04
magazine
businessinfomag.uk
Three in four organisations have introduced
flexible working policies so that staff can vary
their working hours and/or work from home or
other locations, an international survey of 8,000
organisations conducted by Vodafone has found.
The vast majority of respondents to the
Flexible: friend or foe?
survey said their
organisations had benefited from flexible
working: 83% said it had led to an improvement
in productivity; 61% said company profits had
increased; and 58% said it had had a positive
impact on their company’s reputation.
Even in companies that hadn’t adopted flexible
working, there was an expectation that doing
so would bring benefits: 55% of employers that
haven’t embraced flexible working thought doing so
would improve morale; 44% said it would improve
productivity; and 30% said profits would increase.
When the 20% of respondents that haven’t
adopted flexible working were asked why not,
33% said it wouldn’t suit their corporate culture;
30% felt there would be friction between those
who worked flexibly and those who didn’t; 25%
felt work between the two groups would not be
distributed fairly; and 22% felt employees would
not work as hard if they were allowed to work
flexibly.
For more insight, download Vodafone’s flexible
working guide.
Generations at war
Two thirds (65%) of UK employees are
experiencing inter-generational conflict at
work, according to a pan-European study of
11,000 working adults by ADP, a provider of
Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions.
Conflict between generations is caused by
differing views on how things should be done
(19%), older workers working for longer and
leaving less room for new talent (18%) and
differing approaches to organisational values and
corporate responsibility (18%).
The survey suggests that younger workers find
it more difficult to cope with age diversity. One in
six (16%) feels that their ageing management is
out of touch with modern trends and 15% think
older workers are resistant to change.
In brief
Flexibility rules:
Work-life balance (39.6%), job
flexibility (32.4%) and holidays (30%) provide
the biggest boost to staff morale, research
by leadership development company Morgan
Redwood shows. Factors that have the opposite
effect are ‘Poor work-life balance’, followed by
‘Making people redundant’ and ‘Pressure to
achieve more in the working day’.
Tech talent shortage:
The talent shortage in the
IT sector is set to worsen as baby boomers retire
early. Research by Randstad Technologies shows
that the proportion of Tech workers planning to
stop working early is higher than the UK average
(49% vs. 35%). Changes that could persuade
them to stay include flexible working (43%);
mentoring junior staff (41%); and retraining in
new technology (34%).
agenda
Flexi-work loved the world over
New office
measurement system
to cost business
tenants billions
Tenant Advisory Group founder
Martyn Markland is warning that new
International Property Measurement
Standards (IPMS) introduced by
The Royal Institution of Chartered
Surveyors on January 1, 2016 could
cost UK businesses £1 billion a year.
He says that replacing the existing
measurement standard, known as Net
Internal Area (NIA), with IPMS will affect
every business that leases office space.
“The IPMS requires columns,
buttresses, party walls and other
structural intrusions to be included in
the floor area measurement, which
effectively means that business owners
will now be paying for space they
cannot physically use,” he explained.
In a 33-page report,
Businesses
Face £1 Billion Bill For Office Space
They Cannot Use
, Markland warns that
legal documents, such as leases and
development agreements, will need
re-drafting as a result of the changes
and advises business owners to instruct
property and legal advisors to use Net
Internal Area (NIA) and not IPMS as the
basis for lease negotiations.
The workplace of the future?
The different priorities of older and younger employees were highlighted when Norwegian
furniture manufacturer HAG asked Londoners aged 16-18 to imagine the workplace of the
future. Ideas mooted by Generation Z that are unlikely to find favour with workers in their 60s
and 70s include hanging work pods that you have to climb into; Segways for moving around
the office; and a swinging chair that would generate its own energy to power an integrated
computer. Ideas with greater cross-generational appeal include on-site doctor’s surgeries and
projections of tranquil environments on office walls. There were also a number of suggestions
that sound good but but contain the seeds of conflict, among them a ‘Netflix’ area (who’s
in charge of the remote?), a desk that turns into a bed (is he ever going to do any work?);
communal vegetable allotments; and a Bake Off-style kitchen for communal cooking (who’s
turn is it to wash up?).
Guide to
flexible working
