April 29, 2022

Working from home can present particular challenges for women

by Rachel King • Comment, Flexible working

The pandemic has brought with it many different trials and tribulations over the course of the past few years. An area that has impacted teams across the country, and the world, has been working from home and other forms of remote work. Once a necessity imposed by the UK government to stop the spread in the early stages of the pandemic, it has now become a part of working life for many people in many different sectors. It has offered many employees the new luxury of time: no commutes resulting in more time to spend with family and friends and creating a better work-life balance. (more…)

April 27, 2022

A third of workers think their jobs are at risk from automation

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology

A new poll claims that one in three (37 percent) employees consider their current job to be at risk from automation and digital transformation. HR software provider CIPHR has compiled a list of the occupations that are the most and least likely to be replaced by technology or machines, based on the results of a survey of more than 1,000 UK workers: www.ciphr.com/jobs-at-risk-from-automation. Survey respondents were asked to rate the likelihood that their own occupation could become automated in the future, due to advances in smart technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and robotics. (more…)

April 26, 2022

Growing number of firms link increased productivity to home and flexible working

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News

The number of employers who believe that an increase in homeworking and flexible working has increased their organisation’s productivity or efficiency has jumped significantly over the last year, according to new research from the CIPD. When asked in December 2020, a third (33 percent) of employers said homeworking had increased their organisation’s productivity or efficiency. However, when asked about increased home/hybrid working in October/November 2021, over two-fifths (41 percent) said these new ways of working had increased this. (more…)

April 22, 2022

Hybrid working and how we escape the constraints of leadership

by John Higgins and Jennifer Bryan • Comment, Flexible working

Jennifer was at the ballet the other day, watching Acosta Danza, and there was a dance with ropes. In the movement of the relationship of the dancers, the mood, the emotion were all defined using the rope. It was very beautiful. Then towards the end the ropes were taken away and everything changed – the performers were liberated, unconstrained. At first like a frenzy, but then the dancers started to gel together letting go of the need for the rope. And this got her thinking about the role of constraint in leading change, especially in the new era of hybrid working. (more…)

April 22, 2022

New episodes of Workplace Geeks land

by Freddie Steele • Flexible working, News, Podcasts, Premium Content

Two new episodes of Workplace Geeks have now joined the already impressive roster of the first season. In episode 5 – The other 90 percent: ‘A Toolkit for Living in a New Building’ – Chris and Ian explore a novel approach to the ‘post-occupancy evaluation’ (or POE) of new workplaces with Dr Harriet Shortt, Associate Professor in Organisation Studies at UWE Bristol. Harriet and her collaborators (including Stride Treglown and ISG) used a participatory visual technique featuring smartphone photographs to explore the lived experiences of staff, students and visitors using their brand new £55m Bristol Business School building. All participants were invited to respond with images and accompanying comments to two simple questions: How do you feel about the building and how are you using the building? (more…)

April 20, 2022

The effects of workplace change may not be the ones we expect

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

There’s a scene in the 1986 horror movie The Fly in which Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) persuades the reporter Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) to try two steaks, one of which Brundle has just sent between two teleportation pods in an effort to work out why the pods can’t process organic matter, including the organic matter that had recently belonged to a very unfortunate baboon. (more…)

March 29, 2022

Making sense of an uncertain but energetic return to some sort of normal

by Eugenia Anastassiou • Features, Flexible working

The first Omnirama event on the 23rd of March launched the series exploring different factors challenging the world of work in a time of prevailing uncertainty. Underlying Ominirama’s raison d’etre is that recent events have turned the status quo on its head with some major structural and systemic changes taking place. Nobody seems to have any clear idea of how to deal with this enormous transformation in the ways we work All the playbooks and all the guidance that we have all relied upon for so many years have now gone out the window. (more…)

March 25, 2022

New technology will increase size of workforce, poll claims

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

A new survey from Protiviti and the Oxford Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation at Kellogg College claims that 74 percent of global business executives believe that emerging and new technology will increase the size of the workforce in the next decade. It also suggests that 86 percent expect the types of jobs their employees will perform to be different from today — a figure that remains nearly unchanged regardless of where the leader’s company is headquartered globally. (more…)

March 21, 2022

The lumpy, bumpy uncertainty of the future of work

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

It’s now two years since we experienced the first true, sharp jolt of the pandemic. And even if we had now fully escaped its grip, the intervening 24 months would have proved transformational. The clichés, groupthink and glib takes may still shape much of the discourse about the ‘future of work’ but many of the instant experts of the Spring and Summer of 2020 now appear to have moved their insight on to other matters. And that leaves the rest of us with the task of working out what is actually going on. (more…)

March 21, 2022

ESG objectives now a priority for quarter of organisations

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

New research from Cloudera claims that more than one quarter (26 percent) of business decision makers are now putting increasing investment into environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives, ahead of developing new products/services (24 percent) or accelerating financial growth (21 percent). Additionally, knowledge workers believe as much as 49 percent of the data their business uses on a day-to-day basis should be focused on doing good for the communities it serves. This is a sentiment 52 percent of business decision makers agree with — a clear indication that profit and ESG are no longer mutually exclusive pursuits. (more…)

March 16, 2022

Younger workers say the pandemic has held back their careers

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

Businesses risk losing a whole generation of talent as nearly half (49 percent) of 18-34 year olds plan to quit their jobs in the next twelve months. That’s according to new research from Personio, which is calling on businesses to urgently re-engage this generation of workers – or risk even more problematic talent shortages as they navigate the year ahead. The research, which surveyed HR decision makers and workers in SMEs across the UK and Ireland, finds that 59 percent of younger workers (18-34 year olds) feel they’ve missed out on promotions they felt they were due. In addition, two thirds (66 percent) feel the pandemic has held them back in their career – suggesting that serious concerns around their career development and progression are influencing their decision to move on. (more…)

March 15, 2022

New ways of working and what we’ve learned about them over the past two years

by Jayne Smith • Flexible working, News

A report published by Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA): Change For Good: 10 Lessons From The Pandemic identifies what it says is the transformative effect of the new ways of working and why there is ‘no going back’ for employers or employees. (more…)