Search Results for: workplace training

Time for Britain to face up to its post-Brexit skills shortage

by • Comment, Technology, Workplace

A new and dramatic wrinkle seems to be added to the process of Brexit talks every week. But rumbling underneath the political positioning are some fundamental problems for business. Perhaps the most startling challenge is the prospect of a cavernous skills gap. A lot of attention has been paid to the problems of low-skilled workers – the “left-behind” who voted for Brexit in the first place, and the migrants who are currently propping up the agricultural economy and doing the jobs that UK workers don’t want to do. But a more pressing issue is the fact that for too long a large proportion of our skilled labour has been coming from outside the UK. This is not only in the form of skilled individuals who are recruited to work for companies and public sector organisations in the UK, but also in the way Britain outsources the manufacture of complex parts to companies in the rest of Europe. (more…)

Address gender and economic barriers to tech revolution says BT

by • AI, News, Technology, Workplace

Young people from less privileged backgrounds and females face greater barriers to joining the tech revolution, a new report suggests. Tech know-how: The new way to get ahead for the next generation, from BT and Accenture could boost the next generation’s tech skills and help charge social mobility and economic growth. The study found individuals with higher levels of tech know-how earn more as their career progresses, with a ‘tech literacy wage premium’ of £10,000 per year.  The implied salary increase if people develop their skills could add approximately £11 billion to UK GDP by 2022. However, young people whose parents have higher levels of education are 26 percent more likely to see themselves as ‘expert’ or ‘creative’ users of tech in the next five years; and those whose parents fall into the top two education levels expect to earn salaries that are 19 percent higher than the bottom two. The report also highlighted a stark gender divide as young men receive 46 percent more encouragement from parents and teachers to build their tech skills than their female counterparts, and are 17 percent more likely to report having had sufficient training at school.

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Employers can Improve staff performance by balancing feedback says CIPD

by • News, Workplace

Line managers can improve the performance of their teams by focussing on building their strengths, rather than trying to fix their weaknesses, claims new research published by the CIPD. ‘Strengths-based performance conversations’ aims to move managers away from a deficit-oriented method, which is focused on identifying and fixing the weaknesses of team members, analysing what has gone wrong and considering how that can be avoided in the future. The new study of performance management outcomes in the civil service shows that that employee performance can be improved by a simple training intervention focused on building strengths instead of fixing weaknesses. These results can be boosted by a more extensive intervention, which includes wider communication and changes to HR policy, as well as manager training.

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New Acas guidance on preventing pregnancy and maternity discrimination at work

by • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

Acas has published new guidance to help employers create supportive workplaces for women during pregnancy and maternity leave. The employment advisory service says it received more than 14,000 calls last year about pregnancy and maternity issues, an increase of almost 10 percent on the previous year. The guidance offers employers advice on how to comply with the Equalities Act, which protects employees against pregnancy and maternity discrimination including how employees on maternity leave should be made aware of opportunities for promotion and training; pregnancy related absences must not be included in an employee’s absence record; and employees must not be dismissed or made redundant for any issue related to pregnancy or maternity leave or maternity pay.

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Fresh advice on tackling sexual harassment at work published by Acas

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

In response to the proliferation of high profile cases of abuse over the past few weeks which has drawn attention to sexual harassment in a variety of settings – workplace experts Acas publishes fresh advice today (19th November) aimed at both employers and employees that outlines what kind of workplace behaviours could be considered sexual harassment and how to report it. Acas’ new advice includes examples of how sexual harassment can happen at work such as; written or verbal comments of a sexual nature such as remarks about a colleague’s appearance, questions about their sex life or offensive jokes; displaying pornographic or explicit images; sending or forwarding on emails that contains content of a sexual nature; unwanted physical contact and touching; and sexual assault. The advice states that organisations and businesses should be clear to workers about what sorts of behaviours are unacceptable and would be considered sexual harassment.

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Best practice in flexible working and gender diversity honoured at awards presentation

by • Flexible working, News

Workingmums.co.uk has announced the winners of its eighth annual Top Employer Awards, celebrating the leading companies in gender diversity and flexible working. The Awards were presented at a ceremony at London’s Soho Hotel on 7th November where the keynote speaker was Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute. Winner of the Overall Top Employer Award was Lloyds Banking Group. The judges felt it was ‘a beacon for other employers with regard to its agile hiring programme which was a root and branch attempt to normalise different ways of working from recruitment onwards. It was a strong performer across all the categories and had made a major step forward in embedding a flexible culture.’

