May 17, 2018
Bosses warned about major leadership changes in a tech-driven economy
With companies holding ever greater amounts of data and facing heightened scrutiny through social media, employers need to consider the wider implications of their business decisions. This was the message of the President of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), who has warned business leaders and students in Birmingham of the challenges facing bosses in the rapidly evolving tech and data-driven economy. Speaking at the annual MacLaren Memorial Lecture at Aston University, Bruce Carnegie-Brown told the 200-strong audience that the digital revolution is having a transformative effect on the priorities of business leaders, which pose new management challenges. “The growth of social media has made an invaluable contribution in democratising the control of information, he said by, “increasing transparency through universalising access to data and doing it in real time”. Carnegie-Brown, who is also the chairman of Lloyd’s of London, added: “With information more accessible than ever before, those that own or collect data find themselves with huge amounts of power – both social and commercial. But with great power comes great responsibility and balancing these two forces is the greatest leadership challenge of today’s generation of business leaders.”
A third of UK office workers (30 percent) have admitted to only completing 1-4 tasks every day, according to a new report from Fellowes, which claims productivity levels in offices across the UK have fallen to a dramatic low. A quarter of workers admit they are unproductive for up to two hours a day, equating to a staggering 40 million-hours in lost productivity across the UK every week. Compared to data from Fellowes in 2017, the average office worker has lost an extra 30 minutes each day to productivity issues., office product specialists, released their second Productivity in the UK report today to help businesses understand what their employees need to increase output and the tools that can help. The study also found that over a third (38 percent) of office workers felt their employers weren’t doing enough to help their productivity and nearly half (40 percent) even went as far as to say they were more productive than their boss. On average Brits failed to meet deadlines at least once a week and 65 percent think a four-day working week would improve productivity.
It can be proven that a well implemented Occupational Health service can offer a good return on investment, finds a new report. A white paper, produced by the Society of Occupational Medicine (SOM), the International SOS Foundation and KU Leuven University, 
One in four working people aged 55+ with a health condition are considering leaving work as a negative culture and bureaucratic procedures put many off speaking to their employers until a crisis point. This is according to a new report from Ageing Better, ‘Health warning for employers: supporting older workers with health conditions’, which claims that employers are not properly supporting older workers experiencing long-term physical and mental health conditions. Health is the most important factor affecting older workers’ decisions to stop working before reaching State Pension age. Ageing Better’s research finds that early access to support, small adjustments to the workplace and working patterns, and empathetic management are crucial to enabling people to manage their health at work and remain in employment. But the research also found that workers are often put off speaking to employers until the last moment due to poor workplace culture and overly bureaucratic procedures.
May 1, 2018
No surprises in new report on future workplace trends
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design
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