Peter Thomson blogs regularly about the changing world of work and how WiseWork is helping organisations to benefit from new working practices. This site also hosts blog contributions from Wisework Partners and other guest bloggers..
Having looked earlier at the overall benefits to business that can be achieved through collaborative working, let us now consider one particular area where collaboration can deliver real improvements in performance and productivity, namely knowledge sharing. Using a variety of online platforms and technologies, tailored so as to be appropriate to the business and the individual workers involved, the sharing of knowledge, data and work tasks is a very effective way of working. Among the benefits to the business itself…
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Today many more businesses are embracing a collaborative workstyle with a small core of full-time professionals managing the business; more functions being outsourced to a contracted workforce of freelance, self-employed specialists who are engaged on an as-needs basis; and a flexible contingent workforce including part-time staff, interim managers and agency temps. This model was outlined in 1989 by Charles Handy in his book “The Age of Unreason” where he described “The Shamrock Organisation” with three leaves depicting each of these…
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This is a guest blog from Wisework Associate, Graham Ramsey. It covers a topic that is highly relevant to today’s world of agile working. In this Blog on the subject of Business Continuity Management, or Organisational Resilience as it can also be referred to, I am going to share with you some of my knowledge and experience. I have been involved in Business Continuity (BC) for 25 years across a range of industry sectors, operating as a permanent employee, contractor…
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Stress has been described as the ‘Health Epidemic of the 21st Century’ by the World Health Organization and its effect on our emotional and physical health can be devastating. In a recent USA study, over 50% of individuals felt that stress negatively impacted work productivity. According to a CIPD survey in the UK, 38% of employees are under excessive pressure at least once a week and almost a third say they come home exhausted either often or always. Increased levels of…
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The recent Budget Statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed to the low productivity in the UK compared with other countries. This is probably caused by all sorts of complicated factors which economists can deliberate over for hours, but I have a simple explanation. Productivity at national levels is calculated by taking the GDP of the country and dividing it by the number of hours worked. So there are two ways of increasing the figure. You can increase GDP…
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Almost every day we hear of yet another survey that ‘proves’ people are more productive when they are working from home, only to see other surveys that favour the office. It’s worth looking a bit closer at who is sponsoring or running the ‘research’ and how objective it really is. Recently, a survey of 5,500 ‘respondents’ concluded that 66% of professionals think they would be more productive working remotely rather than in a traditional office. Just 7% chose ‘The office…
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I’ve just posted this on a CIPD discussion forum on Good Work, so thought I’d repeat it here… It’s great to hear that the CIPD is championing Good Work and encouraging the HR profession to think more broadly about Work as a topic. Work is not just jobs and employment. Good work is not just engaging with employees and providing them with rewarding conditions of employment. Work is an activity carried out by people in order to produce a result.…
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The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices has taken a fresh look at the way work is evolving and has come up with some sensible suggstions. It looked at non-standard working patterns and the introduction of ‘gig working’ using platforms such as Uber which has resulted in confusion about the status of workers.When are they ‘self employed’ versus being employees of some sort? The review goes part way to a solution by recommending a ‘dependent contractor’ category fitting between employees…
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It’s good to see that the Taylor Review has taken a sensible view of the way work is evolving and is proposing that legislation should catch up with what is now happening in the real world. We have seen a rapid growth in non-standard working patterns and the introduction of ‘gig working’ using platforms such as Uber. This has resulted in confusion about the status of workers. When are they ‘self employed’ versus being employees of some sort? The review…
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Today we see yet another report threatening that AI will replace our jobs. PWC estimate that around 30% of existing UK jobs could face automation over the next 15 years. The estimates may vary slightly by percentage and timescale, but they are all pointing in the same direction. This report is more positive than others, claiming that new AI-related technologies will boost productivity and generate additional jobs elsewhere in the economy. Along with this they warn that income inequality may rise.…
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