Search Results for: workforce

How workplace design shapes and reflects organisational hierarchies

How workplace design shapes and reflects organisational hierarchies

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

The roots of the open plan office can be traced back to the 1960s when post-capitalism was beginning to emerge as a political and intellectual movement. The social and political upheaval that followed World War Two and the emphasis on the autonomous, motivated and engaged worker combined to inspire designers and architects to develop a new and more “modern” way of working. A mode of work characterised by an increased emphasis on social relations and flattened hierarchies. The open plan office was heralded as the ‘office of the future’; a progressive, transformative and near utopian design concept which would enable its occupants to thrive and succeed in a more socialist world. Yet the proponents of the open plan do not appear to have been fulfilled in large corporate businesses in the UK. I’d like to suggest that this failure is not a design fault but rather a problem caused by a clash of ideologies. Upon closer inspection, it appears that these larger corporations have not fully been able to shift into the social-democratic model of collaborative, open working styles.

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Shake up of working culture and practices recommended to reduce pay gaps

Shake up of working culture and practices recommended to reduce pay gaps

by • Flexible working, News

All jobs should be advertised as available for flexible working, and greater support should be given to fathers to play more of a role in child care, in a shake-up of culture and working practices to reduce pay gaps, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said today. The call comes as the Commission’s strategy for tackling gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps is released. A strategy to reduce pay gaps in Britain makes six recommendations outlining the action needed by government, in society and in our businesses to improve equality in earnings for women, ethnic minorities and disabled people. According to the EHRC, offering all jobs as flexible will remove the barriers faced by women and disabled people, who are more likely to have to negotiate flexible working or accept part-time jobs that are often low-paid. Creating work places with flexible cultures will increase opportunities for everyone, giving people greater choice about the role they play both at work and home. More →

Millennials less likely to work remotely as they feel prohibited from working flexibly

Millennials less likely to work remotely as they feel prohibited from working flexibly

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

There is growing sentiment among younger workers that flexible working is less a right – as outlined by the Government in 2014 – and more a ‘selective benefit’ for a choice group of employees. New research by Michael Page claims that two thirds (67 percent) of millennials believe employees with families are more encouraged to work flexibly than their single colleagues, and 6 in 10 (61 percent) feel the same flexible working privilege appears to apply more to senior co-workers, with junior team members more often discouraged from flexible working initiatives. Nearly half (43 percent) say it is a benefit reserved for management and senior leadership only. As a result, more than 8 in 10 (84 percent) office based millennial employees do not work from home in an average working week – with 82 percent of those saying they are not able or allowed to. This is despite the fact that three quarters (76 percent) of UK office workers confirm that their employer offers flexible working options.

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Job vacancies are on the rise, but pay and productivity remains stagnant

Job vacancies are on the rise, but pay and productivity remains stagnant

by • Legal news, News, Workplace

Job vacancies are on the rise but pay and productivity remains stagnantUK employment is predicted to grow strongly in the third quarter of 2017, but wage growth is likely to remain weak, according to the latest CIPD/The Adecco Group Labour Market Outlook. Although the UK labour market remains buoyant, basic pay award expectations for the next 12 months remain at just 1 percent. Put against the backdrop of poor productivity growth, the report points to an increase in labour supply over the past year as a key factor behind the modest pay projection. This is driven by relatively sharp increases in the number of non-UK nationals from the EU, ex-welfare claimants and 50-64 year olds. This increase in labour supply may explain why the jobs market remains challenging for some jobseekers, especially those seeking lower-skilled jobs. Employers report a median number of 24 applicants for the last low-skilled vacancy they tried to fill, compared with 19 candidates for the last medium-skilled vacancy and eight applicants for the last high-skilled vacancy they were seeking to fill. Overall, employers felt that around half of applicants were suitable for each role they were trying to fill.

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Employees rate the best UK companies for work life balance

Employees rate the best UK companies for work life balance

by • News, Wellbeing

Jobsite Glassdoor has today identified the UK employers which offer the best work-life balance, according to individuals on the Glassdoor website. Winners are ranked based on their overall work-life balance rating from employees in the UK during the past year. For reporting simplicity, ratings are rounded to one decimal place though actual calculations extend beyond the thousandth to determine rank. According to the rankings, the five best employers in 2017 are Expedia, Lookers, American Express, HomeServe and Peninsula.

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One in five UK office workers admit they struggle with tech more than colleagues

One in five UK office workers admit they struggle with tech more than colleagues

by • Facilities management, News, Technology

The digitisation of the workplace may be seen as a boon to productivity, but that also depends on how well it’s being adopted by the workforce. A new survey claims that one in five (23 percent) UK office workers struggle with technology; and helping to solve the problems of these less tech-savvy employees takes up an average of 17 minutes of their colleague’s working day. The survey from memory and storage firm Crucial, found that work with an average of four colleagues in their office that are less tech-savvy than them. These colleagues always seem to encounter IT problems at work, distracting 62 percent of the UK workforce and costing businesses lost time fixing issues. Just over one in five (23 percent) British office workers admitted that they felt they were one of the less tech-savvy colleagues. A third of these aren’t worried about being less tech-savvy because they have other skills, another third (34 percent) admitted trying to fix tech problems themselves but always end up calling someone else, whilst 26 percent know someone will fix it for them anyway.