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Calls for commercial property sector to have a greater focus on customer experience

Calls for commercial property sector to have a greater focus on customer experience

by • News, Property, Workplace design

The UK commercial property industry is undergoing a fundamental shift towards a more customer centric approach, with an increasingly greater emphasis being placed on delivering outstanding customer service to occupiers. This is the key finding of a new report from The British Council for Offices (BCO) entitled ‘Office Service Standards and Customer Experience: a best practice guide’. While for those who hold a very traditional landlord occupier relationship this change in thinking, attitude and operation may feel revolutionary, the report argues we are already seeing the industry evolve across the board. It claims that this is accelerated by new ‘property sector disruptors’, who are driving a shift in the relationship between property owners and corporate occupiers. To ensure they are keeping pace with their changing requirements and aspirations, property owners and managers are increasingly realising the need to invest in building strong relationships with their occupiers

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UK improves opportunities for young workers, but faces longer term challenges from automation

UK improves opportunities for young workers, but faces longer term challenges from automation

by • News, Workplace

The UK could boost GDP by £43 billion if it reduces the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) to match Germany, the best performing EU country. This is equivalent to a GDP increase of around £7,500 per 18-24 year old, according to estimates in PwC’s latest Young Workers Index. This year, the UK reached its highest position since the Index began in 2006, climbing to 18th out of 35 OECD countries from 20th last year. The UK’s improvement reflects lower youth unemployment and NEET rates as the economic recovery from the financial crisis has continued, but it still lags behind many other OECD countries, with Switzerland, Iceland and Germany leading the pack.

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New guides on mental wellbeing mark World Mental Health Day

New guides on mental wellbeing mark World Mental Health Day

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Two new guides to help employers manage mental health in the workplace has been launched today by Acas and by The Royal College of Psychiatrists. Hundreds of thousands of workers experience mental health problems during the course of a year, yet a recent report by Business in the Community found only 11 per cent of people questioned felt able to disclose a mental wellbeing issue to their line manager while half of line managers said they would welcome training on the issue. With the theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day, set by the World Federation for Mental Health, being mental health in the workplace; the Royal College of Psychiatrists has produced a pack of mental health information for employers and employees covering the most common range of conditions such as depression, anxiety, and sleeping problems.

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Our Twentieth Century approach to ergonomics has to change

Our Twentieth Century approach to ergonomics has to change

by • Comment, Flexible working, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

One of the big problems with the way some people talk about the term ‘ergonomic’ is that they tend to use it to describe the design of objects when really it’s about the relationship between a person and the things around them. It’s an abstract idea, about the relationships between design, facilities and management, so is dependent on a number of variables. When those variables change, what we understand to be good ergonomics changes too. The principle of ergonomics as we now understand it first came to prominence in the wake of the intensive growth in the use of computers. The legacy of this fixed view can be an approach based on an idea of desk-bound employees with a computer, whereas how we work now bears little resemblance to how we worked 20 years ago.

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World Mental Health Day is a day to recognise our duty of care

World Mental Health Day is a day to recognise our duty of care

by • Wellbeing

The five-year period since August 2012 has seen a 40 percent rise in mental health issues contributing to absenteeism in the workplace. Our data reveals this from examining more than 13 million days of absence across some 180,000 employees. With an estimated 31 million people working in the UK, this percentage rise is the equivalent of 4.34 million Days Lost Per Employee (DLPE) – or more precisely, an additional 1.25 million more days lost due to mental health in 2017 than 2012. And, in June to August this year, it was the most common reason for absenteeism in the UK.

This tells us two things that you don’t need to be a statistician to deduct. That there has been a steep increase in mental health absenteeism in recent years and that the summer months adds additional stress upon individuals. And this is at a time when we’d hope to be rewarded with some R&R time.

Holidays, and children being home from school, have a clear impact here, and these stresses can more often than not be carried over in to the workplace. But, with children back at school and the holiday season now over, we predict that absenteeism due to mental health issues will drop over the next three months and should account for 0.13 DLPE in November compared with 0.14 in August.

This is all very well but there’s no point in delivering this data if it’s not used in a positive way. We encourage employers to take a look at these trends and recognise who could be affected and where this may impact their business. And in doing so, implement policies accordingly to support those that are living with, or could be susceptible to, mental health issues.

Organisations should ensure their stress management policies are up-to-date, that staff are encouraged and comfortable raising stress related anxieties and concerns and line managers have sufficient training. By doing so, employers will see the benefit to their workforce in both health and productivity while making significant healthcare cost savings, too. There is a raft of information out there to help with this and HR and OH professionals are skilled at recognising signs and trends and helping those that require assistance. Every year World Mental Health Day recognises this awful illness and it deserves close attention. Because as corporate entities we don’t just have a commitment to the bottom line, we have a very serious obligation and duty of care to the wellbeing of our employees.

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David Hope is CEO of FirstCare

Rising numbers of employees face demotion, disciplinary action or dismissal for disclosing mental health issues

Rising numbers of employees face demotion, disciplinary action or dismissal for disclosing mental health issues

by • News, Wellbeing

Most UK employees have experienced mental health issues because of work yet over a million people face negative consequences after disclosing, according to a new report, Mental Health at Work published by the charity Business in the Community in advance of World Mental Health Day.  YouGov surveyed over 3,000 people in work across the UK for the study and found that three in five (60 percent) employees have experienced mental health issues in the past year because of work. Yet despite 53 percent of people feeling comfortable talking about mental health at work, a significant percentage of employees risk serious repercussions for disclosing a mental health issue. 15 percent of employees face dismissal, disciplinary action or demotion after disclosing a mental health issue at work (almost twice the number identified in similar research undertaken in 2016). Scaled up to the general working population, this could mean as many as 1.2 million people negatively affected for disclosing mental health problems.

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