Search Results for: leadership

Older people want the same things from their job as millennials, major new study shows

Older people want the same things from their job as millennials, major new study shows

This is a drum we’ve been banging for a long time along with a number of others, but a new study of half a million people proves what we should have known all along; people of different generations want broadly the same things from their workplaces, stereotypes are often wrong and any differences that do exist may well be explainable by the stages of their lives. The study of 500,000 people at 750 organisations in the US, Australia and Europe was conducted by employee feedback startup Culture Amp. It found that older workers are more likely to look for work where they can have a positive impact and workers want a job where they can develop personally and have confidence in leadership at all age levels. One of the significant differences between generations was that older workers are less likely than millennials to be looking for a new job at any one time.

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Poor company culture is costing the UK economy £23.6 billion per year

Poor company culture is costing the UK economy £23.6 billion per year

A new report claims that a third of people (34 percent) who leave their job, do so because of perceived poor company culture. The report, authored by breatheHR claims the associated cost of bad company culture is around £23.6 billion per year. The survey of 2,500 people analysed in The Culture Economy, also suggests that well over half of SME leaders (60 percent) consider company culture as a ‘nice to have’ in their business.This mindset has a number of knock-on effects. According to the Chartered Management Institute, effective leadership could improve Britain’s productivity by 23 percent. However, with over half (53 percent) of employees surveyed who distrust their senior management, thinking their bosses ‘didn’t appear to know what they were doing’, there is some work to be done.

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Combination of factors means UK faces severe workforce crisis by 2025

Combination of factors means UK faces severe workforce crisis by 2025

New projections published in Mercer’s Workforce Monitor predict that a perfect storm of falling net migration driven by Brexit and an ageing population, will lead to a severe shortage in the UK labour market. If these challenges are not met with immediate action by UK employers, they will face significant costs trying to attract workers with the leadership and skills they need to execute their business strategies. Mercer anticipates the UK workforce will increase by just 820,000, or 2.4 percent, by 2025, a significant reduction in recent trends that have seen 9 percent workforce growth in the 10 years to 2015. For the first time in half a century, the overall population will be increasing at a faster rate than the workforce, creating long term structural challenges for the economy.

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UK remains a world leader in technological innovation

UK remains a world leader in technological innovation

A new report from KPMG suggests that the UK is the third most dynamic global centre of innovation, disruption and technological development behind the US and China. KPMG’s 2018 Global Technology Innovation Report surveyed almost 800 global business executives to reveal the world’s top technology innovation hubs. Of those surveyed, 19 per cent named the UK as the third most promising market for tech breakthroughs behind China at 26 per cent and the US at 39 per cent.

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Activity and a positive attitude are best treatments for back pain, claims major new study

Activity and a positive attitude are best treatments for back pain, claims major new study

Although lower back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting an estimated 540 million people at any one time, it is often mistreated, according to a new series of papers in The Lancet medical journal. The series provides evidence that back pain should be managed with activity, in the workplace and in primary care. However, a high proportion of patients worldwide are treated in emergency departments, encouraged to rest and stop work, are referred for scans and surgery or prescribed pain killers including opioids. The authors claim this is at best pointless and at worst harmful. Exercise and psychological therapy are the only things that work for the majority of cases of chronic back pain but too many people wrongly believe the idea that rest is best for the condition, according to the authors. The series of papers also concludes that job satisfaction and a positive attitude are among the strongest indicators of how well people will overcome chronic back pain and related issues.

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Wellbeing programmes that focus on staff engagement neglect a need to address mental health

Wellbeing programmes that focus on staff engagement neglect a need to address mental health

The mental health of employees, especially those working within high pressured working environments are the number one concerns for UK CEOs. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of respondents to the annual wellbeing report ‘Employee Wellbeing Research 2018’ from Reward & Employee Benefits Association (REBA) in association with Punter Southall Health & Protection, admitted that high pressure working environments are now the biggest threat to wellbeing. Just a third (34 percent) of respondents provide mental health training for line managers, and despite a similar percentage (35 percent) planning to introduce this training in the next 12 months, one in six (14.9 percent) say they have no plans to introduce this sort of training. Although mental health in the workplace is the top priority for almost three in five (60 percent) CEOs in the UK and the area of employee wellbeing with which their Board is most concerned, currently, the key drivers of wellbeing strategies are to improve engagement and culture. Well over a quarter (30 percent) of respondents said wellbeing strategies are primarily driven by a desire to increase employee engagement and 23 percent to improve organisational culture.

