Search Results for: society

August 9, 2016

Watercooler moments are the key to workplace wellness claims study ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The skills people require to perform at their optimum throughout the working day, such as patience, focus and diplomacy can be fuelled by the food they’ve eaten; while ‘the wrong kind of fuel can derail their whole day,’ a new academic report has found. And the study in the journal Food, Culture & Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research reveals that water is the main redeemer of ‘negative nutrition’ in the workplace; not only because it provides vital hydration for physical wellness but because it encourages people to walk to the watercooler or break out area to drink. According to the researchers, a culture of grabbing something quick to eat amid a mounting pile of to-dos at work often leads to making the wrong decisions when searching for something to eat in the workplace. Unplanned cakes and the emergence of ‘food altars’; central places for leftovers from work meetings or unhealthy snacks present workers with endless choice.

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August 1, 2016

Small firms remain sceptical about next generation technology ⁰

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology

New research from AXA suggests that small firms are sceptical about the prospects of technologies such as 3D printing, robotics and driverless cars affecting their workplace in the near future. While more than 40 per cent of small businesses still don’t have a website, the study of 898 firms claims that most of these plan to move online in the next twelve months. If these plans are fulfilled, only seven per cent of UK businesses will remain offline by this time next year. However, just one in five plan to migrate to the Cloud and only six per cent say they expect to adopt smart technologies. Driverless cars, which are set to hit UK roads as early as 2020, have an equally low resonance, as just eight per cent of business owners expect they will travel in one. Businesses were also highly sceptical when it comes to 3D printing. Just two per cent of UK businesses who might use the process expect to see it used here ‘during their lifetimes’.

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July 15, 2016

ICE makes the case for infrastructure ahead of Brexit negotiations ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Cities, News, Property, Public Sector

In a new report Brexit – The Case for Infrastructure, the Institution of Civil Engineers has set out the business case for the valuable contribution which infrastructure makes to the economy and argues that the UK should not lose sight of this as it begins negotiations for Brexit as it leaves the European Union. The report claims that high quality, high performing infrastructure is vital for economic growth and improved quality of life. It points to transport, communications, energy and housing as being central to spreading opportunity across the whole country. It also makes the case that infrastructure acts as a catalyst for social and economic inclusion, encouraging greater participation in society from people of all walks of life. In particular, during uncertain or volatile economic times, continued investment in UK infrastructure can help provide economic stability, facilitate inward investment and drive economic growth.

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July 4, 2016

Government should stop using technology to put lipstick on a pig, says report ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Technology

A new report from Brunel University London claims there needs to be a complete turnaround in the way governments and researchers think about how digital technologies can change the public sector. The report was published to coincide with the 11th National Digital Conference in London. The working paper, which invites feedback from practitioners in the field, explains how the only coherent way to achieve any real impact is to embed the potential of technology in the instruments that make governments’ policies real. Policy instruments are the tools that governments use to drive change in the economy and society and include licences, information campaigns and more tangible things like public services and infrastructure. The paper, entitled; Digital Government: Overcoming the Systemic Failure of Transformation, claims that even the most recent approaches still come from the perspective of technology, not the core policy-making functions of government.

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June 20, 2016

What happens when you take transparent office design to extremes ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Case studies, Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Workplace design

A rigid and unswerving adherence to a principle is rarely a good thing in the long run. This is perhaps doubly so when it comes to office design because the end result is often something that overlooks what offices are really for; namely giving human beings a place to go to be with one another. So, when you take a design dogma to extremes that ignore the human being that should be your core concern, you end up getting something like the office with no chairs, because ‘sitting is the new smoking’. Or you get the office made completely of glass because ‘transparency generates trust’. While it’s true that the Dutch firm MRVDV responsible for the refit of the building in Hong Kong has included some genuinely successful features, not least in the use of natural light and the environmental performance of the building, the interior itself is clearly the end product of meetings in which nobody felt comfortable telling everybody to knock it off.

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June 2, 2016

People are happy at work but yearn for better tech and a second job ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology, Wellbeing

The recent riots across France sparked by mooted reforms to labour laws have been attributed to French workers objecting to the creation of working cultures akin to those in the UK and US. In which case, it would be interesting to see how our Gallic cousins might respond to the findings of a new report from Adobe which suggests that workers in both the UK and US as well as India see technology as the key perk they look for at work and many are perfectly happy to work more than one job and don’t expect long term commitments to (and from) their employers, although many of them also feel defined by what they do for a living and are happy at work. According to The Work in Progress report, a quarter of UK workers already moonlight and over two thirds believe that better technology would be the single most important way of improving their working lives. The same attitudes are also prevalent in responses from workers in both the US and India.

