Search Results for: opportunities

Robots will lead to increased productivity without stealing jobs, but wages will fall

Robots will lead to increased productivity without stealing jobs, but wages will fall

by • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

AI will take time to lead to higher productivity but it may also depress wagesRobots will not as feared steal people’s jobs and will eventually improve productivity, but they will undercut workers’ contribution sufficiently to depress their wages. According to the third report in Barclays Impact Series, titled Robots at the gate: Humans and technology at work, technology is fundamentally re-shaping the nature of work, and the implications of this re-shaping process will accelerate in coming decades. The report authored by Barclays’ Research team and supported by the Barclays Social Innovation Facility sets today’s technological advancements in the context of historical precedent and argues that robotics and Artificial Intelligence do not portend a jobless future. However, these new technologies have important macroeconomic consequences, such as wage disinflation, which will likely continue in the years or even decades to come. The report also argues that productivity spurts lag behind technological leaps, as it can take years or even decades for an economy to figure out how to best use a new technology. Eventually, economies of scale are reached, consumer behaviour adapts, companies refine their business models and productivity growth finally kicks in. More →

Local authorities spend £3.8bn on commercial property in last five years

Local authorities spend £3.8bn on commercial property in last five years

by • News, Property, Public Sector

Local authorities have invested around £3.8 bn in commercial property over the last five years, a new study claims. The report (registration required) from property consultancy Carter Jonas and Revo claims that of the £3.8 bn invested, nearly half was spent on the acquisition of office space. It found that Spelthorne Borough Council in Surrey (pictured)  was the largest local authority investor committing £477.1 m to assets within its domain. This is more than double its nearest rival Warrington Borough Council (£219.5 m) and is largely down to the purchase of BP’s International Centre for Business & Technology in Sunbury for £360 m.

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Lack of effort by UK employers to retain staff is increasing talent turnover

Lack of effort by UK employers to retain staff is increasing talent turnover

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Lack of effort by UK employers to retain staff is resulting in high talent turnover

UK employers are facing increasing levels of staff turnover with one in seven (14 percent), or roughly 4.5 million employees predicted to seek a new job in near future, according to research carried out by Robert Half UK. Employers have registered this shift with almost three in five (61 percent) reporting an increase in voluntary employee turnover in the last three years. The research also showed that over half (51 percent) expect employee turnover to increase in the next three years. Yet many businesses still fail to employ basic retention initiatives. Only half (47 percent) of organisations run training and development programmes to help build employees’ skills and support career development, while most don’t have any programmes in place to support employee wellbeing or reward performance. Organisations are also missing out on valuable insight from their departing employees, with more than four in five (83 percent) failing to undertake exit interviews.

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Brexit: CBI stresses importance of getting new rules right for UK construction

Brexit: CBI stresses importance of getting new rules right for UK construction

by • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

Brexit: CBI stresses importance of getting new rules right for construction

Brexit presents opportunities for rule changes in sectors such as agriculture, shipping and tourism that could ultimately benefit the British economy and consumers. This is according to a new CBI study, “Smooth Operations, compiled over a six-month period, which states that the opportunities for divergence are vastly outweighed by the costs of deviating from rules necessary to ensure smooth access to the EU market. Another important finding is that changes to rules in one sector have significant knock on effects for companies in other sectors and throughout supply chains. There are specific regulatory needs for the construction sector, according to the report, the first being regulatory convergence on rules for construction products and materials, vital to protect the competitiveness of manufacturers and avoid major barriers to trade. The CBI also argues that maintaining equivalence in procurement rules between the UK and EU is important, but there are still opportunities to improve how the UK procures work in the construction sector without diverging from EU rules.

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Quarter of workers say job negatively affects their mental health and a third feel overworked

Quarter of workers say job negatively affects their mental health and a third feel overworked

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Quarter of workers feel work negatively affects their mental health, finds CIPD report

One in four workers (25 percent) feel their job negatively affects their mental health, while nearly a third (30 percent) say their workload is too high, according to a brand new report from the CIPD, the UK Working Lives survey. Although the survey found that two-thirds of workers (64 percent) were satisfied with their job overall, one in ten (11 percent) report regularly feeling miserable at work. More than a quarter (28 percent) of senior leaders say that they find it difficult to fulfil personal commitments because of their job, while over a quarter (27 percent) say that their job does not offer good opportunities to develop their skills, jumping to two in five (43 percent) among unskilled and casual workers. Focusing on the three main groups in the labour market, those at the lower levels are far less likely to have access to skills and training, those in middle management feeling significantly squeezed by their workload and those at the top find it difficult to maintain a work/life balance.

