This is the first week in the “A to Z” series explaining WiseWork. It’s all laid out in the “Why WiseWork” guide available on this site. Each week we will be taking a letter of the alphabet and looking at the word it represents. This week it’s A for Absence. When I chose ‘absence’ as the topic I was aware that introducing remote and flexible working schemes are known to reduce absenteeism. So it seemed obvious that one of the…
A survey of 2,000 working fathers aged between 24 and 40 found that two thirds had asked for a change in their working pattern since the birth of their child. 56% of those that asked to adjust their hours were allowed to do so which means that almost half were refused. 45% of millennial fathers said they had experienced tension from their employers over their wish to balance their work and home priorities. Only 19% of the fathers who requested…
A report just published by the Office for National Statistics points out that, as the UK population gets older, an increasing number of workers are providing care towards the end of their working life for family members. One in four older female workers, and one in eight older male workers, have caring responsibilities. This points out the need for flexible working arrangements for older employees. This provision is usually associated with parents trying to balance child care with their work…
A recent report from the CIPD shows that the number of employees using formal flexible working arrangements – such as part-time working, term-time working, compressed hours and job-sharing – has flat-lined since 2010. This is despite the right to request flexible working being extended to all employees in 2014. Why is this? The government is taking this seriously enough to set up a Flexible Working Task Force to look at the issue and run a campaign to try and increase…
According to research by Dr Heejung Chung from the University of Kent, a third of all UK workers believe those who work flexibly create more work for others. A similar proportion believe their career will suffer if they use flexible working arrangements. The research also found that the majority of respondents that held negative views against flexible workers were male, while women and especially mothers were the ones who were most likely to suffer from such stereotypes. Based on data…
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…
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…
The UK is running out of workers. According to the CIPD current employer plans suggest that we’ll need to fill 13.5 million job vacancies in the next ten years, but only 7 million young people will leave school and college. With fewer people entering the labour pool, it’s critical for employers to be able to embrace talent and fill roles. Andy Briggs, CEO of Aviva Life and the UK Government’s business champion for older workers has called for a million…
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has just issued a report stating that men on low pay are four times more likely to be working part-time than in the 1990s. It shows that 1 in 5 men aged from 25 to 55 in low paid jobs are now working part-time. Twenty years ago it was 1 in 20. This has been portrayed in the media as bad news, implying that these people would prefer to have full-time jobs. But this may…
The UK remains consistently near the top of the working hours league and well down the productivity table. Maybe there is a connection? A recent survey from Morgan McKinley showed that 84% of respondents work beyond their contracted hours. And it’s not just the odd extra hour. 27% work between 6 and 9 hours more per week and a further 31% work 10 hours or more over their official working time. The survey disproves the theory that these are all…