Search Results for: opportunities

December 30, 2015

UK Government opens consultation on its new national digital strategy ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Property, Technology

Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey has called on members of the public and industry to share their ideas on how the UK’s digital revolution can be taken to the next stage. The announcement of the consultation follows what the Government claims was a successful first stage of its strategy with the creation of digital clusters in East London, centred on Tech City. Five years on, the Government claims that the UK is now truly a ‘Tech Nation’ with more than 70 per cent of digital businesses now based outside of the capital. According to Vaizey, “this revolution has been led by entrepreneurs but supported by Government in creating the right environment for ideas and businesses to flourish. Government is now looking at a new Digital Strategy for the UK for the next five years. It wants the UK to be synonymous with digital – a place where digital technologies transform day-to-day life, the economy and government.”

December 9, 2015

Glassdoor announces lists of the best places to work for 2016 ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Case studies, News, Workplace, Workplace design

Job site Glassdoor has announced the winners of its annual Employees’ Choice Awards, honouring the best places to work across Europe and North America. The Awards are based on the input of employees who provide anonymous feedback by completing a company review about their job, work environment and employer. This year, Glassdoor has expanded the awards programme to include six categories, highlighting the Best Places to Work across the UK, France, Germany, US and Canada. This is the second time Glassdoor has identified the best places to work in the UK and the first time in both France and Germany. Winners are ranked based on their overall rating achieved during the past year based on a five point scale. According to Glassdoor, the top five UK Best Places to Work in 2016 are, in order: Expedia (average 4.4 rating), Hays Plc (4.4 rating), AKQA (4.2 rating), GE (4.2 rating), Schuh (4.1 rating).

December 8, 2015

Six human resources costs you might avoid by choosing the right office ⁰

by Darren Bilsborough • Comment, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

According to a report from Colliers International, the majority of commercial office space in Australia and New Zealand is occupied by government departments and firms working in the business services, finance and insurance sectors. Other than government and the Not for Profit (NFP) sector, a prime motivation for every CEO, business owner and manager is the search for increased profitability. In most instances, a business has three pathways to increasing profitability. The first is through increasing turnover or sales (assuming the cost base remains equitable), the second is through reducing costs, and the third is by improving productivity. I have previously written quite a lot about the relationship between office space and productivity increases, but this article will explore one of the most insidious elements associated with any businesses cost base (including government) and that is staff turnover.

December 4, 2015

Employees and managers value holidays and flexible working differently ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

It’s become an accepted piece of wisdom that at the top of every employee’s wish list when it comes to their working conditions is more flexible working. That might be not entirely true according to a new study of employees and managers carried out by recruitment firm Robert Half. The report suggest there is a significant mismatch between what employees want and what employers think they would like when it comes to holidays and flexible working and other conditions. Topping the wish list for employees is more holiday and annual leave, ranked most popular perk by almost four in 10 (38 percent) respondents and ahead of more flexible working hours (28 percent), more training or professional development opportunities (16 percent), home working/telecommuting (12 percent) and other corporate services such as ironing services or fitness centre (3 percent).

December 2, 2015

Lack of talent will hold back any investment in infrastructure and building ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Property, Workplace

When faced with inconvenient facts, there is always a temptation to just ignore them. It’s a temptation to which the big thinkers of the political class readily succumb, especially when they’re selling an idea. So it was with George Osborne’s Autumn Statement, which maintained the Chancellor’s commitment to using public sector spending on infrastructure to boost the economy. This intriguingly Keynesian way of thinking seems pretty seamless, especially while the memory endures of what happens when you use credit to grow the economy. But it rests on the assumption that there is a limitless supply of the right people to build things in the first place. The flaws in this way of thinking are already becoming evident with HS2, a project that continues to drain talent away from the rail network’s already disastrous investment programme. A growing number of voices are raised to point them out on other issues too.

December 1, 2015

How our preconceptions can lead us to fail the office design bench test

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

The office furniture design scene certainly came alive in the early 1990s. New ideas and new technologies wove themselves into the grand narrative of new ways of working. Everything was possible and there was no longer one best way of doing things. In New York, Chiat Day’s offices featured touch-down desks, garish crimson floors and walls and a reception framed by a huge pair of plastic, glistening lips. In Helsinki, Sol Cleaning Services did away completely with ideas as outmoded as desks and working hours. In the UK, British Airways gave their staff olive groves and indoor streams to work alongside. And in London a small media company called Michaelides and Bednash had offices that consisted of a room furnished with a single 20m long serviced table for its 20 staff to share. Such workplaces were surely one-offs, mere footnotes to the grand narrative.

