December 4, 2020
Employee happiness and loyalty tested by furlough schemes
A newly commissioned survey of 1,000 people conducted by Censuswide on behalf of KnowBe4, claims that almost a third of respondents (28 percent) feel less loyal to their employer post-furlough. Of these individuals, 70 percent conceded to either not feeling supported by their employer, receiving little to no information or guidance prior to returning to work and/or did not receive regular communications from them. In fact, the actions employers take, or lack thereof, to ease the transition from furlough appears to play a significant role in employee sentiments upon their return to work. (more…)
In the face of the revolutionary and long-lasting changes to workplaces across the world resulting from the pandemic, some commentators have suggested that the wide-spread necessity of adopting remote working practices may have made the office obsolete. However, such a dramatic upheaval to the very foundation of the workplace and working dynamic won’t come without a cost, and new data suggests that perhaps the office isn’t the dinosaur many assumed, but still a central pillar to effective businesses as part of a hybrid working strategy. 
Most of the analysis about the effects of the 2020 pandemic on people’s working lives has tended to involve grand statements about new normals and the death of this or that, as if everybody wants the same things, has the same personal circumstances, works in the same ways, the same places and same sectors. 
According to 
The repercussions of Covid-19 for the small business community have been particularly ruinous. Recent figures paint a worrying picture, revealing that approximately 76,300 SMEs in London alone ceased operations completely as a direct result of the pandemic, with lockdowns costing from £30,000 to £75,000 for one in ten small businesses. As the most vulnerable business segment in the current crisis, SMEs needed the biggest support and, by the end of April, had already received over £4 billion via the government’s 
Union body the TUC has today launched a new taskforce to look at the “creeping role” of artificial intelligence (AI) in managing people at work. The taskforce launch comes as a new TUC report, 
A large number of British companies companies say they plan to install monitoring software of some kind to keep an eye on employees working from home, according to a new survey. Around 20 percent of employers said their firms have either implemented, or plan to implement, online software which monitors their remote workers. 
The location of a potential employer’s workplace is becoming more important to workers – despite a surge in people working remotely, according to outplacement firm 
In a recent 
A new study on work-life balance claims that the COVID-19 crisis is a crucial factor – but not the only one – behind low levels of wellbeing among employees working from home. A research team including Professor Ilke Inceoglu, Professor of Organisational Behaviour and HR Management at the 
A new paper from the 
December 4, 2020
The lost art of office furniture peacocking and the growing mental health crisis at work
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design