Search Results for: people

November 11, 2022

The networks people build often hold them back rather than help them

The networks of ties we build in the workplace are key to our success and performance. Yet, researchers at ESMT Berlin claim in a paper published in the Academy of Management Journal that we often build networks that hamper our performance. Professors Gianluca Carnabuci and Eric Quintane, both from ESMT Berlin, investigated how and when people build networks that allow them to perform at their best. To this end, they conducted a longitudinal field experiment within a business unit of a large semiconductor company, tracing the network and performance of each employee over two and a half years. (more…)

November 9, 2022

Cost of living forcing people to seek out sources of extra income

by Neil Franklin • News

Workers are looking for new jobs, asking for extra shifts, or taking on side hustles to make ends meet as everyday expenses eat up a bigger chunk of their pay cheques. A new Qualtrics study claims that 77 percent of workers say it’s harder to pay for their living expenses than it was a year ago. In the UK, inflation recently rose above 10 percent for the second time this year amid soaring food prices. Compounding the impact of the cost of living, many of the work-related expenses that were relieved by remote work, such as commute costs and full-time childcare, are returning as an increasing number of people head back to the office. (more…)

November 2, 2022

Who’s driving this bus, anyway? A critical review of Leading People in Change by Jennifer Bryan

by Neil Usher • Comment, Workplace

Writing about change isn’t easy, but too many people try it. I tried it with Elemental Change (LID, 2020). Jennifer Bryan succeeded where I didn’t, and managed a short book about change. Her book Leading People in Change also succeeds where I didn’t by focussing on one aspect of change, leadership. So far so good, despite my initial uncomfortable reaction to the title suspecting it might be a handbook for ensuring people did what we wanted them to do, regardless. Fortunately, not so. (more…)

October 27, 2022

Hybrid isn’t working for many people because nobody can agree what it is

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Property

A new poll published by Landsec claims there is a distinct lack of clarity around what hybrid working means, with less than one in five UK workers agreeing on a definition. The report suggests that this hybrid ‘hotchpotch’ is having a negative impact on bosses’ relationships with their teams. (more…)

October 20, 2022

Hybrid working balance isn’t right for a third of people

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

Some 39 percent of office workers are so-called hybrid “misfits” and don’t have the right balance of home and office working, a survey funded by the Economic and Social Research Council claims. The researchers discovered that workers who were in the office more often than they wanted were more likely to want to change jobs, have lower job satisfaction and have worse work-life balance.??The research suggests that office working is often beneficial for people who are able to enjoy hybrid working. (more…)

October 17, 2022

Flexible working may help to entice large numbers of older people back into work

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

There are 712,000 additional people aged over 50 who are economically inactive compared with the same period three years ago (pre-covid pandemic), according to new analysis from Rest Less, a digital community and advocate group for people in their 50s, 60s and beyond. The organisation is now calling on firms to ensure their flexible working practices and in-house training schemes are suitable for all age groups and not just targeted at younger people. (more…)

October 12, 2022

People going back to basics in terms of what they want from work

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace, Workplace design

A new poll claims that growing economic uncertainty has forced employees to reprioritise what they want from their employers. People are increasingly interested in basics such as job security, a safe and comfortable workplace, salary and benefits, and a better workplace culture. The BCW Expectations at Work study [registration], which surveyed more than 13,000 people across five industries and 15 countries around the world, claims that one in two workers say they value the basics of job security (52 percent), workplace safety and comfort (50 percent), salary and benefits (49 percent) and workplace culture (48 percent) most out of 62 components across five dimensions of the employee experience. (more…)

October 4, 2022

Three quarters of people admit to turning off webcam to hide what they’re doing

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Technology

A new poll from Showpad, claims that three quarters of ‘office workers’ in the UK (76 percent) admit to turning off their webcam on video calls to hide what they are doing. The figure for workers under 24 rises to 85 percent. According to the State of Selling study, concentration on video calls when working from home appears to be one of the main issues with 80 percent saying they are more easily distracted in virtual meetings compared to real-world ones, with over half (52 percent) saying they have an attention span of less than half an hour in virtual meetings. (more…)

September 28, 2022

Work is more visible to managers when people are in the physical workplace

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Although workers think that their work location doesn’t matter, a new poll suggests that their bosses don’t agree. In the poll of US employees from workplace platform Envoy, 96 percent of respondents described as leaders say they take more notice of people’s work contributions when they are in the office. Just 42 percent of respondents described as employees agree. Gen Z employees, more than any other generation, value workplace visibility, with 73 percent believing their contributions are noticed more in-office than at home. Only 64 percent of Millennials, 53 percent of Gen X, and 45 percent of Boomers feel the same. Among executives, women are more likely than men to recognise work and contributions accomplished from home. (more…)

September 27, 2022

Skills shortages won’t be solved by offering people more money

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

As businesses across the country face rising costs, new research from the CIPD and Omni warns that using pay to attract talent simply isn’t enough to tackle on-going skills shortages. While an increasing number of organisations (54 percent) are inflating pay to retain talent, this approach is not sustainable for most employers in the face of rising costs. To tackle the skills shortage, organisations need to highlight other components of good working practices when recruiting, such as offering flexible working and promoting career development opportunities. For instance, the latest Resourcing and Talent Planning survey shows that 68 percent of employers that offer hybrid/ remote working say it has allowed their organisation to attract and retain more talent. (more…)

September 21, 2022

Poor acoustics hamper productivity and deter people from spending more time in the office

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Noisy offices are lowering productivity, with 60 percent of office workers unable to concentrate and delivering poor quality work due to loud workspaces, is deterring people from returning to offices more often, and can even lead to violence. Those are the key findings of a new poll of 2,000 workers from Oscar Acoustics. The survey [registration] suggests that just 8 percent of people feel they work in a quiet office, with only a quarter of office workers working in a space that has well designed acoustics for their job. (more…)

September 8, 2022

Nearly half of people feel disconnected from colleagues

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Around 42 percent of UK employees don’t feel a sense of connection to co-workers and a quarter say they don’t think they have one friend at work, according to a new poll from BetterUp [registration]. UK employees with a lower sense of belonging have an 80 per cent stronger intention to quit their jobs than those who feel comfortable at work, according to the survey. It also claims that the findings come as UK workplaces are struggling with new trends such as ‘quiet quitting’, whereby employees are setting boundaries when it comes to working late and working on projects that aren’t in their job description, as well as issues around recruitment and talent retention. (more…)