Search Results for: leadership

Tech firms’ grip on best place to work lists may be starting to slip

by • News, Workplace, Workplace design

Google best place to workTechnology firms now routinely dominate lists of the best place to work, but there are signs at least that their dominance may be waning slightly. According to a new survey of the best places to work in the US and UK compiled by jobs website Glassdoor, Google tops a list of the 50 best places to work in the US. The survey is restricted to firms with 1,000 or more employees who have received at least 50 reviews based on a 1 to 5 scale over the last 12 months. This methodology inevitably presents a skewed picture. Nevertheless, there may be something to conclude from Apple only making 22nd place, Facebook’s fall from 5th to 13th, LinkedIn’s slip from 3rd to 23rd and Twitter’s fall from 2nd to nowhere. Meanwhile in the UK, John Lewis’s longstanding focus on employees saw it grab one of the top five spots alongside the likes of Microsoft and Google.

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ILM issues management guide to office Christmas party etiquette

by • Legal news, News, Workplace

Institute of Management issues an employers' guide to Christmas party etiquette We’re well into the office Christmas party season and with it comes the usual management warnings; however, this one comes from the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) so it’s worth taking notice. A survey by ILM reveals some pretty predictable misdemeanours; including almost 9 out of 10 workers (87%) seeing colleagues drink too much and 48 per cent having gone to work with a hangover after their office party, but over a quarter (28%) also admit to having heard staff revealing their colleagues’ secrets. There are consequences of such indiscretion, with more than half the managers surveyed (51%) saying they would reprimand workers for being rude to each other, while 28 per cent would tell workers off for revealing their colleagues’ secrets. And keen to dodge the line of fire themselves; 41 per cent of managers would reprimand staff for shouting at the boss. (more…)

Whatever you might hear, the death of the office is still some way off

by • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

I was recently asked to join a roundtable about the future of office working at the offices of The Guardian newspaper. Being a simple soul I was quite confused to be asked about the ‘death of the office’ whilst sitting in an office. It seemed not only alive, but also very present. But maybe the sun is starting to set on that way of working. You can find the overview here and I’d draw your attention to the fact that according to The Guardian I had, after 2 hours, reached a point where I was ‘speaking for the whole meeting’. I’m sure I only spoke for part but it may have seemed more to others present. (more…)

London Mayor names Business Energy Challenge Gold award winners

by • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

ExCelLondon mayor Boris Johnson has presented RICS, JLL, EC Harris LLP, ExCeL London (above), Intu, and Linklaters LLP, with Gold awards at the Business Energy Challenge awards, which celebrate private sector businesses that have made the biggest cuts to their energy consumption and use cleaner, greener sources of energy. Fifty-nine participants had submitted data over a six week period and were assessed on the carbon intensity per square metre of their properties; with 27 of the most successful being given a Bronze, Silver or Gold award to recognise their efforts when compared against their baseline 2010/11 energy usage. Around 75 per cent of London’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions come from buildings, with workplaces accounting for 42 per cent of total emissions. With 80 per cent of London’s buildings likely still to be operational in 50 years’ time and with much of that estate being energy inefficient the Mayor has set out a building retrofit programme. The Business Energy Challenge aims to challenge the commercial sector to take action and improve its energy efficiency to help save on operational costs. (more…)

Arup and UCL report offers up lessons from smart cities pioneers

by • Cities, Knowledge, News, Technology

smart citiesA new report published by engineering and design consultancy Arup and University College London claims that the pioneers of the smart cities movement need to take a more strategic approach to ensure that their spending on IT infrastructure is effective in meeting their objectives. The report Delivering the Smart City: Governing Cities in the Digital Age is based on research of eight cities including London and Bristol in the UK alongside a number of other prominent global cities such as Chicago, Barcelona, Stockholm and Hong Kong. The report found that the cities spend an average of 6 percent of their expenditure on IT services and technology, which amounts to approximately £23 million per city across the study and is roughly equivalent to the amount budgeted in the financial services sector worldwide. While the authors welcome this as a sign that tech spending is taken seriously, they also claim that more could be done to target this spending effectively and tailored to the specific needs of each city depending on factors such as its ‘ecosystem’, culture and governance. It believes that the lessons from this are appropriate to all cities, not just those already pursuing a smart agenda.

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The leap in workplace ill health is down to mobile devices and flexible working

by • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Technology, Workplace design

flexible workingAccording to latest HSE statistics, the UK has seen a huge jump in the number of cases of workplace musculoskeletal disorders over the last two years. The data makes for depressing reading and includes a 20 percent hike in the number of cases to more than half a million, 8.3 million lost working days and a sharp increase in the proportion of work-related illness associated with the condition. Of the 535,000 new illnesses reported in the UK in 2013/14, over a third were musculoskeletal disorders; 184,000 cases. All of which begs the question what exactly is going on to cause this leap. Anecdotally we are aware of a number of factors that might indicate the smoking gun. The first is that clients are talking to us more and more about upper limb disorders rather than those related to the lower back. Pains and illnesses in the lower back are commonly (but not always) associated with poor posture while working at a desktop PC, injuries and aches to the wrists, arms, neck and shoulders are more commonly seen in people with handheld devices especially smartphones and tablets.

