Search Results for: workforce

April 24, 2018

UK companies lag in offering flexible and remote working, claims report

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Technology

The UK lags behind in the shift to flexible and remote working, putting more emphasis on effective meetings to coordinate scattered teams, according to a new report, The Modern Workplace 2018: People, Places & Technology (registration required) from workplace software company Condeco. Across the world, the study of 500 organisations in six countries claims, workers are in the midst of a shift to flexible and remote working – spending more time working from home, on the move or from multiple locations. However, the UK is significantly behind in embracing these trends, which could negatively affect worker satisfaction as well as holding back firms who are competing for the best international staff.

April 18, 2018

Business leaders struggling to keep up with demands of individuals and technological developments in the workplace

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

Organisations are struggling to keep pace with workplace shifts including skills gaps, the development of artificial intelligence, the demands of employees and new social expectations, according to the latest Human Capital Trends report from Deloitte. In its 2018 edition, The Rise of the Social Enterprise, Deloitte focuses on the growing expectations of individuals and the pace at which technology is shaping organisations’ human capital priorities.

April 17, 2018

Majority of staff say employers must do more to support their physical and mental wellbeing

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

More than half of working adults believe that UK businesses are not doing enough to support the physical and mental wellbeing of their employees. The vast majority (86 percent) believe that firms are specifically not doing enough to help employees deal with work-related stress, anxiety and other mental health issues. And with seven out of 10 of those surveyed by Westfield Health saying that the NHS does not have the budget to provide wellbeing services, such as health check-ups and cognitive behavioural therapy, almost three quarters agreed it would be a good idea for a portion of their National Insurance contributions to be redirected towards employee wellbeing programmes. More →

April 17, 2018

Robots will lead to increased productivity without stealing jobs, but wages will fall

by Sara Bean • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

Robots will not as feared steal people’s jobs and will eventually improve productivity, but they will undercut workers’ contribution sufficiently to depress their wages. According to the third report in Barclays Impact Series, titled Robots at the gate: Humans and technology at work, technology is fundamentally re-shaping the nature of work, and the implications of this re-shaping process will accelerate in coming decades. The report authored by Barclays’ Research team and supported by the Barclays Social Innovation Facility sets today’s technological advancements in the context of historical precedent and argues that robotics and Artificial Intelligence do not portend a jobless future. However, these new technologies have important macroeconomic consequences, such as wage disinflation, which will likely continue in the years or even decades to come. The report also argues that productivity spurts lag behind technological leaps, as it can take years or even decades for an economy to figure out how to best use a new technology. Eventually, economies of scale are reached, consumer behaviour adapts, companies refine their business models and productivity growth finally kicks in. More →

April 12, 2018

Brexit: CBI stresses importance of getting new rules right for UK construction

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

Brexit presents opportunities for rule changes in sectors such as agriculture, shipping and tourism that could ultimately benefit the British economy and consumers. This is according to a new CBI study, “Smooth Operations, compiled over a six-month period, which states that the opportunities for divergence are vastly outweighed by the costs of deviating from rules necessary to ensure smooth access to the EU market. Another important finding is that changes to rules in one sector have significant knock on effects for companies in other sectors and throughout supply chains. There are specific regulatory needs for the construction sector, according to the report, the first being regulatory convergence on rules for construction products and materials, vital to protect the competitiveness of manufacturers and avoid major barriers to trade. The CBI also argues that maintaining equivalence in procurement rules between the UK and EU is important, but there are still opportunities to improve how the UK procures work in the construction sector without diverging from EU rules.

April 12, 2018

Poor company culture is costing the UK economy £23.6 billion per year

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

A new report claims that a third of people (34 percent) who leave their job, do so because of perceived poor company culture. The report, authored by breatheHR claims the associated cost of bad company culture is around £23.6 billion per year. The survey of 2,500 people analysed in The Culture Economy, also suggests that well over half of SME leaders (60 percent) consider company culture as a ‘nice to have’ in their business.This mindset has a number of knock-on effects. According to the Chartered Management Institute, effective leadership could improve Britain’s productivity by 23 percent. However, with over half (53 percent) of employees surveyed who distrust their senior management, thinking their bosses ‘didn’t appear to know what they were doing’, there is some work to be done.