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May 19, 2016

Where is the data for disability on boards – and do businesses care? ⁰

by Neil Barnfather • Comment, Legal news, Workplace

When it comes to diversity on boards, I would confidently say that disability comes in a poor fourth behind gender, age and ethnicity. It’s something I take a great interest in as a blind person, a senior executive who sits on boards and as a start-up champion. While acknowledging a limited perspective, over the years I have noted a lack of disabled representation at board level and when I joined the NonExecutiveDirectors.com recruitment platform, we had a conversation about this. The result was that the organisation and its partners decided to commission some research into the issue. The research involved the Office of National Statistics, EU Equality and Diversity Commission, Department of Business Innovation and Skills, leading academic experts in disability, in social policy and in work and employment, Trade Union Congress (TUC), business surveys, policy documents and more.

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May 18, 2016

Younger working mothers bear the brunt of maternity discrimination ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

As we’ve discussed before, when female workers have children their career prospects and salaries begin to slip. Having kids young and ramping up your career in your late 30s isn’t an option either as many working mothers find it difficult to secure flexible and well paid work with good career prospects while still in the early years of their career. This is one of the reasons why the average age of mothers in this country is now 34 and rather more controversially, why companies such as Apple and Facebook are offering women the chance to have their eggs frozen. More disturbingly though, research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission has found young mothers are significantly more likely to experience pregnancy and maternity discrimination, with six times as many under 25 year olds than average reporting being dismissed from their jobs after they tell their employer they are pregnant.

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May 17, 2016

Employers need to step up to retain older workers and carers, claims CIPD ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

With people living longer and fewer young people entering the labour market, Europe’s employers are increasingly reliant on the skills and talents of older workers. However, the ageing population also means that there will be around nine million carers in the UK by 2037, many of whom will be trying to juggle care and employment, according to new research released by the CIPD. It claims that, although the UK’s policy framework for supporting older workers and creating fuller working lives is well-developed in comparison to other European countries, there is a crucial need to turn this thinking into practical action to avoid losing the skills and experience of employees who choose to work beyond retirement. With around 30 percent of the UK workforce currently over 50 compared to 20 percent in the 1990s, the CIPD is urging employers to put the tools and culture in place to support older workers as they represent and increasingly significant proportion of the labour market.

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May 16, 2016

Women (and men) don’t enjoy the full wellbeing benefits of flexible working ⁰

by Dr Daniel Wheatley • Comment, Flexible working, Wellbeing

There has been significant expansion of flexible working arrangements (FWAs) in the last two decades, driven to some degree by the work-life balance agenda. However, in practice work-life balance and flexible working continue to be viewed as a ‘women’s issue’, as women more often reduce hours or work part-time. But recent research conducted by my own department suggests that women working flexibly are not experiencing the potential wellbeing benefits when compared to men. Flexible working arrangements include part-time, flexi-time, job share and homeworking. Part-time accounts for approximately 40 percent of female employment and is the most common FWA used by women. Term-time working is also used predominantly by women, reflecting the typical gender roles regarding caring for school-aged children. Meanwhile, flexi-time remains the most common arrangement used by men, at around 19 percent.

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May 9, 2016

Women not reaping full wellbeing benefits of flexible working ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Working flexible hours is associated with lower job satisfaction among women, but greater satisfaction among men, a new study claims. The research explores the impact of flexible working on job, leisure and life satisfaction and suggests that women are not experiencing the full benefits. According to Dr Daniel Wheatley, lecturer in Economics at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University; the research suggests that while flexible working generates a number of benefits, working part-time or reduced hours has significant negative impacts on job satisfaction. He explains: “While some women are able to use reduced hours optimally, such as those working part-time following maternity leave, those using reduced hours for lengthier periods because of commitments such as childcare may feel trapped in ‘restrictive’ flexible employment. They may only be able to gain low skilled employment and may experience limitations in career progression.”

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April 28, 2016

New partnership to encourage creation of age friendly workplaces ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Between 2005 and 2015 the number of people working over the age of 50 in the UK increased by 2.5 million, while those working over the age of 65 more than doubled. By 2022, there will be 12.5 million job vacancies that need to be replaced due to people leaving the workforce in addition to the two million new vacancies that will be created. However, there are estimated to be just seven million younger people to fill them. Recruiting and retaining older workers will be critical to closing this gap. Now in a major new initiative, the Centre for Ageing Better has gone into partnership with Business in the Community to identify and test what works to recruit, retrain and retain older workers. Through this partnership, it wants to hear from employers across the country who see the benefits of older workers and who are implementing changes to create age friendly workplaces.