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Japan introduces new teleworking laws to change work culture in run up to Olympics

Japan introduces new teleworking laws to change work culture in run up to Olympics

by • Cities, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

It’s not just the UK that took time yesterday to reconsider its relationship with work. Japan launched a scheme to promote teleworking in an effort to address the country’s notoriously poor working culture and ease congestion in the build up to the Tokyo Olympics of 2020. Over 900 companies are claimed to have participated in Telework Day, which will be held on July 24 each year from now until the Olympics opening ceremony on July 24, 2020. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has already introduced laws to address Japan’s notorious problems with overwork, raise contract workers’ pay, and curb a general abuse of labour laws. Earlier this year, the Japanese government announced plans to impose a cap on overtime of 100 hours a month to reduce the number of cases of “karoshi”, or death from overwork, among its people. The idea is to restrict overtime to an average of 60 hours a month, with a 100-hour limit in busy periods.

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Flexible working increasingly seen as top option, claims major new study

Flexible working increasingly seen as top option, claims major new study

by • Flexible working, Workplace

A new report from ManpowerGroup Solutions claims that 40 percent of job candidates cite flexible working as one of their three most important career considerations. The firm polled 14,000 people in 19 countries. Among the countries surveyed, the US had the highest percentage of job candidates who want work flexibility (45 percent). A majority (63 percent) of workers said they believe they can work outside the office, and the number of men who want flexibility has significantly increased according to the study. The report, Work, for Me: Understanding Candidate Preferences for Flexibility, Manpower Group Solutions claims to offer ‘both the immediate steps and the long-term actions that companies can take to better meet their prospective employees’ preferences around flexibility’.

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Employers have a growing responsibility to provide staff with cycling facilities

Employers have a growing responsibility to provide staff with cycling facilities

by • Cities, Comment, Property, Wellbeing

This month, the British Council for Offices (BCO) launched a new report looking at the importance of offering better workplace facilities for cyclists in order to support the Government’s ambitious cycling growth targets. The Department for Transport’s £1.2bn cycling and walking investment strategy, published in April, aims to make cycling “the norm” by 2040. It plans to do this by improving cycling infrastructure and expanding cycle routes between city centres, local communities and key employment and retail sites, making improvements to 200 sections of roads for cyclists and providing funding for councils to invest in cycling schemes. In addition, city councils across the UK are making improvements to their cycling infrastructure. Last year, Sadiq Khan announced plans to spend £770m on cycling initiatives in London over the course of his term, in order to make riding a bike “the safe and obvious” transport choice for all Londoners. Birmingham City Council has pledged to invest more than £11m in creating two-way cycle paths, resurfacing canal towpaths, and even offering free bikes, with the aim of doubling the number of trips in the city made by bike from 5 percent to 10 percent by 2033, in order to make the city healthier, greener, safer and less congested.

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Insurance claim data suggests that musculoskeletal disorders dominate workplace health

Insurance claim data suggests that musculoskeletal disorders dominate workplace health

by • News, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

According to an analysis of the private medical insurance (PMI) records of over 45,000 UK employees carried out by Aon Employee Benefits with its largest clients, the highest claims are for musculoskeletal disorders- almost double those for cancer related illness. In a study of reports from private medical insurers (PMI), Aon found that 31 percent of claims were for musculoskeletal concerns, while 15 percent were cancer related, 4 percent were for mental disorders and 4 percent for urology. The data forms part of its new report, Wellbeing: Examining the correlation between employee health and financial wellbeing. Among the remaining 46 percent of claims, problems included gastrointestinal issues, diagnostic and treatment planning (equally prevalent), followed by obstetrics, heart, respiratory, head/neck, trauma/injury, nervous system, and eyes, ears and dermatology.

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Job insecurity fears more than double in aftermath of Brexit vote

Job insecurity fears more than double in aftermath of Brexit vote

by • News

A survey of 1,257 British workers claims that job insecurity has more than doubled since the decision to leave the EU, with the percentage of those feeling insecure in their jobs rising from 5 percent to 13 percent. According to the study from Office Genie, for those who felt secure, Brexit has also done considerable damage: job security levels have dipped by 17 percent. Pre-referendum, 70 percent of workers felt secure in their job, now just over half (58 percent) feel secure. Nearly three quarters (70 percent) of the workforce believe it’s an employer’s duty to calm Brexit-related distress. 54 percent of workplaces have experienced such concerns but only 31 percent of these employers chose to comfort staff.

