Search Results for: opportunities

June 7, 2018

Over half of employees say remote working and coworking increase their productivity

by Neil Franklin • Coworking, Flexible working, News

More than half of US based employees (54 percent) with the chance to work remotely say they are most productive when they work outside a traditional office environment, such as at home, in a coffee shop, or in a coworking space, according to a new survey by research firm Clutch. Over two-thirds (68 percent) of workers surveyed work in a traditional office. However, higher productivity isn’t the only reason employees prefer other workspace options. Over a quarter (26 percent) of employees who have some degree of flexibility say a better work-life balance is the top benefit of working outside the office. Other benefits include flexible work hours (21 percent) and fewer distractions (18 percent).

June 4, 2018

Your happiness at work is not just down to your employer

by Cary Cooper and Ivan Robertson • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

When Google promoted a software engineer named Chade-Meng Tan to the role of “Jolly Good Fellow”, his career – and the entire culture of Silicon Valley – took a sharp turn. Meng, a cheerful employee valued for his motivational qualities, went from developing mobile search tools to spreading happiness across the organisation. Happiness became his job. Google wasn’t the first to hire someone with the sole remit of enforcing employee contentment. In 1999, when Google was still a start-up, French fashion brand Kiabi hired Christine Jutard as its chief happiness officer. She was one of the first to perform the role. But once Google did it, happiness at work became a key metric and other organisations quickly adopted their approach. Three years after Meng’s appointment, fast food giant McDonald’s even promoted Ronald McDonald from brand mascot to CHO.

May 30, 2018

Low unemployment means new recruits will quit if the job doesn’t measure up

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Alongside the challenge of finding the right people to fill roles is keeping them there, according to a survey from Korn Ferry which claims that the majority (93 percent) of employers agreed that the retention of new hires in their organisation is becoming an issue. New recruits individuals agree, with 26 percent admitting they’d leave a job if it wasn’t a good fit, even if they didn’t have another position lined up. The top reasons new hires leave, according to the survey, is their specific role isn’t what they expected and working for the company was different than they thought it would be. Respondents said a desire for more money was not a primary reason a new hire would leave. More than half of the respondents (55 percent) said that offering more money to a new hire who wanted to leave would not make them stay and more than three quarters, (82 percent) said that if they personally accepted a job that they ended up not liking, even though it paid well, they would leave as soon as they found a new job.

May 22, 2018

New report aims to increase use of modern flexible working practices to improve lives of employees

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Businesses are being urged to increase their use flexible working practices in a bid to improve the lives of staff and end gender discrimination in the workplace. According to the report, A Manifesto for Change: A Modern Workplace for a Flexible Workforce, one of the main barriers to gender equality is employers’ reluctance to adoptnon-traditional working practices. The report calls on employers to embrace flexible working. The report from Timewise and Deloitte sets out a five point action plan, which it claims will enable UK businesses to bring about the change needed to address ‘outdated’ working practices. The plan is based on findings from a a survey of almost 2,000 professional workers, 92 percent of whom are women, as well as interviews with UK business leaders.

May 22, 2018

New religion and belief guidance from Acas aims to help prevent discrimination at work

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

New guidance on religion and belief in the workplace has been published by Acas. It is intended to help ensure businesses are following the law when it comes to managing staff that have a particular religion, belief or indeed don’t hold any beliefs. The guidance offers employers essential advice on how to comply with the Equalities Act, which protects employees against discrimination based on religion and belief. The new guidance for employers and employees sets out to explain what religion or belief discrimination is, how to avoid it and includes advice on what the law says about religious dress codes, fasting and time off for religious festivals or holidays.

May 18, 2018

Employees’ overwhelming view is they are being held back from developing their career

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employees' overwhelming feedback is they are being held back in developing their career

Half (49 percent) of UK workers believe their current job offers little to no chance for career progression and out of 1,000 UK workers asked about the state of their career progression including the prospects for advancement, not one felt they had the right level of support from managers. The survey by Qualtrics claims that just 7 percent believe there is a great deal of opportunity to progress their career in their organisation. It’s a marked difference from October 2017, when the number of employees saying they had a significant opportunity for career progression was 17 percent. The research suggests the pessimistic outlook could be down to a lack of acknowledgment and support at work. Of those claiming to have little or no opportunities for career progression, the data found that 71 percent are given little to no change to trying out new things that interest them, all of them (100 percent) say they don’t receive the right level of support from managers and 49 percent rarely receive consistent acknowledgement for doing good work.

April 27, 2018

Employers not properly supporting older workers with health conditions

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

One in four working people aged 55+ with a health condition are considering leaving work as a negative culture and bureaucratic procedures put many off speaking to their employers until a crisis point. This is according to a new report from Ageing Better, ‘Health warning for employers: supporting older workers with health conditions’, which claims that employers are not properly supporting older workers experiencing long-term physical and mental health conditions. Health is the most important factor affecting older workers’ decisions to stop working before reaching State Pension age. Ageing Better’s research finds that early access to support, small adjustments to the workplace and working patterns, and empathetic management are crucial to enabling people to manage their health at work and remain in employment. But the research also found that workers are often put off speaking to employers until the last moment due to poor workplace culture and overly bureaucratic procedures.

April 18, 2018

Business leaders struggling to keep up with demands of individuals and technological developments in the workplace

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Organisations are struggling to keep pace with workplace shifts including skills gaps, the development of artificial intelligence, the demands of employees and new social expectations, according to the latest Human Capital Trends report from Deloitte. In its 2018 edition, The Rise of the Social Enterprise, Deloitte focuses on the growing expectations of individuals and the pace at which technology is shaping organisations’ human capital priorities.

April 17, 2018

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

by Sara Bean • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

Robots 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 →

April 16, 2018

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

by Mark Eltringham • 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.

April 13, 2018

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

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

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.

April 12, 2018

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

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

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.