Search Results for: workforce

February 27, 2019

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Workplace ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

We know, and have for a long time, that the workplace is in a state of near constant flux and so we often fall into the trap of assuming that there is some sort of evolution towards an idealised version of it. That is why we see so many people routinely willing to suspend their critical facilities to make extravagant and even absurd predictions about the office of the future or even the death of the office. This is perniciously faulty thinking. However we can frame a number of workplace related ideas in terms of evolutionary theory, so long as we accept one of the central precepts about evolution. Namely that there is no end game, just types progressing and sometimes dying out along the distinct branches of a complex ecosystem. As a nerdy sort of guy of a certain age, I’ve tended to frame my thoughts on all of this with reference to an idea from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by the great Douglas Adams.

February 27, 2019

Digitisation and culture of uncertainty lead employees to seek stability

by Sara Bean • AI, Technology, Workplace

Job security is the top reason employees in the UK joined their company, and also the main reason they stay, according to Mercer’s 2019 Global Talent Trends study. With close to one in three employees being concerned that AI and automation will replace their job, senior managers are also worried about the effects of digitisation, with nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of executives in the UK predicting t significant disruption in the next three years, compared to 23 percent in 2018. Mercer’s global findings reveal a similar story finding that as executives focus on making their organisations “future-fit”, significant human capital risks – including the ability to close the skills gap and overcome employee change fatigue – can impede transformation progress. Addressing these concerns is paramount, given that less than one in three executives rate their company’s ability to mitigate the effect on employees as very effective.

February 26, 2019

Digital and mobile tech at work is still not being used to full advantage

by Sara Bean • AI, Facilities management, News, Technology, Workplace

Just a third of businesses are using mobile technologies for their administration tasks, and as organisations struggle to digitise, many employees admit to finding pen and paper simpler to use. The vast majority (91 percent) of workers still prefer to use a desktop or laptop for administrative tasks, according to the research commissioned by ABBYY, as only one third (35 percent) use mobiles for admin, despite 43 percent of workers wanting to use it for this purpose. Millennials in particular are keen to use mobiles, with 55 percent wanting to use mobiles for admin – yet only 43 percent currently do. Older generations are also open to using mobile for admin, with 35 percent of Gen X currently doing so, and 41 percent wanting to. However, it’s clear that some employees are finding the latest technologies, such as mobile, too difficult to use – 28 percent still want to use pen and paper for admin tasks, as 46 percent find it simpler than other means. Desktop still runs the workplace in the UK, regardless of today’s remote working climate. Almost half of workers (48 percent) use a desktop or laptop because it’s easier, and 41 percent because it’s faster.

February 22, 2019

When assessing workplace strategy: we should always test rather than guess

by Franklin Becker • Facilities management, Features, Workplace design

Would an investor plow millions of dollars into a stock and never bother to track how the investment does? Of course not. Nor would they confuse the expected return on investment (ROI) with the actual results. We don’t guess about financial investments. We don’t base investment decisions on what some stranger does or how they say they’ve done. So why then, do many of the largest companies in the world invest millions of dollars in buildings or renovating their workplaces and never even bother to measure results. Why are they so willing to copy the unproven workplace strategy of others? Why are they satisfied with projected results, rather than measuring how their investments actually perform? More →

February 22, 2019

The biggest problem for city centres is a lack of high skilled jobs

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News

The Centre for Cities, in partnership with George Capital, has mapped the UK cities with the strongest city centre economies in the UK, and identified their common features. The report City Centres: Past, Present and Future found that focusing on the struggles of certain high streets ignores the success of well-performing city centres and misdiagnoses the core problem: insufficient footfall in city centres due to a lack of jobs.

