Search Results for: working hours

October 2, 2018

Flexible and part-time workers outperform full-time colleagues

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

A new report from the charity Working Families assessing the flexible, agile, and family-friendly working policy of its employer members claims that flexible and part-time workers appear to outperform their full time colleagues. The 2018 Top Employers for Working Families Benchmark report captures the experience of 630,000 employees across some of the UK’s leading public, private, and third sector organisations. The report was launched to mark the National Work-life Week, Working Families’ annual campaign to encourage employers and employees to talk about wellbeing at work and work-life balance.

September 17, 2018

Growing gig economy could be behind buoyant ONS employment figures

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Recent ONS figures showing a rising employment rate could be inflated by the growth of zero-hour contracts within the gig economy, as the number of UK workers on zero hour contracts having more than tripled since 2012. This is propping up overall employment levels by accounting for almost a quarter of overall employment growth, new data by Adzuna has suggested. With the employment rate currently at a record high of 75.7 percent according to the ONS, Adzuna’s data compares recent growth in the number of people in work overall to the increasing number of zero hour contracts, to ascertain how much these contracts have contributed to the growth.

September 11, 2018

Time for employers to place workplace health and wellbeing front of mind, claims CBI

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing

With the average number of days lost to ill health per employee at 5.2 days, there’s a clear impact on business, which is why firms must better prioritise the health & wellbeing of their staff. That’s according to new survey results from the CBI, in partnership with Bupa and HCA Healthcare. In a new guide, Front of Mind: Prioritising workplace health & wellbeing, 347 businesses – employing nearly 1.7 million people – of all sizes across the UK were surveyed or interviewed to understand what steps they are taking to improve workplace health & wellbeing.

September 7, 2018

We should measure wellbeing and security if we want to create Good Work, claims the RSA

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Job security, workplace mental health, and how well-supported workers feel by their employer, should be monitored annually by the government, a report led by the RSA and the Carnegie UK Trust recommends. The need to better monitor quality of work in the UK was called for in RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor’s 2017 employment review for the Prime Minister. The UK Government subsequently committed to delivering on this proposal; and Measuring Good Work now sets out a roadmap for how the ambition can be achieved. The report highlights that employment has a major impact on people’s wellbeing and quality of life, arguing that since the 2008 financial crisis, despite record employment, the overall figure on the number of people in work fails to account for issues like worker pay; whether employees feel they are trapped in a job below their skillset; are working too few or too many hours; or are facing excessive workplace pressure.

August 31, 2018

Employers urged to err on the side of caution when the staff commute counts as work

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

Employers urged to err on the side of caution when the staff commute counts as work

A call for employers to pay staff for the time they spend emailing while commuting has opened up the debate on what constitutes working time for employees. Researchers from the University of the West of England who found that commuters used free Wi-Fi provision on their journey to and from work to ‘catch up’ with work emails, have argued this supported the argument that the commute be counted as work. Until now, there has been little research to evaluate the impact free Wi-Fi provision has had in the UK, despite government encouragement for companies to provide access on transport networks. Traditionally, the government has been more concerned about the benefits of free Wi-Fi for business travellers, but the research team believe that the impact on commuters may be more important. When the researchers looked to Scandinavia to see how commuting time could be measured differently, they found that in Norway some commuters are able to count travel time as part of their working day.

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.

August 1, 2018

Flexibility, daylight and a well-designed office are amongst most desirable workplace features

by Neil Franklin • News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Capital One has published the results of its latest survey of US full-time professionals for their thoughts on workplace design and the working environment as it relates to their productivity, innovation and collaboration with colleagues. According to the resulting 2018 Work Environment Survey of 3,500 office based respondents in urban centres across the US, many value flexibility and workplace design, particularly when evaluating whether to stay at their current job or consider a new employment opportunity. Employees also place a great deal of focus on technology, design elements such as lighting and agile workspaces, and personal wellbeing.

July 9, 2018

Quarter of British workers have a side hustle as well as their main job

by Neil Franklin • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Academics at Henley Business School have revealed a growing trend in ‘side hustles’ which shows that as many as 1 in 4 people in the UK are running at least one business project alongside their main day job, contributing an estimated £72 billion to the UK economy. Henley has published a white paper on the emerging side hustle economy. Its study of over 500 business leaders and 1,100 UK adults found the trend is now happening at an unprecedented pace across the UK. A side hustle is defined as a secondary business or job that brings in, or has potential to bring in, extra income. 73 of people who start a side hustle do so to follow a passion or explore a new challenge, but there are financial benefits too, with side businesses contributing 20 percent to side hustlers’ income.

July 4, 2018

Why you should definitely stand in meetings (and not care what others think about it)

by Benjamin Gardner Lee Smith and Louise Mansfield • Features, Wellbeing

People who stand in meetings may enjoy a number of health benefits, but it can also make them feel self-conscious, anxious about how others perceive them, and disengaged from the meeting. These findings, taken from our recent study, suggest that efforts to encourage office workers to sit less and move more must acknowledge the realities of the workplace that conspire to keep people chained to their seats. Sitting has been linked to adverse health outcomes, including increased risk of obesity, heart disease, some cancers, and poorer mental health. While some evidence suggests that the harms of sitting can be offset by at least one daily hour of moderate physical activity, this seems an unrealistic target. More →

June 28, 2018

Ten demonstrable truths about the workplace you may not know

by Kerstin Sailer • Comment, Facilities management, Features, Workplace design

The science of the workplace has gained a lot of interest over the last few years, highlighting recurring patterns of human behaviour as well as how organisational behaviour relates to office design. In theory, knowledge from this growing body of research could be used to inform design. In practice, this is rarely the case. A survey of 420 architects and designers highlighted a large gap between research and practice: while 80 percent of respondents agreed that more evidence was needed on the impact of design, 68 percent admitted they never reviewed literature and 71 percent said they never engaged in any sort of post-occupancy evaluation. Only 5 percent undertake a formal POE and just 1 percent do so in a rigorous fashion. Not a single practitioner reported a report on the occupied scheme, despite its importance in understanding the impact of a design.

June 21, 2018

The hype surrounding wellbeing concepts can blind us to their true value

by Georgia Elliott-Smith • Comment, Wellbeing

Digital detox. Does the phrase make you roll your eyes or grab your attention? Lately, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the idea of switching off from technology, particularly your smart phone (if people still call them that as they are so ubiquitous) has become a media fad. A litmus test for this might be how much air time BBC R2 give the subject. Over the past few weeks it has figured a lot, particularly Chris Evans referencing it in a Japanese themed week and a Friday morning interview with the neuroscientist Dr Jack Lewis who shared his tops tips for a digital detox. No doubt the Daily mail is jumping on the bandwagon as well.