November 25, 2015

This might be the reason why firms are failing to fully engage their employees ⁰

by Matias Rodsevich • Comment, Knowledge, Technology, Workplace

One of the enduring quests organisations continue to undertake is that for the fully engaged employee. They do this for very good business reasons. Managers who understand the benefits of employee engagement can expect to reap the substantial benefits of a more collaborative work environment. In turn, this will lead to an engaging and productive workspace. However, in a majority of organisations, employee engagement remains lower than 35 percent. In light of this principle, Impraise has conducted a study based on over 30 000 feedback interactions between hundreds of managers and employees to see how they would differ from each other when asking for feedback. The results that were found resulted to be interesting and gave a better understanding of the how engaged employees are, and what firms can do to address the chronic levels of disengagement.

November 23, 2015

The benefits of peeling back the layers of the workplace onion ⁰

by Darren Bilsborough • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

The onion metaphor is normally used to describe the layers which must be peeled away to get to the all-important “core” of a problem or issue. The biggest question that is normally asked with respect to choosing office space based on the promise of improved productivity, is quantifying the value of the various initiatives that might be contemplated or proposed. I can’t help but think of how complex that question is due to the many “layers” there are to work through to get to a final quantifiable answer. In its most simple form the question of productivity in the workplace, is confined to how staff utilise their time to undertake the tasks or duties that correspond to expected output. But of course it is not only their use of time, but the environmental influences associated their environment, both in the workplace, its surroundings (the actual building and the precinct in which it is located) and their method of travel to the office.

November 19, 2015

Stalled career progression could prompt rise in employee turnover ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

A lack of career opportunities is resulting in more people leaving their job and this increase in employee turnover is costing organisations thousands in lost productivity, finds a CEB survey of more than 12,000 employees worldwide. Traditional, linear career paths where employees climb the corporate ladder one promotion at a time are a thing of the past, but the resulting flat organisational structures mean employees spend more time at each level – roughly three more years than in 2010. This stalled progression has caused 70 percent of employees to be dissatisfied with their opportunities, leading to greater turnover. Rather than encouraging an environment where promotions are the measure of career progression, companies should build growth-based cultures where moves across functions are not only planned but encouraged says CEB. Doing so not only improves engagement but also helps improve the bottom line.

November 18, 2015

Women earn less than men because they make different choices, report confirms ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Workplace

In spite of its own attempts to link it to the gender pay gap a new report, Opportunities and outcomes in education and work: Gender effects, released yesterday by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), merely confirms that the key factors that determine how much people earn are the jobs they do and the hours they work. The report shows that male workers are paid on average 19 percent more than female workers. However, a report this year from the ONS confirmed that women now earn slightly more than men in like for like jobs up to the age of 35 and the UKCES report shows that it is career and personal choices that explain the gap in incomes across the whole economy. This confirms that the keys to closing the overall pay gap are for women to enter higher paying fields such as STEM and construction as well as employers offering flexible working arrangements and greater support for parents in their careers.

November 10, 2015

Employers have dodged UK recruitment crisis threat, claims CIPD ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Salaries are not likely to increase much next year, and despite predictions of a recruitment shortage, vacancies are still relatively easy to fill, the latest Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD claims. The quarterly survey of more than 1,000 employers shows that across all sectors just fifteen percent of current job vacancies are proving difficult to fill. It also reveals that, outside a limited number of industries, UK employers continue to be able to recruit the workers they need without significantly hiking wages and that median basic pay rises of just 2 percent are predicted by employers in the 12 months to September 2016. The research suggests that in general, most businesses are seeing a steady flow of suitable candidates, despite unemployment falling to a seven-year low in October and despite a slight year on year increase (44 percent – 49 percent) in the number of employers reporting any hard to fill vacancies.

November 5, 2015

Lacklustre recruitment processes can lead workers to turn down jobs ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

A third (34 percent) of UK workers have changed their mind in the last two years after accepting a job offer, choosing not to go ahead with the new role. Research from Office Angels, analysing the effectiveness of recruitment processes in the post-recession economy, found that nearly half (48 percent) of workers have received multiple job offers at the same time in the last 24 months. At the point of resignation, half (50 percent) received a counter offer from their existing employer. The research asked both hiring managers and job seekers their views on what makes an effective recruitment process. Almost all (96 percent) of workers view the speed of a job offer as a decisive factor when choosing between job opportunities at competing companies, two-fifths (41 percent) stated the most important part of being successfully recruited was a clearly defined recruitment process and 28 percent of workers consider cultural fit in making a decision.