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British employers are failing to prepare staff for automation

British employers are failing to prepare staff for automation

by • AI, News, Technology

UK employees aren’t being equipped with the skills required by an automated workplace, according to a new study from ADP. The findings suggest that despite a third (32 percent) of workers believing their job will be automated within 10 years and one in ten (10 percent) predicting it will happen in two, half of those affected (49 percent) say their employer isn’t preparing to train or reskill them for the new world of work. ADP surveyed 1,300 UK working adults across the country as part of The Workforce View in Europe 2018, which gives a snapshot of employees’ views about their jobs, workplace and career plans. The report claims that thousands of workers are worried about the prospect of mass automation and how this will impact their own career prospects if they aren’t prepared with the right skills.

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A vision of how the facilities management profession can embrace the modern workplace

A vision of how the facilities management profession can embrace the modern workplace

by • Facilities management, News

Following its March announcement of a proposed name change to reflect a greater focus on workplace issues, the British Institute of Facilities Management has published a new report to explore the relationship between FM and a nascent workplace discipline. According to the authors, the purpose of the report is to ‘highlight the opportunities and challenges that workplace presents for FM by exploring the relationship between FM and workplace – and considering how this relationship could change in the future’. While the report acknowledges that facilities managers have always addressed workplace issues as a core element of their role, recent developments in the way people work and the way firms think about their workspace have led to a new emphasis on workplace as a discipline coupled with a sense that its core principles are subject to a number of misunderstandings.

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Government announces details of new real estate agency

Government announces details of new real estate agency

by • News, Property, Public Sector

The UK government has announced the creation of the Government Property Agency (GPA) which will aim to ‘improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Government Estate and generate benefits of between £1.4 billion and £2.4 billion over the next ten years’. GPA’s initial portfolio of 80 properties will grow to over 1,000 as it takes on increasing responsibility for managing the general purpose central government real estate portfolio. This is intended to manage the government’s property portfolio strategically in order to realise the benefits that departments cannot achieve on their own. The GPA will partner with government departments to find innovative property solutions, and provide expertise to enable them to deliver wider business change more efficiently. More broadly, the GPA will also be an enabler for the delivery of Civil Service transformation, regional growth and the government’s vision to strengthen the Union.

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CIPD to co-chair Government’s flexible working task force

CIPD to co-chair Government’s flexible working task force

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The CIPD has been invited to co-chair the UK Government’s new Flexible Working Task Force. The task force has been established by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to promote wider understanding and implementation of inclusive flexible work and working practices, bringing together policy-makers, employer groups, Unions and employee representative groups, research groups and professional bodies.  More →

Employers should not write off older female workers quite so readily

Employers should not write off older female workers quite so readily

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

An ageing population and changes to the default state pension age mean employers need to better prepare for the needs of older women in the workplace, according to a study by Anglia Ruskin University published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). With more and more women aged between 50 and 65 now employed, the research reviewed published literature to look into the experience of those workers and how their needs might change in the future.

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Local authorities and developers must work together to boost the quality of new developments, says Green Building Council

Local authorities and developers must work together to boost the quality of new developments, says Green Building Council

by • News, Property

The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has launched two new resources for developers and local authorities designed to help boost construction standards and improve ‘social value outcomes’.  The first resource is related to residential developments while the second is directly relevant to commercial property. The resource, Social Value in New Development, provides guidance for developers and local authorities to help deliver social value outcomes in new residential and commercial developments. The guidance looks at social value, its stakeholders, strategies for driving positive outcomes and measuring success, and the current barriers to delivery.

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Ageing population and low fertility rate is leading to European labour force shortage

Ageing population and low fertility rate is leading to European labour force shortage

by • News, Workplace

Ageing population and low fertility rate is leading to Europe's growing labour force shortage

Europe faces an increasing labour force shortage, which means that between 2017 and 2025, 184 out of 263 metropolitan areas from the EU-28 will record a negative growth rate in their working age population. According to a recent analysis by GlobalData this is due to a combination of lower fertility rates across most European Union (EU) countries, which is causing a reduction the growth rates of the youth population, while increased life expectancy is leading to a steady rise in the growth of the elderly population. But according to Ramnivas Mundada, Economic Research Analyst at GlobalData, ‘‘Measures such as increasing the levels of post-retirement employment opportunities, offering more support for women returning to the workplace and investing in youth employment, education and training could help to mitigate the impact of these demographic changes over the long term.’’

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