Search Results for: stress

August 22, 2018

SMEs more likely to offer flexible working than larger businesses

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

More SMEs than larger businesses offer flexible working as a way of reducing absences, research from industry body Group Risk Development (GRiD), suggests. The research showed that 35 percent of SMEs with up to 249 employees are actively using flexible working strategies to combat absence compared to just 23 percent of organisations with over 250 employees. Drilling down further into the detail, 38 percent of micro businesses with between 1 and 9 employees use flexible working as a means to reduce absence. Flexible working now means a lot more than allowing an employee to work from home when they are feeling under the weather, and following changes in the law in 2014, it is now an option for everyone with at least 26 weeks continuous employment to request it – not just those with children or carer responsibilities. It also includes part-time working, term-time working, job sharing, compressed hours and flexitime. A greater degree of flexibility can increase productivity and reduce burn out, particularly in stressful occupations.

August 14, 2018

Working while on holiday is the new normal, claims study

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

Two thirds of business leaders have admitted that they check their work emails while on holiday and three quarters have taken or made a work call, according to a new survey into summer working habits by The Institute of Leadership & Management. The Institute’s new research found that 65 per cent of respondents check their work emails at some point while on holiday, and 75 per cent have said they’ve taken or made a work call while on leave. Unsurprisingly, most senior leadership teams check their emails on holiday (81 per cent).

August 12, 2018

Gig economy workers are overworked, underpaid and constantly monitored

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

A study of the wellbeing of workers in the so-called gig economy from academics at Oxford University claims that they are stressed, isolated, micro-managed by algorithms and face constant downward pressure on their incomes. The focus of the research was on workers contracted by digital platforms and subject to selection by algorithms. The study, Good Gig, Bad Big: Autonomy and Algorithmic Control in the Global Gig Economy, looked at the impact on the personal wellbeing of computer programmers, translators, researchers and people in similar roles contracted through online freelance platforms.

August 6, 2018

Levels of digital dependency hit new heights

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Wellbeing

Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices, and need a constant connection to the internet, following a decade of digital dependency and transformation claims a report from regulatory body Ofcom. The findings are from Ofcom’s Communications Market Report, which it claims is the most comprehensive study of how communications services in the UK are changing. Around 17 percent of people owned a smartphone a decade ago. That has now reached 78 percent and 95 percent among 16-24 year-olds. The smartphone is now the device people say they would miss the most, dominating many people’s lives in both positive and negative ways.

July 31, 2018

Absenteeism at record low and it may be because people are worried about their jobs

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new report from the Office for National Statistics suggests that the number of sickness days taken by UK workers has almost halved over the past two decades to reach a record low. It dropped from an average of 7.2 days in 1993 to 4.1 days in 2017, and had been steadily falling since 1999. The total days lost for all workers last year was 131.2 million, down from 137.3 million in 2016 and 178.3 million in 1993. Since the recession, sickness absence rates have declined by 0.5 percentage points to 1.9 per cent last year. The reasons are not explored in the report but one possible explanation would be the growing number of people prepared to work when they should really take time off. A May report from the CIPD claims that the number of companies reporting a rise in employees going into work when they were ill had more than tripled since 2010 and warned that organisations should do more to discourage “presenteeism”.

July 25, 2018

New study claims to confirm the benefits of sit-stand workstations

by Mark Eltringham • News

A new study suggests that height adjustable or sit-stand workstations may be beneficial in reducing sedentary behaviour and supporting health outside the workplace. The study’s results have been published in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management. Funded by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Foundation’s Transform grant, interim study results were announced on the ASID website last year. The final study, “Stand Up to Work: Assessing the Health Impacts of Adjustable Workstations,” found that sit-stand workstations are linked to increased productivity, better mental concentration, and improved overall health in employees who used sit-stand desks over a 12-month period. Most employees reported that the sit-stand desks had a positive impact on their health outside the workplace.

July 23, 2018

New report on the future of work argues we are at an inflection point on the journey

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Workplace design

Whatever you make of the Brexit vote, the idea put forward by Jacob Rees-Mogg in a Channel 4 interview that it will take 50 years before we can judge its benefits is extraordinary. No doubt, people will be making those judgements in half a century, but long term predictions of this kind are invariably foolish. Especially when you consider that nobody seems to know what is happening with Brexit at all on a day by day basis. Predictions about the long term future of work can be equally foolhardy. This is a reason why it’s best to make them about the short term, while you still have a reasonable chance of looking prescient. A lesson for the authors of this piece of nonsense published in Fast Company last week.

July 23, 2018

European Parliament backs new rules for flexible working for parents

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News

The European Parliament has approved new rules for paternity leave, non-transferable parental leave and measures for flexible working in a bid to improve the current work/life balance of parents and carers across EU member states. These rules are also hoped to address the under-representation of women in parts of the labour market, increase incentives for fathers to take up family-related leave and to foster gender equality and equal opportunities. MEPs claims this will benefit children and a family life, whilst reflecting societal changes more accurately and promoting gender equality.

July 20, 2018

New code of practice for employers to improve health and wellbeing for staff

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

BSI, the business standards company, has launched a new code of practice for organisations to help tackle a crisis in the mental health and wellbeing of Britain’s workforce. 137 million working days were lost to sick leave in the UK in 2016, with organisations spending £9 billion each year on sick pay and associated costs. The cost of ‘presenteeism’ – where employees attend work whilst ill and do not work efficiently – has also risen sharply in recent years. The code of practice, PAS 3002, provides recommendations to establish, promote, maintain and review the health and wellbeing of workers within an organisation. It considers how health and wellbeing should be incorporated into the working environment and how leadership can ensure health and wellbeing related services are available to employees.

July 16, 2018

Seven stories you may have missed that will get your week off to a flyer

by Freddie Steele • Features, Property, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

A bunch of coworking startups saying the same things about how different they are

The agile workspace is pants

Mass incompetency in business: the way we promote people is dead wrong

Want to discover (or re-discover) your sense of purpose at work?

Is stress at work always a bad thing?

Augmented space planning: Using procedural generation to automate desk layouts

A Stanford researcher says we shouldn’t start working full time until age 40

July 4, 2018

Staff at larger organisations take three times as many sick days as those at micro firms

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employers with over 250 employees are more likely to have a significant absence issue among staff says new research from Group Risk Development (GRiD). According to HR decision makers companies with over 250 employees have the highest absence rates – averaging 7.5 days per year yet micro businesses with between 1-9 staff only see their staff take an average of 2.8 days absence per year. Five per cent of HR decision makers also admitted to not recording or monitoring absence at all, although this is more prevalent amongst SMEs (6 percent) than those with over 250 employees (1 percent). More →

July 4, 2018

New study flags health and wellbeing risks for the self-employed

by Neil Franklin • News

The Good Life Report, a study by AXA Business Insurance into Britain’s boom in self-employment, claims that tradespeople have better than average mental health but their work style brings increased physical risks, particularly high blood pressure. According to the AXA study of self-employed people, those in the building trades report the best mental wellbeing. Just eight per cent say their work causes them stress – four times lower stress rate than among UK workers overall, and half the stress rate for self-employed people in desk-based jobs.
More →