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Rigid cultures, lack of vision and poor tech are main barriers to workplace agility

Rigid cultures, lack of vision and poor tech are main barriers to workplace agility

A new study commissioned by Ricoh Europe claims to reveal the factors that European business leaders believe are keeping them from achieving workplace agility. The list is topped by regulation (39 percent), lack of investment in new technologies (37 percent) and inescapably rigid internal hierarchies (35 percent) according to the 2,140 business leaders surveyed. These barriers limit what the report calls ‘the fluid, agile nature of a digitally empowered workplace that enables companies to quickly capitalise on changes in the market’.

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Seven of the best stories about life, the universe and everything we’ve seen over the past week

Seven of the best stories about life, the universe and everything we’ve seen over the past week

People don’t actually know themselves very well

Some actual facts about the time we spend sitting at work

German workers: satisfied, but not engaged

What skills and behaviours make a good leader effective?

Stephen Hawking’s most dire predictions for the future

The World’s happiest nations, according to the UN

A critique of the dogma of wellbeing

Image: By NASA/Paul Alers [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Workplace Matters Podcast: Neil Usher on the elemental workplace and a possible new era for BIFM

Workplace Matters Podcast: Neil Usher on the elemental workplace and a possible new era for BIFM

Workplace author, blogger and consultant Neil Usher joins 3edges director Ian Ellison again on the day of his ‘The Elemental Workplace’ book launch; also the day the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) announce their proposal to become the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM). Both of these very different, but exciting developments for the workplace discipline are discussed at length, and Neil offers insightful critique as always. The conversation ends up at one of the new frontiers for the way we work and the places we do it – and global society in general – the ethical challenges we face from emerging digital technologies. Further links from the discussion can be found in the show-notes on the podcast page of www.3edges.co.uk, where you can also find a free download of the Workplace Leadership Manifesto which 3edges co-wrote and published with Neil this January.

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Women working in construction sector three times more likely to miss out on promotion

Women working in construction sector three times more likely to miss out on promotion

Women working in construction sector three times more likely to miss out on promotion

The built environment still has some way to go to achieve gender parity a new report suggests, as women in construction are paid up to 45 percent less than men and are three times more likely to miss out on promotion than men due to perceived gender discrimination. According to the survey by Randstad of more than 5,500 construction workers and 540 employers across all job functions and levels – 75 percent of those passed over for a more senior role were women compared to 25 percent men. The findings  suggests women in the industry typically are not being given the same opportunities to progress as their male counterparts even though almost every respondent (93 percent) said having a female manager either wouldn’t affect their way of working or would in fact have a positive impact. More →

Productivity, retention and employee wellbeing improve when there is workplace trust

Productivity, retention and employee wellbeing improve when there is workplace trust

Quarter of employees have left their jobs because of a lack of trust

Being in a reliable work environment increases retention, productivity and employee wellbeing, while also promoting a better business culture, finds new research from Bupa. An examination of workplace trust and the impact on employee wellbeing reveals that over half (53 per cent) of employees considered it to be a major factor in whether they stayed or left a company. The research found that nearly a quarter of UK employees (24 per cent) have left their company due to issues around trust. Although trust is not a tangible workplace benefits, such as salary and bonuses, it is an essential variable in promoting harmony and productivity within an organisation and the study suggests how important it is within the workplace, and also the contribution it makes to the wellbeing of employees and the overall performance of a company. The study also asked employees how trust compares to other company benefits. Nearly two thirds (62 per cent) believe that trust is more important than a gym membership or company mobile, while over half value it more than a free canteen (56 per cent) and company car (55 per cent).

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BIFM to change its name to reflect greater focus on workplace issues and pursue chartered status

BIFM to change its name to reflect greater focus on workplace issues and pursue chartered status

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) has today announced plans to embrace ‘workplace’ as a key ‘differentiator’ for its members and to help establish facilities management as a chartered profession. The manifesto for change announced by BIFM Chair Stephen Roots, sets out to ‘reposition facilities management, emphasising its ability to make a real contribution to organisations’ performance’. It sets the Institute the ‘twin tasks of helping members to improve their skills and their status to meet the needs of modern organisations, and to raise the profile of facilities management and the understanding of the value it contributes’. The proposed new name is the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM).

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