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Workplace Week focuses on the office and individual productivity in all its forms

by • Events, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

1KP_4971The holy grail of improving people’s productivity was the focus of this year’s Workplace Week, which took place last week from 3-7th November and raised more than £12,500 for Children in Need. The annual event organised by AWA and designed as a celebration of workplace innovation, included visits to 11 workplaces showcasing the latest techniques to get people performing at their very best, a day-long convention and a series of Fringe events. Andrew Mawson, who heads up AWA, opened the convention by setting the discussion in context. “We have maximised asset productivity by getting more people into buildings, and therefore working a building harder. But we need to focus on human productivity. If each organisation could make each person just 5 per cent more productive, that would have a major impact both on that organisation and the wider economy. In the knowledge economy we need to get the very best performance out of each and every brain on the payroll and to create the conditions that consciously support that.

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Worldwide fall in levels of trust by employees in their workplace leaders

by • News, Workplace

Deterioration in levels of trust by staff towards workplace leadersThey say a fish rots from the head, and with overwhelming evidence this week that workplaces are torn by backbiting, lying and bitching, a global analysis on workplace trust reveals a deterioration in the levels of trust employees have for their bosses. Interaction Associates annual workplace trust research, Building Workplace Trust 2014/15, found that more than half of the people surveyed gave their organisation low marks for trust and effective leadership. More than half of the 500 people surveyed at companies worldwide, give their organisation low-to-poor marks for trust and effective leadership. When asked to rate the statement “Employees have a high level of trust in management and the organisation”, just four out of ten agreed. The majority (58%) found their organisation lacking, and in fact, trust may be going from bad to worse at many organisations, as  a quarter (26%) of those surveyed say they trust their boss less this year than in 2013.

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Unethical behaviour at work may reflect a blame culture with little trust or integrity

by • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace

Unethical behaviour at work can reflect a blame culture In the same week Mind revealed that many workers are reluctant to admit to feeling stressed, comes data which shows high levels of unethical behaviour in Britain’s workplaces. And the two pieces of research are not unrelated. In a survey of over 1,600 managers by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), almost three quarters (72%) had witnessed employees lying to cover their mistakes, with the same number reporting their colleagues cut corners and delivered substandard work. A further 68% had seen people badmouthing team members behind their backs. The fault lies in workplaces that foster a blame culture, where staff are worried about owning up to mistakes. This causes undue stress and people taking a combative, rather than collaborative approach. The findings formed part of ILM’s ‘The truth about trust’ report into trust and integrity in the UK workplace, which highlights the business benefits of high-trust high-integrity working environments. (more…)

Two new reports claim firms and employees are out of step on flexible working

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

flexible workingThe two latest stones to be tossed into the flexible working maelstrom in the hope of creating a ripple both suggest that employers are out of step with the expectations of their staff when it comes to working hours and conditions. The CIPD launched a new report Getting Smart About Agile Working, at the start of its annual conference in Manchester on 5 November which claims that a third (35 percent) of employees would like to change their working arrangements with nearly half (43 percent) saying they would most like to change the start or finish time of their working day. Meanwhile a separate report from BUPA claims that half of employees of SMEs think their employees underestimate the part that benefits including flexible working have to play in the overall feel of the company, and a similar number (51 percent) believe that not offering such benefits damages an employer’s attractiveness to new recruits.

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Badmouthing, arse-covering and bluff are main unethical behaviours in workplace

Badmouthing, arse-covering and bluff are main unethical behaviours in workplace

by • Knowledge, News, Workplace

devils-dictionaryA new report from the Institute of Leadership and Management reveals the most common unethical behaviours displayed by employees in the workplace. Unsurprisingly they form a catalogue of low-level, generalised obfuscation, bluff, blame-shifting, bullshit and outright lying that will be very familiar to many people. The three most cited unethical behaviours according to the survey of 1,600 managers are cutting corners (72 percent), lying to cover one’s own mistakes (72 percent) and badmouthing colleagues (68 percent). People are, unsurprisingly, also prone to pass the buck when they miss deadlines (67 percent), cover up for the mistakes of colleagues (63 percent) and pinch low value items from work (52 percent). The ILM claims in its ‘The Truth About Trust’ report that these behaviours arise from a miasma of misunderstanding of what might be considered unethical behaviour, although equally they could just be things that people do if they think they can get away with them.

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Report claims business ethics are linked to performance

by • News, Workplace

business ethicsCompanies with well defined and consistent ethical policies are both more stable and more commercially successful, according to a new report published this week by the Chartered Management Institute. Based on a self-reporting survey of 2,500 CMI members the study found that over a third (37 percent) of managers in growing companies rate their own ethics as high, compared to just 19 percent in businesses that are contracting, which suggests a correlation if not causation. Just under a third (29 percent) of managers rate their organisation’s ethical standards as mediocre or poor. Senior managers also appear to have a more positive idea of their own organisation’s ethical standards than those in more junior and front line roles. Nearly half (48 percent) of senior managers believe their organisation has excellent ethical behaviour, compared to just a fifth (22 percent) of junior managers.

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