July 23, 2021

HRIS software sets out on a people-centric future

by Freddie Steele • Company news, Technology, Workplace

In the past, Human Resources Information System (HRIS) software was largely created with the needs of HR professionals and system administrators in mind. The future of HRIS however, is an employee-centric system which has been come to be known as an Employee Experience Platform (EXP). PeopleSpheres is an EXP that centralizes all HR functions within a single portal. With this tool, employees and HR teams alike can seamlessly navigate between the different HR applications within their organisation while being confident that they have the best tools on the market to manage each part of the employee life cycle. (more…)

July 21, 2021

British Safety Council launches updated Five Star Audit specifications for 2021

by Jayne Smith • News

The British Safety Council has revised and updated their Five Star Occupational Health and Safety Audit. It now places greater emphasis on assessing how effectively an organisation manages the combined risks to workers’ health and wellbeing, as well as business resilience and recovery. (more…)

July 15, 2021

The weird science of personal creativity

by Robin Bayliss • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Perhaps the most famous single act of personal creativity – with apologies to Archimedes – is Mary Godwin’s moment of inspiration for the story of Frankenstein in 1816. It was born from a wet summer in a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva, largely spent with her future husband Percy Shelley, John Polidori and Lord Byron. The poor weather and isolation meant the party had to entertain themselves the best they could. (more…)

July 14, 2021

Time to get real on what companies need from their real estate

by Dotan Weiner • Comment, Property, Wellbeing, Workplace design

As businesses return to their offices they are faced with a challenge – how do they reappraise their space requirements post-Covid? Social and technological advancements are changing real estate from being a fixed physical product, into flexible, employee-centric spaces that enable new models of hybrid working and business operations. These have a significant impact on the ways that businesses work and the options available to them. (more…)

July 14, 2021

Shaping London’s future: Mayor’s Resilience Fund Winners Announced

by Jayne Smith • Cities, News

The Mayor of London, in partnership with Nesta Challenges, has announced the winners of the Mayor’s Resilience Fund, a £1 million innovation programme set up to support London’s businesses and community groups to emerge stronger from COVID-19 and to ensure the capital is prepared for future disruptive challenges. (more…)

July 13, 2021

The office is everywhere and nowhere, baby

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Podcasts, Premium Content, Workplace design

Workplace Insight and IN Magazine publisher Mark Eltringham recently took part in a lively episode of the Nowhere Office podcast with Julia Hobsbawn, Stefan Stern and Joanna Swash. They considered the current nature of work, what long term changes we can expect to emerge now and the role of working culture in providing a great experience for everybody, whoever and wherever they are – and whenever they might work. (more…)

July 13, 2021

Purpose, responsible business and diversity key priorities for companies

by Jayne Smith • Business, News, Wellbeing, Working culture

Organisational purpose, responsible business practices and diversity are growing in importance at Board level and for HR teams, as employers make the connection between good environmental, societal and governance practices and business growth, according to survey findings from the Reward & Employee Benefits Association (REBA) and Mercer Marsh Benefits (MMB). (more…)

July 13, 2021

Four in five employees feel colleagues aren’t heard equally

by Jayne Smith • News, Working culture, Working lives

As organisations increasingly struggle to retain their current workforce as well as hire fast enough to keep up with consumer demand, new research from The Workforce Institute at UKG exposes a troublesome gap between employee voice and employer action that — if left unresolved — can disengage workers, fuel turnover, and hinder business performance. (more…)

July 9, 2021

Yoga is not a wellbeing strategy

by Stephanie Fitzgerald • Comment, Wellbeing

One of the problems facing businesses right now isn’t the so-called mental health pandemic, it’s that no one seems to know what to do about it. The increased focus on employee mental health and wellbeing has seen progressive leaps in the conversation that were unimaginable 10 years ago. Even the most cynical manager has had to concede that the circumstances of the pandemic have raised the profile and importance of taking care of your employees. The reaction is knee-jerk. Companies want to do something about their employees mental health and wellbeing and they want to do it now. Whatever ‘it’ is. The appetite is there, but they can’t find the menu. (more…)

July 2, 2021

If you’re certain about the changing world of work, you’re certainly wrong

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Working culture

If you click on the first link in any article on Wikipedia and keep repeating the process, eventually you will land on the Philosophy page. Or you will 97 percent of the time, according to Wikipedia itself. There’s a dry explanation for this involving the site’s classification system, as explained by the mathematician Hannah Fry here. But there’s a more poetic explanation that I prefer. That every subject leads back to a consideration of ourselves, our lives and our place in the world. Anthropocentric maybe, but then again, the proper study of mankind is man. (more…)

July 1, 2021

The most critical HR topics of the post-pandemic era

by Jayne Smith • News, Workplace

HR leaders trying to navigate a rapidly changing workplace environment now have a clear set of objectives to focus on: digitisation, talent, and the future of work. That is the central finding of a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the World Federation of People Management Associations (WFPMA). The report is titled Creating People Advantage 2021: The Future of People Management Priorities. (more…)

June 29, 2021

Information findability problems impact companies’ bottom line

by Jayne Smith • News, Technology, Working culture

Over the past year, organisations experienced an increase in problems related to finding information, resulting in greater reliance on knowledge and information management tools than in previous years, according to a new survey by Sinequa and APQC. (more…)