April 11, 2018

Quarter of workers say job negatively affects their mental health and a third feel overworked

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

One in four workers (25 percent) feel their job negatively affects their mental health, while nearly a third (30 percent) say their workload is too high, according to a brand new report from the CIPD, the UK Working Lives survey. Although the survey found that two-thirds of workers (64 percent) were satisfied with their job overall, one in ten (11 percent) report regularly feeling miserable at work. More than a quarter (28 percent) of senior leaders say that they find it difficult to fulfil personal commitments because of their job, while over a quarter (27 percent) say that their job does not offer good opportunities to develop their skills, jumping to two in five (43 percent) among unskilled and casual workers. Focusing on the three main groups in the labour market, those at the lower levels are far less likely to have access to skills and training, those in middle management feeling significantly squeezed by their workload and those at the top find it difficult to maintain a work/life balance.

April 10, 2018

British employers are failing to prepare staff for automation

by Mark Eltringham • AI, News, Technology

UK employees aren’t being equipped with the skills required by an automated workplace, according to a new study from ADP. The findings suggest that despite a third (32 percent) of workers believing their job will be automated within 10 years and one in ten (10 percent) predicting it will happen in two, half of those affected (49 percent) say their employer isn’t preparing to train or reskill them for the new world of work. ADP surveyed 1,300 UK working adults across the country as part of The Workforce View in Europe 2018, which gives a snapshot of employees’ views about their jobs, workplace and career plans. The report claims that thousands of workers are worried about the prospect of mass automation and how this will impact their own career prospects if they aren’t prepared with the right skills.

April 9, 2018

How the UK car industry is driving the future of workplace design

by Paul Dunn • Comment, Workplace design

The British car industry has grabbed numerous headlines since the Brexit referendum due declining car sales and the uncertainty of its economic and regulatory prospects. In spite of these mounting concerns, the industry continues to invest in the design of its workplaces, not only by creating inviting and engaging places to work, but also by integrating automotive approaches to design and construction into the work environment. As a result, these workplaces don’t just help car companies to stay competitive; they also provide new ideas for all sectors eager to build smarter and more efficient places to work.

April 6, 2018

Women are happier and more engaged at work than men, despite the gender pay gap

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Following the deadline for organisations to publish their gender pay this week, it came as little surprise to find that almost eight in 10 organisations pay men more than women. The debate over the reasons why will continue, but new research now claims that women remain happier and more committed at work than men, despite this disparity. Employee benefits provider Personal Group’s Gender Happiness Gap research shows that contrary to, and perhaps in spite of the fact that the Gender Pay Gap tends to favour men, happiness at work tends to fall in favour of female staff, with men much less happy in the workplace than their female counterparts. Whilst 77 percent of PAYE female employees are happy at work at least some of the time, the figure is only 66 percent for men. This means that one in three men are rarely or never happy at work. The case is similar when looking at the total workforce: 45 percent of female staff stated that they’re happy most of the time at work, versus only 38 percent of male staff. Amongst women, the 30-49-year-old age group is the unhappiest age group, which may be due to juggling family life alongside working commitments.

April 2, 2018

Take up of shared parental leave is held back by cultural inertia

by Paul Kelly • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

A recent report by the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee, Fathers and the workplace, has brought into sharp focus the problems fathers have juggling participation in family life with their employment obligations. We are moving away from the traditional gender stereotypes of the father being the breadwinner and the mother being responsible for childcare. Today, many families have two parents in either full or part-time work, with dual income households being far more common now than just 30 years ago. The pace of technological change and the growing gig economy have both contributed significantly to this shift in working patterns. As a result, some of the UK’s laws are becoming outdated, as many laws were formulated on the assumption that it would usually be the woman within a family who would have responsibility for childcare.

March 30, 2018

CIPD to co-chair Government’s flexible working task force

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

The CIPD has been invited to co-chair the UK Government’s new Flexible Working Task Force. The task force has been established by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to promote wider understanding and implementation of inclusive flexible work and working practices, bringing together policy-makers, employer groups, Unions and employee representative groups, research groups and professional bodies. More →