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BSRIA launches urbanisation megatrends report

BSRIA launches urbanisation megatrends report

by • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

The Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) has launched a new report called Megatrends – Urbanisation (registration needed) which claims to look at the major forces that are shaping the ‘world in which we live and do business’. The report cites as inspiration a 2015 McKinsey report called No Ordinary Disruption, which examined ‘The Four Global Forces Breaking all the Trends’. The four key trends which McKinsey pointed to as already impacting on almost every society, or will do soon, are urbanisation, an ageing population, globalisation and the technological revolution.  Since 1950 there has been a massive global movement towards urbanisation. In 1950 fewer than 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. By 2010 this had reached 50 per cent and by 2050 the share is forecast to exceed two thirds of the world’s population. This represents one of the biggest and fastest human movements in history and the report sets out to explore its implications.

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Reduced hours do not necessarily lead to reduced workloads, study finds

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Professionals who want to work part-time have to do more than renegotiate their working hours; they also have to redesign their jobs to reduce outputs. Research published in the journal Human Relations, by Dr Charlotte Gascoigne from the Timewise Foundation and Professor Clare Kelliher from the Cranfield School of Management, shows that employers often do not reduce workload when professionals transition to part-time. This is not an insignificant problem for employers: one in five professionals and managers in the UK works part-time already, with more than two in five working part-time in the Netherlands. According to previous studies, a quarter of full-timers in the UK would prefer to work part-time, and are prepared to earn less, but don’t believe it’s possible.

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Over half of workers say they are more productive working from home than a chilly office

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Chilly offices mean that over half (57 percent) of office workers say they’d be more productive working from home when the weather gets colder. Their main reason is that too many workplaces (50 percent) do not handle weather complaints effectively. According to Office Genie’s survey of 1,105 British office workers, only 6 percent of employers encourage staff to work remotely in the colder weather. Bosses are also reluctant to let employees work flexibly instead of freeze, with only 16 percent of companies adopting flexible working patterns in the colder months. Even simple provisions such as supplying additional heaters are not in place in 70 percent of offices – failing to comply to the government’s Health and Safety Executive’s advice. Of the 1,105 office workers we surveyed, 50% said complaints about office temperatures aren’t dealt with effectively by management. And while HSE guidelines state workplaces shouldn’t dip below 16°C but when we asked workers their ideal office temperature, 20°C was the resounding answer.

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There is no clash of the digital and analogue worlds

by • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

Take no notice of the headline grabbing writers in the media. No battle lines are being drawn up between advocates of the analogue world of the 1960s/70s and those promoting the pioneering ideas for a bold digital 21st century. Despite the rhetoric written about driverless cars, being able to make phone calls by just thinking about who we want to call and the advance of artificial intelligence, we will almost certainly benefit from advances in technology.

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New Government plan to address employment barriers for disabled people

by • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

 

The Government has announced a new 10-year strategy to address employment prospects for disabled people and people with health conditions. In response to its Work, Health & Disability Green Paper consultation which closed earlier this year, the White Paper, Improving Lives: the Future of Work, Health and Disability sets out how the Government will work with employers, charities, healthcare providers and local authorities to break down employment barriers for disabled people and people with health conditions over the next decade. This will be delivered through in-work programmes, personalised financial and employment support, and specialist healthcare services. Currently, ill health that keeps people out of work costs the economy an estimated £100 billion a year, including £7 billion in costs to the NHS. Two new employment trials will also be launched in the West Midlands and Sheffield City Region combined authorities to provide employment support. The Government is also investing around £39 million to more than double the number of Employment Advisors in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services.

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New intellectual property protection initiative launched for workplace and interior design

by • Furniture, Legal news, News, Workplace design

The Society of British and International Design (SBID) has launched the SBID Intellectual Property (IPP) initiative to mark the new campaign to prevent IP theft in the interior design industry. Developed in association with TM – Eye, with the aim of assisting the industry to obtain objective evidence of design ownership, the venture updates the archaic discourse on intellectual property in design and will raise awareness of what designers need to do to properly protect their work. The issue is one of stolen ideas after a commercial presentation, without consent or a fee, a problem that has plagued the interior design industry and left owners/creators feeling like they had no legal support to refer to. This could typically be the theft of ideas created in an interior designed space or product. This has not only been an ongoing problem for business investors in all creative sectors of design and manufacture, but also a problem for consumers who are put at risk, completely unaware when they purchase a look-alike product, to find a poorly manufactured copy without tested safety marques that could cause untold damage to property.

