December 4, 2018
Majority of UK employees want Britain to adopt French out-of-hours email ban
Over a third (35 percent) of UK workers continue to work when then get home from the office, claims research from Insurance2go into whether British workers are struggling to stick to working within their designated office hours. The survey found that a third (35 percent) of continue to answer work email or conduct work tasks on their personal mobile phones when they get home from work, a quarter (25 percent) do the same during their lunch break, and just under a quarter (23 percent) have said they work on their personal handsets on their commute. Meanwhile, across the channel, French employees have been given the legal right to ignore work emails outside of working hours, with companies of over 50 workers providing a charter of good conduct, setting out the hours when staff are not supposed to send or answer emails. When asked if the UK should follow-suit, 65 percent of workers were in favour, implying a strain on British staff and an expectation to be ‘always on’ even in non-working hours.
Fifty percent of UK employees feel their employers don’t understand them or their potential – higher than the European average of 46 percent according to a study of over 2,000 workers across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands from ADP. The research found that 40 percent of UK workers are unhappy with the quality of leadership, with only France reporting slightly higher figures, where 52 percent saying they feel misunderstood by their employer. This was followed closely by Italy (48 percent) and Germany (46 percent), while the Netherlands reported the most positive results with only a third stating such feelings (35 percent). However, UK and European employees are more likely to feel their direct reports understand them better, with 61 percent reporting that their managers know and support them, and want to see them succeed. This shows that those working more closely together enjoy better relationships, which in turn is likely to lead to better quality of work and greater productivity. The lesson for businesses is that close relations between all staff, regardless of seniority, matter.
December 4, 2018
I’m a designer and I job share with an AI
by Ceilidh Higgins • Comment, Technology, Workplace design
Thomas Edison is credited with the phrase “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration” and I believe there is no field where this applies more than architecture and design. So often people assume that interior design is such a fun, creative job – that it’s all about drawing, colours and furniture, something like being paid to colour in and shop – when today being a designer is just as much about people management, psychology, project management, documentation, checking codes and standards and managing contracts. It’s also often about a culture that expects long hours and being always available to the job. “It’s not work when you are passionate about it?” is common. But what if instead we could all work less hours and job share with our computers?
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