 23, 2021

The unshocking truth about work and workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace design

I recently read an interesting little book called Office by Sheila Liming. It’s a small book, easy to read in a sitting and linked to a series of essays in The Atlantic. The author is a Professor of English so it’s no surprise to find that it’s beautifully written and draws on a range of sources to illustrate its points. It’s pretty sound on its own terms but also illustrates perfectly what is wrong with so many current narratives about work. The writing may not be clichéd but the thinking often is. More →

July 23, 2021

HRIS software sets out on a people-centric future

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Technology, Workplace

In the past, Human Resources Information System (HRIS) software was largely created with the needs of HR professionals and system administrators in mind. The future of HRIS however, is an employee-centric system which has been come to be known as an Employee Experience Platform (EXP). PeopleSpheres is an EXP that centralizes all HR functions within a single portal. With this tool, employees and HR teams alike can seamlessly navigate between the different HR applications within their organisation while being confident that they have the best tools on the market to manage each part of the employee life cycle. More →

July 22, 2021

European workers positive about post pandemic partial move back to the office

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working culture

With much of Europe having worked remotely for over a year and many continuing to do so for the foreseeable future, new insights from Sharp, claims that there is a significant appetite among European workers to return to the office for some of the working week. More →

July 22, 2021

Hybrid working poses challenges of culture, morale and training

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working culture

As increasing numbers of companies offer post-pandemic hybrid working for employees, the challenges it poses to maintaining culture, morale, effective training and staff loyalty have been disclosed in a new survey of senior executives. More →

July 21, 2021

UK workers hesitant to return to the office

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Working lives

New research commissioned by Kadence claims that despite restrictions being lifted, office workers in the UK are resistant to a full-time office return. The survey of 1,500 UK and US office workers claims that over half of British workers (55 percent) still expect to spend fewer days in the office per week, with more than a third wanting to come and go as they please (35 percent). More →

July 20, 2021

Majority of organisations are still developing a workplace strategy

by Jayne Smith • Business, Flexible working, News

According to a new survey from XpertHR, 70 percent of organisations are still actively planning or considering permanent changes to where employees carry out their work as lockdown restrictions are lifted. Fewer than one in 20 (4 percent) are not contemplating any changes. More →

July 19, 2021

Over two thirds of office workers dread speaking to their IT department

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Technology, Working lives

Research by Velocity Smart Technology, investigating how IT departments are coping with a move to remote working, claims that almost half (45 percent) of office workers have had to wait longer for an issue to be resolved whilst working from home – with 73 percent going on to say they have had to wait up to an extra five hours for an issue to be fixed. More →

July 19, 2021

British workers have picked up at least two new career driven rituals during lockdown

by Jayne Smith • News, Working lives

Additional time on people’s hands as a result of the pandemic has prompted the average British worker to pick up a range of good habits for their careers, according to a new study by Hitachi Capital Business Finance. More →

July 14, 2021

Shaping London’s future: Mayor’s Resilience Fund Winners Announced

by Jayne Smith • Cities, News

The Mayor of London, in partnership with Nesta Challenges, has announced the winners of the Mayor’s Resilience Fund, a £1 million innovation programme set up to support London’s businesses and community groups to emerge stronger from COVID-19 and to ensure the capital is prepared for future disruptive challenges. More →

July 7, 2021

One fifth of UK workers do not intend to commute again post pandemic

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News, Working lives

As employees across the UK are to set to embark on their return to the workplace following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, new research by Kura, claims that commuters are reluctant to return to the office in the coming months, mainly due to increased concern over infection control and social distancing on the daily commute. More →

July 5, 2021

Redwigwam scoops largest ever contract to provide 10,000 flexible workers

by Freddie Steele • Company news

Redwigwam has won its biggest ever contract as demand surges for flexible workers across the UK. The Liverpool-headquartered company specialises in providing fully managed, trained and flexible staff for a wide range of sectors including the retail, logistics, cleaning and hospitality industries. It has just won a contract which will provide employment for 10,000 temporary staff across the country, in a variety of roles, over the next six months. More →

July 2, 2021

If you’re certain about the changing world of work, you’re certainly wrong

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Working culture

If you click on the first link in any article on Wikipedia and keep repeating the process, eventually you will land on the Philosophy page. Or you will 97 percent of the time, according to Wikipedia itself. There’s a dry explanation for this involving the site’s classification system, as explained by the mathematician Hannah Fry here. But there’s a more poetic explanation that I prefer. That every subject leads back to a consideration of ourselves, our lives and our place in the world. Anthropocentric maybe, but then again, the proper study of mankind is man. More →