February 21, 2019

Vast majority of organisations still struggle with videoconferencing

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

The overwhelming majority of enterprises (90 per cent) report that they experience challenges when connecting to video conference calls. This is according to a new survey from StarLeaf, conducted by Vanson Bourne, which includes responses from 500 IT decision-makers and Line-of-Business leaders in the UK, France, Germany, and the US and from a broad spectrum of private sector enterprises (with over 1,000 employees) with the aim to understand attitudes towards the general use of video conferencing systems.

February 21, 2019

SMEs intend to increase their headcount by over a fifth this year

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

SMEs intend to grow their headcount by over a fifth this year

Although official figures from the ONS show a decline in consumer spending throughout much of 2018, optimism amongst small businesses remains high, with UK SMEs hoping to grow their headcount by an average of 21 percent over the next 12 months. The new research from Opus Energy claims that half (51 percent) intend to grow their business in terms of people, with some even predicting they’ll increase their workforce by 50 percent. IT (39 percent), health (33 percent) and financial services (28 percent) were the sectors expecting the most growth. Even in the worst affected sectors, growth was still predicted. Half (50 percent) of retailers still expected to grow in 2019, at an average of 19 percent. 65 percent of food and beverage producers predicted an average headcount increase of 18 percent and 69 percent of manufacturers expected to grow at an average of 14 percent; despite facing the uncertainty of Brexit and the “death of the high street”.

February 20, 2019

Employers have a poor understanding of what actually motivates their employees

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Almost half of companies (45 percent) still believe that an attractive salary and package is what motivates their workforce, despite the fact that employees cite ‘soft benefits’ such a flexi-working, work-life balance, and ‘being valued’ as key to feeling fulfilled in their job role. The findings come from recent research ‘Meeting demands through the job offering’, by recruiter Robert Walters and job board CV-Library that highlight the disparity between what employees want and what companies are offering to staff. While 60 percent of professionals’ state career development as an important part of a job offering, less than 10 percent of companies believe that a lack of career progression and development would be a key reason for losing talent. The report also found that although companies claim that ‘staff being stuck in their ways’ is the main reason behind the lack of quality applicants, over 40 percent of professionals state that they would be willing to take up a role in another field where skills would be transferable, or work in a new sector to broaden their skills.

February 18, 2019

Employers need to become active listeners to improve mental health at work

by Brendan Street • Comment, Wellbeing

Time to Talk Day takes place every February and encourages people to open-up about their emotional wellbeing, but in a workplace setting this can be challenging. Despite 80 percent of employers believing employees would feel comfortable talking about their mental health, only 5 percent of employees would do so. Clearly there’s a disconnect between talkers and listeners which needs to be addressed if we’re to improve mental health at work. More →

February 18, 2019

Organisations are overwhelmed by innovation, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Companies are being overwhelmed by innovation projects, fewer than half of which even make it to market. That is according to a new report from Oracle, based on a poll of more than 5,000 decision makers from 24 countries. Despite what the report claims is a clear link between growth and innovation, organisations are being held back by poor processes and a lack of focus. The report suggests that innovation barriers are particularly pronounced amongst big companies, as well as companies experiencing higher growth rates.

February 17, 2019

More than 600 people quit work to look after older and disabled relatives every day

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

New research by Carers UK claims that 2.6 million have quit their job to care for a loved one who is older, disabled or seriously ill, with nearly half a million (468,000) leaving their job in the last two years alone – more than 600 people a day. This is a 12 per cent increase since Carers UK and YouGov polled the public in 2013. The findings also show that more people are caring than previously thought, with almost 5 million workers now juggling their paid job with caring – a dramatic rise compared with Census 2011 figures of 3 million.

February 15, 2019

A sense of belonging is crucial factor for employee engagement

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

A sense of belonging is just as important an employee retention tool as good pay and benefits, a new academic paper has found. In his paper Creating a committed workforce: Using social exchange and social identity to enhance psychological attachment within an ever-changing workplace, Dr Ali Fenwick of Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, the Netherlands., argues that identifying with the team, leader, brand and organisation is paramount to workplace commitment as well as work performance. More →