Search Results for: workforce

August 9, 2018

How will Crossrail impact the office landscape of London and beyond?

We are now just a few months away from the grand opening of the central section of Crossrail, the 118km long railway line spanning London and the South East which will, once completed, will deliver a direct connection between all of London’s main employment centres; linking Heathrow with Paddington, the West End, the City and Canary Wharf. This ambitious redevelopment plan will bring huge positive change to the City and is estimated to generate over 850,000 new jobs in the Capital, as well as making the lives of those already working in London easier and more efficient.

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August 2, 2018

Financial stress can impair employee performance and attendance

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Businesses that fail to tackle their employees’ financial stress are more likely to encounter poor work performance, lack of engagement, mental health issues and staff absenteeism, a new report from Neyber has claimed. Since last year, there has been a significant increase in the number of employees affected by financial worries; up from 58 percent to 63 percent, as well as those with less than one month’s savings; up from 24 percent to 32 percent. This stress on individuals is having a severe business impact. One in four employees said they had lost sleep over money troubles in the last year, one in ten said that they couldn’t focus on work and 6 percent said they had had to take time off work. All this adds up to a substantial cost for employers to bear. Neyber has calculated that the lost productivity and increased absence and employee turnover associated with financial stress costs UK companies in the region of £120.7 billion every year.

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August 1, 2018

New research suggests that the confidence gap between men and women is a myth

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The confidence gap between men and women is a myth, according to Laura Guillén, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at ESMT Berlin, because women viewed as self-confident aren’t more likely to get ahead. For women, gaining influence at work is more closely tied to their warmth and caring than the appearance of self-confidence. Laura’s research, in collaboration with Margarita May of IE Business School and Natalia Karelaia of INSEAD, examined high-performing workers in a male-dominated technology company that employs more than 4,000 people worldwide. The research also suggests women are expected to care for others on top of their workload, whilst men are held to a lower standard of key performance indicators.

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August 1, 2018

Shortage of tech skills and 600,000 job vacancies costing UK economy £63 billion a year

by Neil Franklin • News, Technology, Workplace

An estimated 600,000 vacancies in digital technology are costing the country £63 billion a year, according to information provided by techUK in a report on skills shortages published by the Edge Foundation.The second of the education charity’s bulletins on the UK’s skills shortages, shines a spotlight on the tech industry and the devastating economic impact of the government’s failure to encourage young people to study relevant subjects and upskill existing workers. The bulletin, Skills Shortages in the UK Economy, brings together the most current statistics and analysis of skills shortages in the UK which cost the economy £6.3 billion each year in direct costs such as recruitment and temporarily filling gaps, according to the Open University’s 2018 Business Barometer.

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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”.

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July 31, 2018

UK employees no longer incur huge expenses entertaining clients

by Sara Bean • News, Technology, Workplace

Long corporate lunches were once the cornerstone of the corporate expense account, but new figures show just 13 percent of today’s workforce claim expenses for lunch at a restaurant, compared to 36 percent of those in the 1970s and 37 percent in the 80s. The data, released by Barclaycard, also claims that just 10 percent claim dinner at a restaurant with a client on their expenses. This is less than half the proportion who did so in the 1960s (34 percent), 70s (27 percent) and 80s (28 percent). Employees are also less likely to catch up with clients over drinks, with just seven percent regularly footing the bill for a round – approximately a quarter of the proportion who say they did so in the 1980s (27 percent). The expense management process itself has also become more formal, with a clear shift to self-service – almost two-thirds of today’s employees file their own expense claims compared to just over a third in the 1960s.

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July 27, 2018

Half of CIOs say Artificial Intelligence will lead to more jobs and improve productivity

by Sara Bean • AI, Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

Half of CIOs say Artificial Intelligence will lead to more jobs and improve productivity

Fears that Artificial Intelligence will destroy the job market are not shared by more than half (51 percent) of UK CIOs who see AI as a job creator. This is more than three times the number who say that it will diminish workers’ job prospects (16 percent). For the survey UK CIOs were asked, ‘Artificial intelligence is changing the way that companies operate and people work. Do you think AI will have a positive or negative impact on job creation and recruitment?’ Their largely positive response closely reflects that of a recent PWC report which predicts AI could create as many jobs as it displaces in the UK over the next 20 years. (more…)

July 24, 2018

Barclays to create up to 2,500 jobs at new Glasgow tech hub

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

Barclays has announced plans to develop a new campus at Buchanan Wharf, Glasgow, which will provide what it claims is a state-of-the-art workplace for the bank’s functions, technology and operations teams. The aim is to create a working environment that will ‘help the bank deliver outstanding services to customers and clients by fostering innovation and collaboration’. Barclays has agreed to purchase the campus development from Drum Property Group Ltd and is currently working with them to finalise the design of the new facility as part of the wider Buchanan Wharf development. It is expected that, once completed, the campus will be able to accommodate up to 2,500 additional roles, doubling Barclays’ current workforce in Scotland and making the bank one of Glasgow’s biggest commercial employers.

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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.

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July 20, 2018

Training and flexible working are the keys to staff retention

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Firms are more likely to improve levels of staff retention if they increase their investment in training, and introduce more flexible working practices, according to a survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and recruitment company Indeed. The survey, of over 1,000 businesspeople across all sizes or organisation and sectors, shows that just under half (42 percent) of businesses would invest in training and developing their staff in order to increase staff retention, while 38 percent would look to introduce flexible working practices, from flexible hours and remote working to job-sharing.

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July 19, 2018

Firms are reluctant to hire women if they suspect they plan to have children in the near future

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

Nearly one in three UK bosses admit they have or would reject a female job applicant and might be generally reluctant to hire women if they suspect they ‘might start a family soon’. Although this form of employment discrimination is unlawful, 15 percent anonymously admitted that they had broken sex discrimination laws. The new research of 501 bosses, carried out by law firm Slater and Gordon, also revealed that one in four bosses has rejected or would reject a woman, simply because she was a single parent. A further 29 percent said they have discounted or would discount a woman for a job role because she had young children and 28 percent said they have or would because she was recently engaged or married.

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July 17, 2018

The talents of older people are going to waste because of discrimnation, claims government report

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

The talents of more than a million people aged over 50 who want to work are being wasted because of discrimination, bias and outdated employment practices, claims a new report from the UK government. The report from The Women and Equalities Committee also concludes that Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are failing to enforce the law on age discrimination and must be clearer that prejudice, unconscious bias and casual ageism in the workplace are all unlawful under the Equality Act 2010. Although the Committee concludes that the Government’s employer-led approach has its advantages, it does not present a strong enough challenge to discriminatory practices or attitudes.