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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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Top performing organisations build six elements into their design

Top performing organisations build six elements into their design

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

Adopting agile ways of working makes a company five times more likely than competitors to be a top performer, with faster growth and higher profits, according to a new report from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), “Boosting Performance Through Organization Design”. The report describes agile as ‘a concept borrowed from software development, describes workplace processes that emphasise speed, autonomy, and teamwork to get products to market faster’. It is one of six key factors of organisation design that set top performers apart from rivals, according to results of a BCG survey included in the report.

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The provision of cycling facilities in offices is failing to meet a growing demand

The provision of cycling facilities in offices is failing to meet a growing demand

by • Facilities management, Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The quality of the cycling facilities being offered by many workplaces are currently falling short and risk undermining a Government drive to increase the number of people cycling to work; as according to new research published by the British Council for Offices, 16 percent of office workers claim that inadequate facilities are discouraging them from considering commuting by bike. In April, the Department for Transport stated an aim to double the number of cycling stages, defined as a change in the form of transport as part of a longer “trip” (e.g. cycling to the train station before catching a train to work), from 0.8 billion stages in 2013 to 1.6 billion in 2025. However, new research, commissioned by the British Council for Offices and carried out by Remit Consulting, finds that whilst 83 percent of workplaces in the UK offer some form of bike storage, less than half (47 percent) of this is covered and secure. Improved parking facilities could help increase numbers of those cycling to work, with 16 percent of office workers surveyed saying that better bike storage would encourage them to do so.

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What we may be missing about IBM’s decision on flexible working

What we may be missing about IBM’s decision on flexible working 0

by • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Workplace design

In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that IBM had announced that it was obliging a significant number of its staff to give up on remote working and instead move back to corporate offices, many of them regional hubs. Although we had been aware of the change in policy since February, the issue only went viral as a result of the WSJ story. Comparisons were quickly made with Yahoo’s poorly received decision to summon staff back to its corporate HQ in 2013 and commentators expressed dismay that such a major corporation would be willing to return to the command and control structures of a previous era, especially given its sector and track record of encouraging flexible working. What such commentary missed was a particular nuance of the story that might suggest this is more of a continuation of existing IBM policy than they have been given credit for.

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Employers must prepare for emerging technologies that will reshape work by 2030

Employers must prepare for emerging technologies that will reshape work by 2030 0

by • News, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

Employers should prepare for emerging technologies that reshape society and work by 2030Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, augmented reality and cloud computing, will transform our lives and how we work over the next decade; and by 2030 every organisation will be a technology organisation. As such businesses need to start thinking today about how to future-proof their infrastructure and workforce, according to a report published by Dell Technologies. The research, led by the Institute for the Future (IFTF) alongside 20 technology, academic and business experts from across the globe also offers insight on how consumers and businesses can prepare for a society in flux. ‘The Next Era of Human-Machine Partnerships’ forecasts that emerging technologies, supported by massive advancements in software, big data and processing power, will reshape lives. The report predicts that an estimated 85 percent of jobs in 2030 haven’t been invented yet. The pace of change will be so rapid that people will learn “in-the-moment” using new technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality. The ability to gain new knowledge will be more valuable than the knowledge itself.

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The world has its say on the Taylor Review into modern working practices

The world has its say on the Taylor Review into modern working practices 0

by • Features, Flexible working, Legal news

Yesterday, the much-awaited Taylor Review into modern working practices was finally published. And by modern working practices, the report focussed primarily on what has become known as the gig economy. People have been speculating about the contents of the report for months and things ramped up last week after a partial leak to the media. So, things were already bubbling under nicely before the actual publication of the document brought things to a boil yesterday. Assuming the government do more than kick the whole thing into the long grass, always a possibility, debate will continue for a while. We’ll let politicians do their thing with it, but here are a few of the initial reactions from interested parties and the experts. More →

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