Search Results for: security

Firms turn to flexible working and BYOD to placate mobile workplace rebels

by • Flexible working, Knowledge, Technology

TantrumA new week and a new raft of surveys. Thankfully some of them throw up some rather interesting juxtapositions. Take the latest from Virgin Media which claims nearly half of UK office workers are now significantly free to choose how and where they work with over two thirds of organisations convinced that offering more technological choices and flexible working results in happier and more productive staff. Meanwhile, another survey from tech firm (what else?) VMware claims that over a third of UK employees would consider leaving their jobs if they couldn’t get their own way over using mobile devices at work.

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Government public sector construction reforms net £447 million in savings

by • News, Property, Public Sector

Government public sector construction reforms net £447 million in savings

Reforms to strip out inefficiencies in public sector construction – including the use of building information modelling (BIM) and the creation of a sustainable supply chain have generated £447 million in savings and will deliver up to 20 per cent savings in project costs by 2015, Cabinet Office Minister Chloe Smith has announced. By making links across departments the Government has also been able to act as a single customer to the construction industry and provide clear benchmarks for budgets by setting out the average price it expects to pay for projects. The Government has now published a new set of benchmarks that are designed to drive down project costs even further and encourage the industry to offer more competitive and innovative solutions. (more…)

Five essential things to consider before you implement a BYOD policy

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace

BYOD is far more than just allowing your staff to check their email on their personal mobile. It’s about the security of corporate information – we’re all demanding more flexible working to fit our lifestyles, but with flexibility comes personal responsibility. Are we rushing to join the BYOD party without realising some of the more serious considerations. A recent article on OfficeInsight considered a Gartner survey which suggested that BYOD would be prevalent by 2017. The article implied that companies should embrace this as an inevitable change. Before we get too excited, though, let’s explore some of the issues that BYOD should be raising for employers – including the technical demands that these policies make on IT departments and infrastructure, and the compliance IT departments will demand of staff.

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Real demographic challenge as number of older workers tops one million

by • Comment, Legal news, News, Workplace

The latest employment figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show an interesting demographic trend. Beneath the rather unexceptional news that employment rose by 24,000 and unemployment fell by 5,000 in the three months to April, is what Jim Hillage, Director of Research at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) describes as “underlying structural changes in the labour market”. The number of employed people over 65 in the UK has now reached more than a million (1,003,000), the highest since records began in 1971. This means that almost one in ten of over-65s are now in work.

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UK employers are global leaders in flexible working and secure BYOD policies

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Technology, Workplace

 

The UK’s small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) lead the world in flexible working and ensuring staff work securely in the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) era, with 34 per cent saying they have policies, procedures and/or IT systems in place to manage the use of personal communications devices for business purposes. This compares to an average of 28 per cent in Europe and the rest of the world, and only 19 per cent in the US. This is not before time, as the global survey by YouGov of senior executives and managers in more than 1,250 small and medium businesses across Europe, North America and Australia on behalf of Citrix, found that nearly half of UK employees now routinely use personal devices at work.

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Infographic: how work related social media use varies by country, gender and sector

by • Knowledge, Technology, Workplace

A new survey from Microsoft has highlighted a widespread mismatch in the use of social media in a business context across regions and between gender and age groups. It also claims that firms should be more open to social media use and that their unwillingness to adopt them more openly is hampering personal productivity. In the survey conducted in conjunction with Ipsos, nearly half of employees report that social tools at work help increase their productivity, but more than 30 percent of companies underestimate the value of these tools and often restrict their use. An infographic of the survey’s main results can be found here.

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UK public sector leading the way in procurement and sustainable building

by • Comment, Facilities management, Public Sector, Technology

Nottingham City Council's Loxley Building

Nottingham City Council’s Loxley Building

Over the last few years, the UK Government has grown increasingly interested in finding ways of making its £30 billion property portfolio more efficient. Both the last Labour government and the current Coalition administration have been driven by the opportunities offered them with the advent of new technology, new ways of working and new procurement models. They’ve pursued these issues to cut costs by reducing and changing the way property is designed and managed but have also found how that can also help to establish best practice in sustainable building. What is increasingly apparent, especially given recent news from the Major Projects Authority about cost savings in procurement is that the public sector is now leading the way as models of good practice.

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Flexible working going into reverse in parts of UK public sector

by • Knowledge, Public Sector, Technology, Workplace

Broken elastic bandA briefing from the Society of IT Management claims that while nearly all UK public sector organisations have adopted some form of flexible working, the practice remains far from universal and is going into reverse in some departments. The report found that  around  97 percent  of UK public sector organisations have now  adopted the practice in the form of home working, desk sharing and mobile working in four of the public sector functions surveyed. While while there have been large increases in adoption the adoption of flexible working in the revenues and benefits functions and some in education, four other services show a significant decline with others appearing to be static.

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Survey into UK culture of overwork highlights need for better worklife balance

by • Knowledge, News, Workplace

UK culture of overwork highlights need for better worklife balance

A new study is published today which reveals how the UK’s long hour-culture is damaging family life, causing high stress levels, cutting time spent with loved ones and creating an inability to switch off from work. A survey of more than 1,000 working parents throughout the UK, commissioned by health cash plan provider Medicash, found that 83 per cent of working parents feel guilty about the amount of time they spend working, with 50 per cent saying it has a negative impact on relationships with their children, and almost half (45.9%), saying it caused problems in their relationship with their partner and caused them to neglect friends (25%).

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Companies increasingly insist that staff use their own devices

by • Knowledge, News, Technology, Workplace

U TurnHow the world turns. It doesn’t seem that long ago that companies were developing policies to minimise the amount of time people spent on their own mobile devices at work. Now, according to a new study from Gartner, they are starting to insist on it. According to the report, half of all US employers will require staff to supply their own devices for work use by 2017. The shift in approach seems to be a direct consequence of mass market acceptance of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) with the number of employees using mobile applications at work set to double by 2015. The US, along with countries such as India, China and Brazil, continues to lead the way with twice as many firms adopting the practice as in Europe.

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Is facilities management evolving into workplace management?

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace

EvolutionNot so long ago, there used to be a lot of talk about the overlap between facilities management and professions such as HR and IT, much of it to do with the endless search for the true meaning of the nascent FM profession. Now there is open talk of convergence of these three and other disciplines as we adapt to the changing world of work. The nature and implications of this new order for those professions, and the role of facilities managers in particular, is the subject of a new book called Moving On: Facilities Management to Workplace Management by Graham Jervis.

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Survey exposes social media and non work-related activities of staff

by • Knowledge, Legal news, News, Technology, Workplace

Non work related activies of online staff

One in three British employees spends time on social media or prints private files on company printers instead of working; one in four searches for other employment from the work computer and 12 per cent take company files home. This is according to research carried out for Safetica, a provider of employee monitoring and data protection software, to ascertain whether British employees use their computers for non-work-related activities while they should be working, even when knowing it’s against company policy.

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