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Business leaders call for legislation ensuring compulsory mental first aid at work

Business leaders call for legislation ensuring compulsory mental first aid at work

by • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Business leaders call for legislation to establish mental first aid at workBusiness leaders have called today for the Government to update health and safety legislation to protect mental health in the workplace. In an Open Letter to the Prime Minister signed by more than 50 leaders of some of Britain’s biggest employers including PwC, Royal Mail, WHSmith, Mace, Ford and Thames Water calls on the Government to prioritise its manifesto pledge to amend health and safety legislation to put mental and physical first aid on an equal footing. With mental health issues estimated to cost the UK economy almost £35 billion every year as 15.4 million working days are lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety the letter, signed by the Chairman of Mental Health First Aid England and the CEO of Bauer Media Group, along with leaders of some of the UK’s biggest employers, are asking that workplaces are required to make provision for mental as well as physical first aid.

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A cheap day return to Farringdon, please

A cheap day return to Farringdon, please

by • Comment, Facilities management

Timing is everything. Re-launching a professional body while the country’s politics unceremoniously implode could not have been foreseen, but the vacuous space was full of the registered and invited, many with a trail of string going back a few decades or more. What a lovely gathering of old friends it was. On Monday 12th The BIFM formally changed its name to the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management. This event was to reveal the new creative collateral and celebrate the optimism/excitement/apprehension (delete as applicable).

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The most common workplace tactics for health promotion may be detrimental for overweight employees

The most common workplace tactics for health promotion may be detrimental for overweight employees

by • News, Wellbeing

Workplace health promotion programmes that encourage employees to take responsibility for their own weight may have detrimental effects for employees with obesity, reveals a new study. These range from feeling increasingly responsible for their weight but perceiving they have less control over it, to increased workplace weight stigma and discrimination. Ironically, these effects could even lead to increased obesity and decreased wellbeing. Published in Frontiers in Psychology, the study finds these pitfalls could be avoided through programs focusing on the employer’s responsibility to maintain employee health.

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Facebook is the new smoking, orgasms at work, a ghost airport and some other stuff

Facebook is the new smoking, orgasms at work, a ghost airport and some other stuff

by • Features

A slow news week here in the UK so the opportunity presents itself for quiet consideration of some important issues about the workplace. The big story has been the change of identity for the British Institute of Facilities Management, unveiled after weeks of debate and speculation. We’ll be running some commentary on what this all might mean in the next few days but for now, suffice it so say that any parallels with Brexit are entirely coincidental.

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Biophilic design the key to improving mental health, productivity and stress levels

Biophilic design the key to improving mental health, productivity and stress levels

by • Architecture, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

An expert panel at this week’s Welcome to the Biophilic Concrete Jungle event in London made the case for incorporating the principles of biophilic design into the workplace, including for health and wellbeing considerations, the promotion of productivity and to address workplace stress and urban disconnection from nature. HOK organised the event.  Panellists included Joyce Chan, Head of Sustainability and Trina Marshall, Regional Leader of Consulting from HOK, Professor Derek Clements-Croome from Reading University, Alexander Bond from Biophilic Design and Dr Ed Suttie from BRE.

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Two new studies set out business case for contemporary office design

Two new studies set out business case for contemporary office design

by • News, Workplace design

A brace of new reports sets out to identify the challenges organisations set themselves by inhabiting dated offices and how modern office design principles could address them. According to the Meeting Expectations report, released by K2 Space, workplace productivity is being impeded as a direct result of dated office design. The second study from Saracen Interiors focuses more on the role of office design as a recruitment tool. The reports follow the recent publication of a major report on similar themes from Worktech Academy and Fourfront Group.

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Employee cybersecurity only getting worse as digitised workplace grows

Employee cybersecurity only getting worse as digitised workplace grows

by • AI, Facilities management, News, Technology

cybersecurityNew research suggests as the supposed ‘technologically savvy’ millennials enter the workforce they are more likely than older workers to break the most basic of security rule, reusing passwords across different accounts. This is according to the results of the 10th Annual Market Pulse Survey from SailPoint Technologies Holdings, which finds that despite an increased focus on cybersecurity awareness in the workplace, employees’ poor cybersecurity habits are getting worse, which is compounded by the speed and complexity of the digital transformation. (more…)

Fostering creativity within organisations through space and culture

Fostering creativity within organisations through space and culture

by • Comment, Workplace design

In organisations around the world, hierarchical structures are breaking down, replaced by deeply interconnected, constantly shifting networks, linked by innovative technology. Meanwhile, huge leaps forward in artificial intelligence promise to fundamentally change the nature of work, either by enhancing or replacing human-beings. Research by McKinsey suggests that half of today’s work activities could be automated by 2055, with repetitive and process-based roles the first to go. For employees, this looks likely to mean a greater focus on creative skills, where humans retain an advantage. These skills are not restricted to being purely artistic, as creativity describes the process of problem-solving in a new way. The rise of creativity is also being driven by new generations entering the workplace with different demands and expectations than those before them.

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Gig economy set to boom to meet growing need for digital skills

Gig economy set to boom to meet growing need for digital skills

by • AI, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Gig economy set to boom to meet increasing need for digital skillsOver a quarter of businesses plan to hire temporary or contract staff in the next 12 months to help plug skills shortages created by digitalisation as more than half of CEOs are concerned about a lack of digital skills within their organisation. This is according to the Robert Half 2019 Salary Guide which argues that technology is reshaping businesses; with two in five UK organisations (38 percent) considering digitalisation as the main evolving force in the workplace today. This shift has created demand for a new set of skills, such as DevOps, data visualisation, data management and analytics. While softer skills such as resilience, adaptability and critical thinking remain key characteristics in potential employees, a third (31 percent) of employers state that a candidate’s technical skillset is their most important consideration when making a new hire. Around 1.6 million1 (28 percent) UK businesses plan to hire temporary or contract staff in the next twelve months, to combat the lack available talent required, which is creating a critical skills gaps in the workplace.

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Amazon dupes the world, the mystery of AI, a workplace zoo and some other things you may like

Amazon dupes the world, the mystery of AI, a workplace zoo and some other things you may like

by • Features

Sometime over the past few years, the search for possible locations for the latest tech giant palace has become something of a media preoccupation. Typical of the stories this quest generates is this piece in the New York Times about Google’s search for new property in the city. But the apotheosis of all this has been Amazon’s quest for a new HQ in the US, leading to an unedifying scrabble between municipal authorities keen to attract the lair of OmniCorp to their turf.

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Gen Z are technologically literate but not actually robots, Dell study confirms

Gen Z are technologically literate but not actually robots, Dell study confirms

by • News, Technology

Generation Z is entering the workforce, bringing with it a tech-first mentality that will propel businesses further into the digital era while potentially deepening the divide among five generations in the workplace. According to global research commissioned by Dell Technologies, post-millennials – those born after 1996 and known as Gen Z – have a deep, universal understanding of technology and its potential to transform how we work and live.

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Importance of mental wellbeing underlined on national stress awareness day

Importance of mental wellbeing underlined on national stress awareness day

by • Company news, Wellbeing

In the fourth of their series of wellbeing events leading flooring manufacturer Milliken invited Neil Shah (founder and Director or the Stress Management Society and best-selling author) to run an ‘excelling under pressure’ workshop. Interior designers and architects are known to be amongst the most stressed workers with tight deadlines, financial pressure and an ultra-competitive environment.

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