Search Results for: opportunities

May 21, 2013

Flexible working boosts employee satisfaction and lowers business costs

by Tim Clapham • Comment, Knowledge, Technology, Workplace

May 2013 played host to Work Wise Week, an initiative from Work Wise UK that aimed to promote and encourage smarter working practices to the benefit of businesses and employees. Cultural, economic and social changes are affecting attitudes to how we balance work and personal lives, and increasingly, mobility and technology is shifting away the need for the traditional 9-5 work patterns, replacing it with more flexible working practices. There are many benefits of flexible working and, as such, we are seeing more businesses starting to understand that forcing employees to work in an office does not guarantee productivity. (more…)

May 13, 2013

Green responsibilities of the built environment highlighted by CIBSE

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News

We’ve already focused today on the role individuals can play in supporting the green agenda of their employers, but for those working within the built environment they may have particular responsibility when it comes to helping to reduce energy consumption and provide for the adaptation of buildings that respond to the challenges of climate change. This is the message from incoming CIBSE President, George Adams Engineering Director for Spie Matthew Hall, in his Presidential address, “Whole Life Thinking” where he stresses the need for a new energy engineering conscience and calls for an increased pace of action to improve the industry and reduce its environmental impact.

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May 10, 2013

Recruitment rates rise, but employers should be careful who they hire

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

There is mixed news on the recruitment front, with the latest Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG report on jobs hinting a positive turn, with permanent placements accelerating, the rate of demand for permanent staff remaining solid and average starting salaries continuing to rise. However, according to a new global report, employers are urged to be cautious about who they hire, because more than half of employers in each of the ten largest world economies say that a bad hire has negatively impacted their business, pointing to a significant loss in revenue or productivity or challenges with employee morale and client relations.

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May 1, 2013

Resistance to workplace change marks the passing of the old order

by Martin Brooker • Comment, Facilities management, Technology

When Vodafone announced in March that the UK’s businesses could save up to £34 billion with the more widespread application of flexible working models, the research to support the claim had two very familiar components. The first was a crystal clear business case, the second an admission that the message was still not quite getting through to those at the top. In fact, Vodafone claimed, around two-thirds of business leaders continue to insist their business can’t afford to reduce the number of workstations they use despite all evidence to the contrary. A third haven’t even considered the idea of reducing the number of workstations they use as a way of cutting costs.

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April 30, 2013

New survey reveals risks of cutting costs in corporate real estate

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property

A new report from Jones Lang LaSalle claims to highlight how those firms who see their property as a driver of added value rather than a cost reap rewards in the form of higher revenue, employee performance and shareholder returns. In contrast, those firms who view their facilities as a cost and seek to reduce those costs for short term gain are, in fact, storing up long term problems and risks. JLL’s report – Global Corporate Real Estate Trends – claims to reveal the top five corporate real estate risks, including negative impacts on competitive advantage and profitability from cost cutting, procurement processes, lack of collaboration between functions and failure to drive productivity.

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April 22, 2013

Global dissatisfaction with work life balance on the rise

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

More than one in four employees (27 per cent) at organizations that are not perceived to support work-life balance plan to leave their companies within the next two years, according to new research from Hay Group. At the same time, work-life balance concerns across the globe are on the rise, with 39 per cent of employees indicating that they did not have a “good balance” between work and personal life, compared to only 32 per cent who reported the same in 2011. “Organizations across the globe continue to ask their employees to ‘do more with less’, leading to increasing dissatisfaction with work-life balance,” said Mark Royal, senior principal at Hay Group Insight.

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April 19, 2013

Flexibility not finance motivates Generation Y workers

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Workplace

Millennial or Generation Y workers are not the bunch of entitled youths we’ve been led to believe. Those born between 1980 and 1995 say they would choose workplace flexibility, work/life balance and the opportunity for overseas assignments over financial rewards. PwC’s NexGen survey reveals that millennials view work as a thing rather than a place that requires a traditional nine to five routine, so are more likely to stay in a job if they feel supported and appreciated, are part of a cohesive team and have greater flexibility over where and how much they work. This contrasts with the non-millennial generation, who place greater importance on pay and development opportunities.

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April 19, 2013

Female-friendly employers named as progress of women in boardrooms stalls

by Sara Bean • Comment, Knowledge, News, Workplace

In an interview this week on BBC’s Newsnight, Facebook’s CFO Sheryl Sandberg, revealed how she’d come to notice a growing gender imbalance as she moved up the corporate ladder. As her new book Lean in, points out, 30 years after women became 50 per cent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions. This is just one of many reasons why the publication this week of the Times Top 50 Employers for Women list of the UK organisations that are leading the way in gender equality in the workplace is to be welcomed.

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April 17, 2013

Older workers remain untapped resource for employers

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, Legal news, News, Workplace

Employers who ignore Britain’s growing population of older workers could suffer skills shortages and lose an important competitive edge, warns a new government guide. “Employing older workers”, published by the Department for Work and Pensions, warns that Britain is running out of workers. There are 13.5 million job vacancies which need to be filled over the next ten years, but only seven million young people are projected to leave school and college over that time. Yet despite a predicted surge in numbers of employees over 50, employers remain reluctant to recruit older people.

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April 16, 2013

UK employers gain confidence to start recruitment of new staff

by Sara Bean • Knowledge, News, Public Sector, Workplace

UK businesses are slowly gaining confidence in hiring new staff this year and the majority of employers (79 per cent) don’t plan any job losses. This is according to the Barclays Job Creation Survey 2013 which found that while the proportion of larger employers that plan to create jobs this year has fallen to 65 per cent from 72 per cent in 2012, mid-sized businesses hiring intentions are up to 71 per cent from 65 per cent. The majority of those employers who do intend to hire remain cautious however, with 73 per cent planning to have sales growth lead to job creation as opposed to job creation creating sales (2012: 77 per cent).

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April 8, 2013

One St Paul’s offices attracts “new type” of City tenant

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property

A marketing campaign aimed at attracting non-traditional City occupiers appears to have paid off, with the entire 60,000 sqft office element of One St Paul’s in the City of London being let to a single tenant. Genesis Oil and Gas Consultants Ltd has agreed a 15-year lease for all six storeys of bespoke office space, and will take possession upon handover of the building works during the summer of 2013, with the aim of moving its headquarters in the autumn. The deal marks the culmination of AXA Real Estate’s reworking of the property as a major mixed-use redevelopment scheme.

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April 4, 2013

Employers want default retirement age back finds survey

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Nearly half (47 per cent) of employers surveyed by global law firm Eversheds would like the Default Retirement Age (DRA) reinstated. Two years ago, on 6 April 2011, the Government changed the law to start phasing out the DRA. While the overwhelming majority (97 per cent) say their organisation no longer operates a mandatory retirement age, many report that the change in the law has had negative effects for their organisation: two-thirds cited difficulties in succession planning whilst just under half reported that opportunities were being blocked for younger workers. (more…)