Search Results for: people management

UK employers concerned for future of the post Brexit economy despite booming jobs market

UK employers concerned for future of the post Brexit economy despite booming jobs market

by • News, Workplace

Employer confidence in the UK economy has moved into negative territory, according to the latest JobsOutlook survey by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC). The net balance fell from +6 per cent last month to -3 per cent in the latest report, as 31 per cent of employers now expect the economy to worsen and just 28 per cent expect it to improve.  Employers are still looking to hire, with one in five (19 per cent) planning to increase permanent headcount in the next three months.  Confidence in making hiring and investment decisions remains positive with a net balance of 10 per cent, but is at its lowest for the past year.  In addition to signs of deteriorating employer confidence, consumers are also becoming more pessimistic. The GfK’s index of consumer confidence fell to -12, equalling last year’s post-referendum low.

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The reason you may not be successful at work could be down to pure blirtatiousness

The reason you may not be successful at work could be down to pure blirtatiousness

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

This may seem obvious, but your personality must fit with your network in order to be trusted and successful, new research from UCL School of Management and Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, claims. Otherwise, your friendships might clash with your job. A common situation at work is to have two sets of friends who are not friends with each other. Both sets demand time, attention, and even favouritism from the person in the middle, known as the friendship broker. These expectations put pressure on the broker who must respond with whatever personality resources he or she has available. Some people are able to call upon personality resources that are well adapted to the goal of maintaining trust among their separate and potentially conflicting sets of friends. Other people find themselves unable to maintain trust as they move between different cliques.

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Precarious flexible working lives create toxic relationships between managers and workers, claims study

Precarious flexible working lives create toxic relationships between managers and workers, claims study

by • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Millions of British workers are having their health and home life put at risk and are having to beg for extra work to make ends meet because bosses are not offering them regular work patterns, a new study from Oxford and Cambridge Universities suggests. According to the study, Powerful times: Flexible discipline and schedule gifts at work published in the journal Work, Employment and Society, around 4.6 million people are subject to ‘precarious scheduling’ from employers which means that their hours are so inconsistent and unpredictable that they cannot make plans, leading to stress and problems in their home lives. The researchers said that many workers now find themselves in ‘degrading’ relationships with managers in which they are obliged to constantly ask for more work and changes to allow them to care for children and plan their domestic and recreational lives.
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How workplace design shapes and reflects organisational hierarchies

How workplace design shapes and reflects organisational hierarchies

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The roots of the open plan office can be traced back to the 1960s when post-capitalism was beginning to emerge as a political and intellectual movement. The social and political upheaval that followed World War Two and the emphasis on the autonomous, motivated and engaged worker combined to inspire designers and architects to develop a new and more “modern” way of working. A mode of work characterised by an increased emphasis on social relations and flattened hierarchies. The open plan office was heralded as the ‘office of the future’; a progressive, transformative and near utopian design concept which would enable its occupants to thrive and succeed in a more socialist world. Yet the proponents of the open plan do not appear to have been fulfilled in large corporate businesses in the UK. I’d like to suggest that this failure is not a design fault but rather a problem caused by a clash of ideologies. Upon closer inspection, it appears that these larger corporations have not fully been able to shift into the social-democratic model of collaborative, open working styles.

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Shake up of working culture and practices recommended to reduce pay gaps

Shake up of working culture and practices recommended to reduce pay gaps

by • Flexible working, News

All jobs should be advertised as available for flexible working, and greater support should be given to fathers to play more of a role in child care, in a shake-up of culture and working practices to reduce pay gaps, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said today. The call comes as the Commission’s strategy for tackling gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps is released. A strategy to reduce pay gaps in Britain makes six recommendations outlining the action needed by government, in society and in our businesses to improve equality in earnings for women, ethnic minorities and disabled people. According to the EHRC, offering all jobs as flexible will remove the barriers faced by women and disabled people, who are more likely to have to negotiate flexible working or accept part-time jobs that are often low-paid. Creating work places with flexible cultures will increase opportunities for everyone, giving people greater choice about the role they play both at work and home. (more…)

Seven ways in which flexible working is making our lives more rigid

Seven ways in which flexible working is making our lives more rigid

by • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

One of the main reasons why books such as Catch 22 and 1984 make such mediocre films, is because celluloid struggles to capture the books’ preoccupation with the ways in which language can be used to subvert meaning and rationality. We don’t always have to lean on the bookcase to see how this works. It’s been evident recently in the coverage of the massive growth of zero hours working worldwide, although they have now been banned in New Zealand. There are now up to 1.5 million people on zero hours contracts in the UK and the adjective most commonly associated with the practice in the media coverage has been ‘flexible’, despite the fact that from the perspective of the majority of the people working on such contracts they are anything but. It’s yet another example of the subversion in our use of the term flexible working. It’s Doublespeak; an expression which means something completely different to, or indeed the opposite of, the thing it is describing.

