November 10, 2017
Best practice in flexible working and gender diversity honoured at awards presentation
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.’
Over half (52 percent) of people who work remotely feel their colleagues don’t treat them equally, claims a new study. Working remotely has become a highly sought-after job perk and having the flexibility to live and work where you please, regardless of corporate headquarters, often draws people to take one job over another. But a survey from VitalSmarts produced by David Maxfield and Joseph Grenny, authors of the bestsellers Crucial conversations and Crucial Accountability, found that remote employees have a significantly harder time with a number of workplace challenges than their onsite colleagues. 67 percent of remote employees complained that colleagues didn’t fight for their priorities compared 59 percent of onsite employees. 41 percent of remote employees believed colleagues say bad things about them behind their back compared to 31 percent of onsite employees and 64 percent of remote employees had changes made to a project without warning vs. 58 percent of onsite employees. Over a third (35 percent) of remote employees thought colleagues were lobbying against them vs. 26 percent of onsite employees.
Despite recent figures indicating that work productivity is down in Britain, the UK remains a highly attractive country for employers and employees based on a combination of talent, location, quality of life and cost, according to the latest edition of Colliers International’s European Cities of Influence report. The analysis of 50 major European economic cities for employers saw London retain its top position, with all other UK cities in the analysis featuring in the top 20 (Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol and Glasgow).The report finds that quality of life factors are important to accelerate business and attract talent with the research revealing that the nature of workplace strategy is evolving so rapidly that keeping up — let alone staying ahead of the curve — can be a challenge. Employers are now focused on creating a workplace that can attract and retain talent by incorporating co-working and collaborative facilities, flexible working options and ingraining a healthy mindset. With the onus on keeping employees happy and productive, the design and utilization of the workplace is helping to accelerate business productivity more than ever before.
The London office market remains a buoyant market despite Brexit uncertainty, as many organisations see it as the most prestigious location for businesses of any size. In 
Businesses are concerned about the pace of commitment to improving the UK’s infrastructure, and a record number of firms are dissatisfied with the state of infrastructure in their region. With the UK currently ranking 27th in the world for the quality of its infrastructure, nearly all (96 percent) of businesses in the 2017 CBI/AECOM Infrastructure Survey see infrastructure as important (of which 55 percent view it as critical) to the Government’s agenda. From the Clean Growth Strategy and the £500 billion infrastructure pipeline to its decision to build a new runway at Heathrow and press ahead with the A303 tunnel, the Government has made clear its commitment to British infrastructure. However, only one in five firms is satisfied with the pace of delivery (20 percent) and almost three quarters (74 percent) doubt infrastructure will improve over this Parliament. This lack of confidence is attributed primarily to policy inconsistency (+94 percent of firms) & political risk (+86 percent). The digital sector is the exception, however, where 59 percent of firms are confident of improvements.
November 9, 2017
Review: ushering in a new era for the coworking phenomenon 0
by Paul Carder • Comment, Coworking, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace design
Ramon Suarez has produced a very practical book, based on his own experience as one of the pioneers of coworking. And let’s be clear – it is coworking (not “co-working”; there is no hyphen), as Suarez explains, “a coworker (a member of a coworking space) is not the same as a co-worker (somebody who happens to work for the same company or in your same office)”. On his business card, Suarez describes his role as “Serendipity Accelerator”- you will understand that if you read the book. Suarez differentiates coworking from its many (and mostly false) aliases. Shared offices may be collaborative, but do not provide the network of people found in a good coworking space. Networked offices, where more than one company shares space and may collaborate, “come close” to coworking. Hacker & Maker spaces, Accelerators, Incubators and Cafes are similarly differentiated.
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