September 12, 2018
Work&Place new issue showcases most informed and challenging workplace thinking
The new issue of Work&Place has been published and is free to read on the journal’s new website. Its overall readership is now around 100,000, including in the new Spanish language edition, so it’s not just more accessible, it is even more influential. The journal continues to explore the most cutting-edge ideas surrounding the physical, digital and cultural domains in which we work. The convergence of these elements of the workplace define the greatest challenges we face in the workplace of the early 21st Century. Some of these are addressed in the features included in this edition.









Fears of robots taking workers’ jobs appear to have lessened over the last year, a new report has suggested. Research from Perkbox and SEMrush examined fears of robots at work according to online searches from January 2015 to June 2018 in the UK and found that in just one year, from 2015 to 2016 the phrase ‘will robots take my job?’ increased from zero to 1,600 average monthly searches. In 2017, the phrase was searched 197,800 times/monthly on average. In 2018 so far, the average has dropped but it remains relatively high regardless (57,833 searches). According to online searches with keyword ‘robots’ and ‘work,’ people are gradually becoming more concerned about what jobs robots will replace first. The phrase ‘what jobs will be replaced by robots? was rarely searched in 2015. However, in 2016-17 the number rose from 200 searches/monthly on average (2016) to 2,400 on average in 2017 (a 1,100 percent increase). 









The majority of employees are disappointed with their company’s lack of investment in technology, and despite the fact three quarters (76 percent) want to request flexible working – almost half still don’t have the option of working more flexibly, a new report from a technology company claims. According to the survey by technology company Ingram Micro Cloud UK, in collaboration with technology company Microsoft, despite the fact that Millennials and Centennials are often thought to be the driving force behind changing workplace practices – and are often derided in popular discourse for having unreasonable and unrealistic expectations – the calls for change are coming from all segments of the workforce. However, 85 percent of Millennials admit to procuring their own workplace technologies such as instant messaging, Skype, file hosting and sharing tools (all available from Ingram Micro Cloud) that aren’t supported or provided by their employer, which raises major security issues, acco.
A major global report has revealed a lack of confidence in data is limiting corporate success in the emerging era of robotics and automation. The global research launched by Qlik, has revealed an escalating skills gap preventing business decision-makers asking the right questions of data and machines. Despite 


September 12, 2018
Reinventing jobs for an automated future workplace
by Ravin Jesuthasan • AI, Comment, Technology
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