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Large majority of facilities managers believe BIM will have a significant impact on their role

Large majority of facilities managers believe BIM will have a significant impact on their role

by • Facilities management, News, Technology

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has the potential to deliver significant benefits to the facilities management industry, according to the results of a new survey published by The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM). The FM Awareness of Building Information Modelling survey, developed in partnership with Liverpool John Moores University and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, aims to establish a benchmark of the current perceptions of the impact of BIM on the FM sector and the benefits and challenges it presents. The report’s key finidng is that eighty-three per cent of respondents believe BIM will help support the delivery of facilities management, with the same number indicating it is already having an impact, or will do so, in the next five years.

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Over a quarter of employers are struggling to keep their workforce engaged

Over a quarter of employers are struggling to keep their workforce engaged

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Nearly one in three (28 percent) of employers are struggling to keep their employees engaged, claims new research from totaljobs, with staff spending too much time internet browsing, being constantly late and chatting with colleagues. Over half of employers said lower productivity (59 percent) and internet browsing (55 percent) were clear signs of lower engagement they were seeing in the workplace. Worryingly, 62 percent said poor performance was a common problem as a result of a lack of engagement. Almost half (48 percent) of employers also report disengaged employees continue to arrive late and leave early, while 41 percent said chatting with colleagues suggested a lack of workplace engagement. The same number again said taking too many breaks during work hours might also indicate disengagement, as well as employees appearing distracted. But when it comes to tackling a lack of employee engagement, one in two employers (51 percent) said clear communication, via email, newsletters and team meetings for example, was an effective strategy to improve engagement. Nearly half (46 percent) of employers said setting out clear objectives for both individuals and teams was also effective.

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Whatever you might be told, this is not the Office of the Future

Whatever you might be told, this is not the Office of the Future

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

office of the futureIt seems like we don’t have to wait more than a few days at a time before some or other organisation is making its own prognoses about how we will be working in the future, especially at this time of year. The thing these reports about the office of the future all share in common, other than a standardised variant of a title and a common lexicon of agility, empowerment, collaboration and connectivity, is a narrow focus based on several of their key narratives and assumptions. While these are rarely false per se, and often offer some insights of variable worth, they also usually exhibit a desire to look at only one part of the elephant. The more serious reports invariably make excellent points and identify key trends, it has to be said. However, across them there are routine flaws in their thinking that can lead them to make narrow and sometimes incorrect assumptions and so draw similarly flawed conclusions. Here are just a few.

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Certain staff a ‘major block’ to adoption of new technology in local government

Certain staff a ‘major block’ to adoption of new technology in local government

by • Facilities management, News, Public Sector, Technology

Some individuals within local government are holding back tech to preserve the status quo – a new survey suggests. According to the research, these people feel threatened by new technology and believe it will be disruptive to their ways of working. While the survey by 8×8 of staff working in local government suggested a significant appetite for new technology, more than a fifth (22 percent) say certain individuals are holding back tech adoption to preserve the status quo. This view is more prevalent amongst those in IT procurement, where more than a third (35 percent) believe colleagues are standing in the way of technology because it will disrupt what they already have in place. Only 51 percent of respondents believe senior management understand the importance of new technology and just 21 percent think they invest enough money to stay up to date with the latest developments. This contrasts with the private sector, where over half (56 percent) believe there is sufficient investment in new technology.

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If you want a proper holiday this year, ditch the tech

If you want a proper holiday this year, ditch the tech

by • News, Technology, Wellbeing

According to a new study from the Institute of Leadership & Management, the majority of people already know that the best thing they can do to enjoy a proper break is disconnect from technology, although whether they act on this knowledge appears to be a different matter. The ILM reports that 56 percent of managers say taking a holiday in a remote location without wi-fi connection would leave them feeling relieved.  But it’s getting harder and harder for us to ‘switch off’ from work once we are away, with managers craving holidays in remote corners of the world where they can escape the ‘always on’ connectivity culture. Most managers don’t take proper breaks from work on holiday, with 37 percent admitting to checking their work emails every day of their holiday to avoid a backlog of work when they return to work.

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Link between offices and wellbeing is too important for landlords and occupiers to ignore

Link between offices and wellbeing is too important for landlords and occupiers to ignore

by • Facilities management, News, Property, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Developers and landlords who invest to create offices that embody the occupier-driven focus on wellbeing will reap their rewards commercially while those that don’t face diminishing returns, according to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield. The Well Workplace report claims to map out the major trends, opportunities and challenges of the future facing owners and occupiers of commercial office space due to the growing emphasis on employee health and vitality as part of the work environment.  Improved lighting, layout and use of plants are all known to benefit wellbeing and can increase employee performance. Gains through boosting performance far outweigh potential cost savings through real estate efficiencies – making the imperative for occupiers clear, according to the report’s authors.

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