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The most successful business leaders adopt a courageous approach to technology and the future of work

The most successful business leaders adopt a courageous approach to technology and the future of work

by • News, Technology

Software consultancy ThoughtWorks has published a new report which claims that the best business leaders share a particular approach to the running of their organisations that the report characterises as ‘courage’. The Next Big Disruption: Courageous Executives claims to revealing what sets top business leaders apart from their competition. The report profiles a segment of leaders referred to as “Courageous Executives” in the US, the UK, Australia and India and the findings ‘underscore the critical role technology plays in business strategy, from navigating the chaos of digital transformation to how they’re setting their business up for future success.’ The report also claims to shed light on the leadership styles of Courageous Executives including their tolerance for risk and failure, their use of customer insights and the ways leaders in all four countries are preparing for the future of work.

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Whatever you might be told, this is not the Office of the Future

Whatever you might be told, this is not the Office of the Future

by • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace design

office of the futureIt seems like we don’t have to wait more than a few days at a time before some or other organisation is making its own prognoses about how we will be working in the future, especially at this time of year. The thing these reports about the office of the future all share in common, other than a standardised variant of a title and a common lexicon of agility, empowerment, collaboration and connectivity, is a narrow focus based on several of their key narratives and assumptions. While these are rarely false per se, and often offer some insights of variable worth, they also usually exhibit a desire to look at only one part of the elephant. The more serious reports invariably make excellent points and identify key trends, it has to be said. However, across them there are routine flaws in their thinking that can lead them to make narrow and sometimes incorrect assumptions and so draw similarly flawed conclusions. Here are just a few.

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Men and women report similar work life balance problems

Men and women report similar work life balance problems

by • News, Wellbeing

work life balanceContrary to commonly held perceptions and media narratives, women and men report similar levels of work-family conflicts, both in the form of work interfering with family and family interfering with work, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The study found men are less likely to complain about or address the issue however. Researchers spent several years examining the findings from more than 350 studies conducted over three decades that included more than 250,000 participants from across the world. The results were surprising, said lead researcher Kristen Shockley, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Georgia. The research was published online in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

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British businesses at risk of creativity crisis, according to new Microsoft research

British businesses at risk of creativity crisis, according to new Microsoft research

by • News, Technology, Workplace design

British businesses are at risk of a creativity crisis due to workplace cultures that stifle innovation, according to new research launched by Microsoft Surface. Uninspiring workplaces (41 per cent), a stressful atmosphere (34 per cent) and a lack of appropriate spaces to focus and think alone (28 per cent) were all identified as major inhibitors to creativity.  Two in five workers surveyed (40 per cent) say that creativity and innovation are neither encouraged nor rewarded within their workplace – despite creativity being one of the top three skills workers will need to thrive by 2020, according to the World Economic Forum. The research, based on the views of more than 1,100 workers, found that whilst almost three quarters of respondents (73 per cent) consider themselves to be creative, demands of the modern workplace need rethinking, with symptoms such as overworking and stress stifling our ability to tackle problems and produce good ideas. Half of workers (50 per cent) feel least creative when tired, 45 per cent when stressed, while existing workloads (39 per cent) and organisational processes (32 per cent) were also cited as barriers to employees being more creative.

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Other UK cities must rebalance London-centric commercial property market

Other UK cities must rebalance London-centric commercial property market

by • Cities, News, Property

It is up to the UK’s other cities to rebalance the country’s London focussed commercial property market according to a new report, ‘What investors want: a guide for cities’, published by the think tank Centre for Cities with support from Capita. It examines the top priorities for investors when choosing which places to invest in, and offers practical advice for cities on how to make their places as attractive as possible for investors. The report shows that just over half of all investment in Britain’s commercial property market in 2016 – worth over £43bn in total – was spent in London. This was significantly more than the South East, the second most successful region, which secured nearly £5bn of investment, equivalent to 11% of the total share across Britain.

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Flexible working increasingly seen as top option, claims major new study

Flexible working increasingly seen as top option, claims major new study

by • Flexible working, Workplace

A new report from ManpowerGroup Solutions claims that 40 percent of job candidates cite flexible working as one of their three most important career considerations. The firm polled 14,000 people in 19 countries. Among the countries surveyed, the US had the highest percentage of job candidates who want work flexibility (45 percent). A majority (63 percent) of workers said they believe they can work outside the office, and the number of men who want flexibility has significantly increased according to the study. The report, Work, for Me: Understanding Candidate Preferences for Flexibility, Manpower Group Solutions claims to offer ‘both the immediate steps and the long-term actions that companies can take to better meet their prospective employees’ preferences around flexibility’.

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