February 5, 2020

Businesses can fail if employees are over-confident

Senior employees being too confident about the value of their ideas could be one reason businesses are failing, according to research by the University of Cologne. The study, conducted by Professor Fabian Sting and a team of interdisciplinary co-authors, highlights how choosing the wrong ideas to pursue can lead businesses to make unwise investments and miss out on opportunities, which could threaten their survival. A large part of the problem, it says, is that the person who comes up with the idea overestimates how successful their innovation will be and views their skill or performance as better than it actually is. (more…)

February 4, 2020

Blundering blindly towards the truth about work and workplaces

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Workplace

If you don’t like some of the stories we publish on Insight, you should see the ones we reject. It’s something I catch myself saying a lot and underlying it is an awareness that bullshit can be appealing. We should apply the smell test to stories and go in search of what might best be described as the facts, contradictions and nuances that are characteristic elements of some sort of truth. (more…)

February 4, 2020

Worst things bosses have said to employees dealing with cancer

by Jackie Le Poidevin • News, Wellbeing

It’s not unreasonable for an employee diagnosed with cancer to look to their employer for assistance, but according to one support organisation, many employers handle the situation incredibly tactlessly. To coincide with World Cancer Awareness Day today, RedArc, which provides nurses for employees with serious or long-term health conditions, has issued a list of the worst things people with cancer reported hearing from their managers. Over the past year, its nurses logged statements such as, “Perhaps you should retire”, “You’ve had your treatment now, so you should be fine” and “How long will you be off?” (more…)

February 4, 2020

Outdoor workers exposed to 15 percent more pollution than average

by Jackie Le Poidevin • Environment, News

Outdoor workers in the capital are exposed to 15 percent more pollution than the average Londoner, new research has claimed. Over six months, the Canairy app developed by King College London gathered data from two groups of Londoners, some mostly working in offices and others mostly working outside. Both groups were exposed to high levels of air pollution but those working outside fared worst, being exposed to air pollution breaching guidelines for NO₂, particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and ozone. Some maximum exposures were nearly two thirds higher than recommended World Health Organisation (WHO) limits. (more…)

February 3, 2020

Mental health benefits of time in nature valued at £4.5 trillion globally

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Time spent in the great outdoors is worth abour£4.5 trillion a year in the improved mental health of people, according to results published by a team of researchers from Griffith University’s School of Environment and Science, Centre for Work Organisation and Wellbeing, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith Business School and School of Medicine. (more…)

January 31, 2020

The new wellbeing movement: Anna Davison in conversation

by Mark Eltringham • Podcasts, Premium Content, Wellbeing, Wellbeing Matters

This is the second of six special episodes of the Workplace Insight podcast in which we consider what are the most important facets of workplace wellbeing. The guest in this episode is Anna Davison who is head of workplace wellbeing at ukactive. Anna says her mission is to develop “the value of physical activity in all workplaces, delivering value to our members aligned to our wider mission of More People, More Active, More Often.” (more…)

January 31, 2020

Uber workers cling to “precarious” existence

by Jackie Le Poidevin • Flexible working, News

Policy makers should resist claims by Uber that its drivers fall into a middle ground between traditional employees and independent contractors, a new study says. The research report, Profits Uber Everything?, by Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, examines Uber’s argument that its drivers are “independent workers” who are, in some respects, like individuals working for others and in other respects are like independent businesses. The company is only trying to establish this new category to exonerate itself of any responsibility for the workers, the researchers claim. (more…)

January 31, 2020

Communicating employee rewards boosts engagement

by Jackie Le Poidevin • News, Working culture

Communicating a business’s “employee value proposition” or EPV – the package of rewards that it offers in return for the person’s performance at work – is having an increasingly positive impact on employee engagement, retention and recruitment, research has claimed. Aon’s Benefits & Trends 2020 Survey (registration required) suggests that although the percentage of employers who have, or are working towards, an EVP remains similar to last year (76 percent), the number that now communicate it to staff has increased. Of those employers that have an EVP, 77 percent now explain it to employees, an increase of 9 percent on 2019.

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January 30, 2020

Can corporate culture help reduce workforce burnout?

by Leigh Anderson • Company news

It may not always be evident to those working in logistics, but burnout doesn’t exist solely in supply chain recruitment – it’s a recognised condition which is having an impact across all industries and sectors. According to the Labour Force Survey, the UK lost 15.4 million working days in 2017/18 to work-related stress, depression or anxiety, with 239,000 new cases reported. Increasingly, severe cases are being recognised as ‘burnout’. (more…)

January 30, 2020

Gig economy workers should not all have equal rights

by Jackie Le Poidevin • Flexible working, News

Policy makers should beware of classifying all gig economy workers as “employees”, a new research report has claimed. Such workers vary in age, income and education in a similar way to the traditional workforce and crafting regulations that treat both fully committed and occasional gig workers as one group is unlikely to be an efficient solution, the report from IZA World of Labor contends. (more…)

January 29, 2020

Don`t believe what you read about wellbeing, except this

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

As we are told repeatedly, the modern workplace is not very good for our physical and mental wellbeing, and potentially a death trap. Most of us are lucky to get home in one piece at the end of each day, regardless of the job we do. (more…)

January 29, 2020

Third of job seekers suspect class discrimination

by Jackie Le Poidevin • News, Workplace

Two-thirds of employees believe class is an issue when it comes to securing a new job, with one in three saying they’ve been discriminated against because of it, a new study has claimed. In contrast, more than half of employers said they don’t think class discrimination is an issue when hiring. (more…)