Search Results for: health

January 9, 2014

Rise in employee wellbeing initiatives in 2014, despite little evidence they work

Amidst the plethora of fitness and diet advice which greets the New Year comes discussions on the value of employee wellness programmes in reducing absenteeism and improving staff productivity. A solid link between the two is still to be proved and now a major new piece of US research charting the effects of a seven-year programme on thousands of employees has found that while support for staff with chronic conditions was beneficial, there was no evidence that the fitness and lifestyle component made any difference. This will do little to stem the enthusiasm for wellbeing programmes however, as consultants Towers Watson reports there will be a rise in the uptake of employee wellness programmes over the coming year. (more…)

December 19, 2013

Architects’ workloads remain in positive territory across the country reports RIBA

by Sara Bean • Architecture, News, Property, Public Sector

The design and construction sector continues to pick up, particularly in Scotland, Southern England and London says the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Although the Future Trends Workload Index fell back slightly in November, standing at +31 compared with +35 in October 2013, it remained firmly in positive territory. RIBA’s monthly survey illustrates the profession’s confidence and workload, and is a useful indicator of the health of the wider UK construction industry.Welcoming the growing confidence across the United Kingdom, RIBA Director of Practice Adrian Dobson said: “In terms of geographical analysis the highest balance figures were in Scotland (+50), the South of England (+41) and London (+40), but all UK nations and regions remain positive about future workloads, again reflecting a widespread increase in confidence levels.” (more…)

December 16, 2013

Festive burnout is latest ailment to strike unwary office workers

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

As we enter the last full working week before the Christmas holidays, the reason why the office is already half empty isn’t just because staff have faked a sickie to do their Christmas shopping. Many of them may be genuinely sick – with Christmas the primary reason. The new ailment of “Festive Burnout” has been coined to mark the countdown to Christmas, as stress, exhaustion and illness begins to strike offices. According to the findings of a new investigation from AXA PPP healthcare; while one in four Brits say that Christmas is their favourite time of the year, a third tend to start their holiday feeling burnt out from the stress of the run up to the holiday break.

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December 10, 2013

More than half of UK’s increasingly disengaged workforce looking to switch jobs

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

Staff disengagement is already costing the UK economy dear, and is also one of the reasons why nearly half of all UK employees are currently looking to leave their current jobs over the next year, a contrast of two new surveys reveals. The first report, from private healthcare provider BUPA, found that disengaged and unhealthy staff cost the UK economy around £6 billion each year. The second report from Investors in People (IIP) – a Government created business improvement agency – claims that just under half of all British employees (47 percent) are considering whether to move jobs during 2014. This represents some 14 million individuals so if you lend both reports credence, employers may have serious issues retaining their best employees as the jobs market picks up.

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December 3, 2013

Meeting the management challenges of caring for home workers

by Pam Loch • Flexible working, Workplace

Flexible working is on the rise. However, as reported today, while employers are happy to equip workers with the facilities required to work away from the office, there is a worrying level of unwillingness amongst many bosses in checking the safety and comfort of home workers. Employers have a duty of care to their home workers under health and safety legislation and the Working Time Regulations 1998. This means that care should be taken by employers to ensure that home workers operate in a safe and appropriate environment. This duty of care goes beyond supplying an ergonomic workstation. Managing home workers requires a varied set of management skills and best practice processes. (more…)

November 29, 2013

Technology means UK small business owners are unable to switch off, says report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Nearly half of the UK’s small business owners feel unable to ever get away completely from work, according to a new report from Lloyds Bank. The survey, published in the bank’s Small Business Report found that 47 percent of microbusiness owners and sole traders feel unable to completely switch off from work due to their reliance on technology to operate. More than two fifths (41 percent) work longer hours to keep up according to the report from Lloyds, which has itself recently been accused by the Government of deliberately forcing small businesses under. According to the survey, over two thirds (70 percent) of small businesses are concerned that their commercial health will suffer if they neglect their online presence.

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November 25, 2013

How a 70 year old happiness model is still helping us to define wellness

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace

This year marks the seventieth anniversary of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the model that still introduces most of us to notions of what makes people happy and fulfilled. Maslow first proposed the model in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review, developing his ideas throughout the rest of his life. His work has been parallelled and built upon by other researchers since, but few have had the influence and longevity. Maslow’s hierarchical characterisation of human needs by category is ingrained into the minds of students all over the world. In the first of two pieces to mark this anniversary, Cathie Sellars of Workspace argues that Maslow continues to offers us the ideal definition of wellness.

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November 25, 2013

Over half of managers ‘constantly worried’, with real estate most stressed sector

by Sara Bean • News, Property, Workplace

Over half (51 percent) of managers say they feel ‘constantly worried’ and a disturbingly high number (40 percent) have experienced depression as a result of being stressed. The research, which was carried out by YouGov to support Bupa’s Healthy Minds programme polled the views of 6,000 employees across a range of industries, job levels and regions. It found that real estate is the UK’s most stressed sector, with more than half of workers (54 percent) feeling the pressure and a further one in five struggling to cope (20 percent) and worried about the effect of stress on their health (22 percent). With one in six adults experiencing a mental health problem at any given time, the impact on businesses is significant in terms of staff absence, productivity and performance.

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November 19, 2013

2020 vision is a useless metaphor for far-sightedness in a number of ways

by Simon Heath • Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Technology, Workplace design

The year 2020 is a mere seven years away. Yet the designers of the future workplace and those who invite them to talk about it are still referring to it as if it marks the next frontier of human endeavour and as if we weren’t already up to our collective armpits in the 21st century. The idea of 20/20 vision is considered, in ophthalmological circles at least, to represent “normal” visual acuity and is dependent on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye and the sensitivity of the interpretative faculty of the brain. In practical terms, this means it’s about seeing and interpreting what is directly in front of us at a distance of around 6 metres. So as a metaphor for farsightedness regarding the future of work or workplaces it’s always been a poor one. And as we get closer to the eponymous year, it becomes worse day by day.

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November 18, 2013

Zero hours contracts: Are they really such bad news?

by Adam Hartley • Comment, Flexible working

Zero hours contracts have hardly been out of the news in recent weeks. The overwhelming majority of the media coverage has been negative, suggesting that zero hours contracts are exploitative of workers and should be outlawed. The pressure gauge has risen to such an extent that, in September, the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, announced that there would be a consultation process to tackle any abuse discovered. The Labour Party has also announced it will be conducting its own review. But why all this sudden interest? Zero hours contracts are not a new phenomenon… and, on the face of it, they provide employers with the type of flexibility which the Government has been so keen to introduce, allowing employers to maintain a flexible workforce capable of meeting short-term staffing needs. (more…)

November 8, 2013

Time to refresh BYOD policies, as Smartglasses get set to improve workplace efficiency

by Sara Bean • News, Technology

Employers may soon need to add wearable computers to the list of BYOD in the office. According to analysts Gardner, over the next five years, corporate adoption of Smartglasses such as Google Glass will rise to ten per cent. Although of particular relevance for companies with offsite workers, such as field service personnel and inspectors, some of the basic functions of smartglasses could help bring added efficiency across the workplace. Their widespread adoption depends heavily on the apps and services being developed, but, the analysts say, apps will emerge that do specific tasks with smartglasses, which may cause organisations to provide them for a wider range of employees, while many other workers will simply wear their personal smartglasses at work. (more…)