April 30, 2020
Proposed “immunity certificates” allowing individuals to move freely in society could lead to discrimination, claims Edgar Whitley, Associate Professor from London School of Economics’ Department of Management, and other contributing experts in a new report. (more…)
April 28, 2020
Office work has existed in some form ever since people started writing on tablets and papyrus. Depictions of clerical staff are common in the Bible and on the walls of pyramids. In the mid 14th Century the Church of San Nicolò, commissioned the artist Tomaso da Modena to create the fresco in the chapter room of the church depicting forty monks of the order hard at it at their desks. The word office itself derives from the famous Uffizi in Florence, created in 1560. (more…)
April 24, 2020
The coronavirus crisis has already cost UK SMEs an average £277,893 each – and 64 percent expect their revenues to decrease by half in coming months, according to a nationwide survey released by Fiverr. The study of 1,000 SME owners and decision makers in 19 cities across the UK also claims that nearly one in three (29 percent) of UK SMEs plan to increase flexible working post-pandemic. (more…)
April 23, 2020
Despite a fall in carbon emissions from buildings as a result of the lockdown, businesses can do much more to cut carbon and save costs during the COVID-19 lockdown reveals latest data from Carbon Intelligence which tracked and analysed energy usage from 300 buildings during this period. (more…)
April 16, 2020
A new report from HR software provider Breathe, suggests that the cost of toxic workplace culture is around £15.7 billion per year in the UK. The report, The Culture Economy 2020 (registration), claims that 1 in 5 (21 percent) of SME employees alone quit their job due to poor workplace culture last year. (more…)
April 13, 2020
One of the surprising consequences of the current lockdown for many people is that they are sleeping more soundly. A new study claims that nearly two thirds of people are getting the same amount or more sleep than they were before the UK went into lockdown on March 23rd. However the report also uncovered some troubling attitudes amongst groups of people, even though the majority are informed and behaving as advised. (more…)
April 7, 2020
Manchester could be set to see an influx of tech talent in the next three years, according to new research from CWJobs, the UK’s leading tech job board. Surveying 1,000 tech workers, Manchester emerged as the top choice outside of the capital (22 percent) to work in, with a fifth (20 percent) also revealing it’s the city they would choose to set up a tech business in the next three years, ahead of Birmingham (11 percent) and Edinburgh (8 percent). In the same survey, 505 IT decision makers (IT DM) also placed Manchester as the best location to set up a tech business, with over a quarter (27 percent) choosing the city. (more…)
March 27, 2020
The use of nudge theory in the UK government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has raised some fresh questions about the applicability of the idea. The idea – that people can be encouraged to make significant changes in their behaviour with small interventions – has gained widespread acceptance around the world. While some have argued that the use of nudge theory in the initial response was questionable, other analysis has suggested it did have an effect. (more…)
March 18, 2020
Britain’s digital sector is growing at six times the pace of the country’s other industries, according to new research from Tech Nation. According to the annual study, technology businesses contributed around £149 billion to the UK economy in 2018, nearly 8 percent of GDP. Since 2017 staff numbers at digital companies have risen by 40 percent to 2.9 million, nearly tenth of the total UK workforce. (more…)
March 5, 2020
Despite holding firm in 16th place, the UK is being outpaced by greater improvements in female employment prospects in other OECD countries, according to PWC’s latest Women in Work Index, which analyses female economic empowerment across 33 OECD countries. While the UK performs above the OECD average and is second only to Canada when compared to other G7 economies, its position has barely budged since 2000 when it stood in 17th position, despite improving its performance across all five indicators. (more…)
February 28, 2020
UK employers claimed £35 billion of free labour last year because of workers doing unpaid overtime, according to an analysis of official statistics published today by the TUC. More than 5 million people put in an average of 7.6 hours a week in unpaid overtime during 2019, it claims. On average, that equates to having £6,828 taken out of individual pay packets. (more…)
February 28, 2020
Nearly half of UK workers admit to being greener at home than they are in the office, although more and more are realising the importance of green habits, research by Instant Offices has suggested. With the government committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, the workspace innovation company has been investigating what more employers can do to help to lead the way by instituting greener practices. (more…)