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The missing LINC between the office and the future of work

by • Features, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace design

There is a theory that if you want to know how the economy is doing, you ask a taxi driver. The basis for this idea is that they are the first to know when money is getting tight, because people make more use of buses and tubes. In a similar way, one of the best ways of gauging workplace trends is to ask an office furniture company. They’ve always functioned in a fiercely competitive market, but are also the first to notice an economic downturn or a shift in the structure of their markets.

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Managers with a high IQ might be too clever for their own good when it comes to leadership

by • News, Workplace

The perfectly obvious assumption that there is a direct correlation between high intelligence and fitness leadership has been called into question by researchers from the University of Lausanne. In a paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the team of academics suggest that too much intelligence might actually harm the effectiveness of leaders, describing the correlation between IQ and perceived leadership ability as ‘curvilinear’. This means that, at a certain level of intelligence, people can become too clever for their own good – and the good of their colleagues and employer.

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The contribution of personality to the performance of agile workers

by • Features, Flexible working

The introduction of agile working into organisations has typically focussed on the workstyles of different job roles, but has tended to treat the jobholders within these groups in the same way. The successful introduction of new ways of working clearly relies on the willingness of the people occupying the job roles to embrace new ways of working; yet there has been little investigation of the needs of agile workers with different personality types beyond looking at the needs of extroverts and introverts. These studies have tended to focus on the workplace; for example, the Cushman Wakefield Workplace Programme briefing paper examines how organisations can accommodate the needs of extroverts and introverts working together in the workplace. However, using OCEAN personality profiles, Nigel Oseland found that different personality types have different preferences, which in turn are likely to affect their performance at work.

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Millions of unemployed over 50s struggle more than young people for jobs

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

New data published today shows that the over 50 age group experience an ‘unemployment trap’ – meaning they are more likely to be out of work than younger age groups, and once unemployed they struggle more than younger jobseekers to get back into employment. Currently almost a third of 50-64 year olds in the UK are not in work – some 3.3 million people. Within this, 29 percent are recorded as ‘economically inactive’ – not engaged in the labour market in any way – which is more than twice the rate of those aged 35-49 (13 percent). It is estimated that around one million of the over 50s who are out of work left employment involuntarily due to issues such as ill health, caring responsibilities or redundancy. Some 38 percent of unemployed over 50s have been out of work for over a year, compared to 19 percent of 18-24 year olds and the Centre for Ageing Better claims that employment support is failing this age group.

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Warnings of widening gender pay gap as women are hit hardest by low pay

by • Comment, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

 

It is Equal Pay Day today (Friday 10th November) – the day in the year which is marked in the calendar as the one where women start to work for free, and the campaigning charity the Fawcett Society has warned that the pay gap is actually widening for some groups of women and will now take 100 years to close, based on the current rate of change. Research by the Living Wage Foundation published to mark the day has also revealed women are hit hardest by low pay in the UK. Women make up nearly two thirds (62 percent) of workers currently struggling to make ends meet on less than the real Living Wage claims the Foundation, which amounts to 3.4 million women compared to 2.1 million men. Nearly 1/3 of all UK working women (26 percent) are still earning less than the Living Wage, compared to just 16 percent of all working men. And this trend has been the case since 2011, when KPMG and the Living Wage Foundation launched its annual Living Wage report.

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One in four retired Britons return to work within 15 years, research shows

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Around one in four retirees in the UK return to work or ‘unretire’, mostly within five years of retiring, according to research by The University of Manchester and King’s College London. The researchers have found that while ‘unretirement’ is common, men are more likely to unretire than women, as are people in good health, those who are better educated and those still paying off a mortgage. People who report having financial problems before retiring are not more likely to unretire than those without, nor are those with lower incomes. After ten years, a retiree’s chances of returning to paid work are low. The research concludes that recently retired people, aged both above and below the state pension age, represent a pool of potential labour, if the right opportunity presents itself. They are a group that should not be forgotten by policies aiming to keep older people in work, say the researchers.

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