Search Results for: workplace training

Flexible working has a range of positive benefits for workers, a new report confirms

Flexible working has a range of positive benefits for workers, a new report confirms

by • Flexible working, News

flexible workingFlexibility in where, when and how people work, including remote work, leads to an increase in innovation, as well as improvements in communication, creativity, productivity and engagement, according to a new study from the Flex+Strategy Group (FSG). This is among the key findings from a national probability telephone survey of 595 full-time employed US adults conducted for FSG by ORC International. The report claims that sixty percent of people who have flexible working options feel they’re “more productive and engaged.” Only 4 percent said they are less so, with 34 percent feeling their level of productivity and engagement is consistent. The results suggest major corporations including IBM may have gotten it wrong when they cited remote work as a barrier to innovation and collaboration and asked employees to re-locate back to company offices. The research also found a significant lack of training required for successful flexibility.

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Wellbeing programmes that focus on staff engagement neglect a need to address mental health

Wellbeing programmes that focus on staff engagement neglect a need to address mental health

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

The mental health of employees, especially those working within high pressured working environments are the number one concerns for UK CEOs. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of respondents to the annual wellbeing report ‘Employee Wellbeing Research 2018’ from Reward & Employee Benefits Association (REBA) in association with Punter Southall Health & Protection, admitted that high pressure working environments are now the biggest threat to wellbeing. Just a third (34 percent) of respondents provide mental health training for line managers, and despite a similar percentage (35 percent) planning to introduce this training in the next 12 months, one in six (14.9 percent) say they have no plans to introduce this sort of training. Although mental health in the workplace is the top priority for almost three in five (60 percent) CEOs in the UK and the area of employee wellbeing with which their Board is most concerned, currently, the key drivers of wellbeing strategies are to improve engagement and culture. Well over a quarter (30 percent) of respondents said wellbeing strategies are primarily driven by a desire to increase employee engagement and 23 percent to improve organisational culture.

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Automation will lead to greater inequality rather than job losses

Automation will lead to greater inequality rather than job losses

by • AI, News, Technology

The total level of wages associated with jobs that have the technical potential to be automated in the UK is £290 billion per year, which represents 33 percent of all wages and earnings from labour in the economy, according to a new report published by IPPR  for the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice. The report further claims that low-wage jobs have more potential to be automated than high-wage jobs and so it’s not just automation’s impact on the number of jobs that need to be considered but the impact on inequality. If automation leads to lower average wages or working hours, or loss of jobs in aggregate, a significant amount of national income could be transferred from wages to profits. And while increased automation of activities will replace some workers and labour earnings, employment and wages will rise in other areas of the labour market due to higher output and productivity, offsetting some of the original £290 billion lost but increasing pay inequality.

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Built environment needs to address the talent gap to make the digital transition says WEF

Built environment needs to address the talent gap to make the digital transition says WEF

by • AI, Architecture, Facilities management, News, Technology, Workplace

Built environment needs to address the talent gap to make digital transition says WEFThe construction industry needs new talent and skills to help in the adoption of new technologies to meet the challenges of digital transformation. It must also become more diverse, including increasing the percentage of women in the industry. These are the recommendations of a new report from the World Economic Forum, developed in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Shaping the Future of Construction: An Action Plan to solve the Industry’s Talent Gap. The report argues that the Infrastructure and Urban Development (IU) industry has failed to innovate as quickly as other sectors, resulting in stagnating productivity and negative effects on the economy, society and the environment. An ongoing industry-wide shortage of qualified workers is among the key reasons for this issue. It has undermined project management and execution, adversely affecting cost, timelines and quality. It also has impeded the adoption of new digital technologies, such as building information modelling (BIM), automated equipment and cloud-based collaboration tools, which could improve productivity. The report provides twelve key actions which needs to be implemented to close the structural talent gap of the construction industry.

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Open plan offices are distracting and reduce rather than improve productivity, says report

Open plan offices are distracting and reduce rather than improve productivity, says report

by • Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

Open plan offices are distracting and reduce rather than improve productivity says report

Open, collaborative work environments have been hailed as a boost to collaboration and performance, but since individual tasks that require high levels of concentration and minimum disruption still account for over half of the typical working day, noise and distraction within open plan workplaces prevent employees from focusing properly and may reduce productivity, claims a new report. According to research by Unispace, 60 percent of the average working day is devoted to individual task-focused work; 25 percent to collaboration, 7 percent to socialising and the same for learning. The research found that the issue of noise has actually become much worse over the last 12 months, with more workers complaining compared to the same research conducted in 2016. Survey respondents flagged noise (15 percent) as the primary cause of inefficiency during the working week, a number that has risen by four per cent in just 12 months. Second to this was a lack of quiet areas (13 percent), a lack of privacy (9 percent) and 7 percent felt that the temperature and air quality of their office was also a factor. The findings come as part of Unispace’s research of more than 11,000 workers in a global study of working practices and workplace design.

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The key to tackling future economic challenges is to harness the ageing workforce

The key to tackling future economic challenges is to harness the ageing workforce

by • News, Workplace

Providing American seniors with better work incentives and opportunities will be crucial for the United States to meet the challenges of its rapidly ageing population. By 2028, more than one in five Americans will be aged 65 and over, up from fewer than one in six today, according to a new OECD report. Working Better with Age and Fighting Unequal Ageing in the United States finds that employment rates among older workers in the United States are above the average across OECD countries. In 2016, 62 percent of all 55-64 year olds were employed compared with the OECD average of 59 percent. However, employment rates are much lower among the ageing workforce. Early retirement is prevalent among workers from vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds, often occurring as soon as Social Security benefits become available at age 62. Poverty among seniors is a challenge: more than 20 percent of peopled aged 65 and over have incomes below the relative poverty line – defined as half of the median disposable household income – compared with the OECD average of less than 13 percent.

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Employers support post-Brexit immigration system that tackles skills and labour shortages

Employers support post-Brexit immigration system that tackles skills and labour shortages

by • News, Workplace

Employers support post-Brexit immigration system that tackles skills and labour shortagesDemand for labour is likely to remain relatively strong in the near-term which is one of the main reasons why employers support a national approach to tackling the UK’s skill and labour shortages post-Brexit, in comparison with a regional or sectoral one. According to the latest quarterly Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD and The Adecco Group the preference for a national labour or skills shortage occupation scheme reflects the main reason given by organisations for employing EU nationals, which is that they have difficulty finding local applicants to fill lower skilled roles, as cited by 18 percent of employers. The national survey of more than 2,000 employers found that the relative majority of employers (41 percent) would prefer a UK-wide immigration system that is based on national labour or skill shortage occupations in the likely event of migration restrictions once the UK leaves the European Union. In contrast, around one in ten (13 percent) favour a sector-based policy and just 5 percent would back a regional policy.

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Poor management blamed for low levels of productivity amongst UK workforce

Poor management blamed for low levels of productivity amongst UK workforce

by • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Poor management behind low levels of productivity amongst UK workforceA third of workers (32 percent) regularly struggle to be productive in their job, and one in six (16 percent) blame their manager – claims a new survey from ADP. This puts bad management ahead of inefficient systems and processes (15 percent) and staff shortages (13 percent) as the biggest drain on productivity in the UK workplace. The UK has been grappling with low productivity levels for a number of years, consistently placed behind other leading economies, such as Germany and the US in official productivity tables. While recent ONS figures suggested a recovery is underway, reporting the biggest jump in productivity levels for six years, the ADP findings suggests that UK PLC isn’t out of the woods just yet.  Barriers to productivity also vary significantly based on age, with over 55s the most affected by bad management (20 percent), while 16 to 24-year olds are more affected by social media (22 percent) distractions from colleagues (21 percent) and stress (18 percent).

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Skills gaps will increase this year and shortages will worsen following Brexit, predict employers

Skills gaps will increase this year and shortages will worsen following Brexit, predict employers

by • News, Workplace

Skills shortages to increase this year and get worse following Brexit, predict employersHalf of employers believe that Brexit will worsen the UK skills gap and nearly a quarter (23 percent) believe that Britain is not prepared to compete on the global stage, which will become even more important following the UK’s exit from the European Union in 2019. These are the findings of a research paper entitled “Solving the UK Skills Shortage” from Rober Walters, totaljobs and Jobsite which claims that almost two thirds of employers (65 percent) believe that they will be negatively impacted by skills shortages in 2018, with this shortage predicted to be most acute at junior and mid management level according to over half (52 percent) of employers. According to the research, employers may have to look to different industries to find the transferable skills that are essential to grow. This means that there will be more opportunities for skilled candidates to use their knowledge and experience in different sectors, providing them with new challenges and opportunities in industries that they may not have considered before.

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Technology can be a major distraction for people, making them less productive claims Microsoft report

Technology can be a major distraction for people, making them less productive claims Microsoft report

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Wellbeing

A survey of 20,000 European workers carried out by Microsoft suggests that technology can distract workers rather than make them more productive. The study claims that a constant stream of messages, notifications and emails was particularly distracting. Workers also pointed out that the way employers use technology can also disrupt their work and make it harder for them to concentrate. Other factors identified in the report include lack of training and burn-out associated with always-on working.

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HR teams are not sufficiently prepared to meet the fourth industrial revolution

HR teams are not sufficiently prepared to meet the fourth industrial revolution

by • News, Technology, Workplace

HR teams are not sufficiently prepared to meet the fourth industrial revolutionMost people who work in HR now recognise how essential technology is for delivering more strategic value to their organisation, but a new report suggests that HR teams are not prepared to meet the fourth industrial revolution. A survey from ADP and IDC across eight countries in Europe found that over a fifth (22 percent) of Human Capital Management (HCM) processes are still inputted manually. Equally alarming, was the lack of communication between HR teams and IT departments, with 28 percent of respondents claiming that IT is only somewhat involved in HCM solution decisions, and 3 percent claiming it plays no role at all. Yet despite a significant number of respondents revealing that IT departments are not closely aligned with HR, the research pointed towards a shift in the attitudes of HR experts. When asked which new technologies they find increasingly important, 68 percent said end-to-end integration of all HR and talent systems and 64 percent said HR dashboard and analytics were very or extremely important. What’s more, 56 percent said social or collaborative features were also very important.

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New RSA report highlights increasingly precarious and diverse nature of work

New RSA report highlights increasingly precarious and diverse nature of work

by • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace

work gig economy flexible workingBritain is dividing into seven new classes of worker as the gig economy grows, according to think-tank the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). Striving, Thriving or Just About Surviving has been published to coincide with the launch of the RSA’s Future Work Centre, following RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor’s employment review for Theresa May last year. The report warns of a 30:40:30 society: while around 30 percent live comfortably, economic insecurity is “the new normal” with 40 percent just managing and a bottom 30 percent not managing to get by.

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