May 14, 2018

Guest blog: Why Working from Home isn't for everyone, but Relationships are - By Steve Byrne, CEO, Travel Counsellors.

May 14, 2018/ Steve Byrne

The number of UK homeworkers has increased by 45% over the past 15 years, and those that are self-employed by 30%. This covers over 3m people in the UK and accounts for 15% of the adult working population.

Surveys consistently find that homeworkers are able to work more flexibly, and have higher levels engagement and productivity. The flexibility that this type of working provides is supported by the fact that 80% report a better work life balance; they are more engaged with 82% of employees stating they would be more loyal to their employer if they had flexible working arrangements; and they are more productive with 91% saying they get more work done when working remotely. In a recent survey of our 1,800 home-based travel counsellors, 94% said they agreed with the statement “I love my job”. And 92% would not return to their previous job, which is a powerful statement given that the vast majority have left a salary to work on a self-employed basis.

This growing trend isn’t just isolated to the UK, with American Society of Travel Agents stating that “the fastest growing segment of the US travel industry is homeworking agents who are professional and making use of the latest technology”.

May 13, 2018

Work Wise Week 2018 Launch Blog: Pay, Productivity & Performance - By David Lennan, Chairman, Work Wise UK

May 13, 2018/ David Lennan

Work Wise Week is a very significant period in the Work Wise UK calendar when we highlight and discuss the key issues affecting workplace performance. During 2017 Work Wise UK focused attention on the Productivity conundrum and the missing £Billions and whilst during last year more was written about Productivity than at any time in our Industrial history, attention has now swiftly turned to Equal Pay and the gender pay gap.

Work Wise UK believe that our low productivity is a symptom of poor work place management, combined with a mix of other related factors such as the age and composition of our workforce, working hours, poor vocational education, housing, travel to work congestion, workplace health, investment in skills and technology, supply chain management and innumerable other issues that can influence and change the workplace environment and impact on organisational performance.

November 18, 2017

Guest blog: In the car on the M4 - my transitory dwelling place, my space in-between - By Dr Harriet Shortt, Associate Professor in Organisational Studies, University of the West of England Bristol

November 18, 2017/ Harriet Shortt

As Work Wise Uk's Commute Smart Week comes to a close, I thought I might write a piece that, I hope, will raise some thoughts and reflections about how and why our commutes might offer a space for escape and freedom. Taking a critical, analytical view here, I offer some thoughts on the commute as a space ‘in-between’ in which we can momentarily break away from the multitude of identities we seek to maintain in contemporary society, and temporarily find a sense of sanctuary in a working world characterized by change and fluidity.

The commute. On a train, on a bus, or in a car. It is a space in-between the dominant spaces of work and home. It is a liminal space. Or is it?

In my paper, ‘Liminality, space and the importance of ‘transitory dwelling places’’ (Shortt, 2015), I argue that spaces in-between – or liminal spaces – become transitory dwelling places when they are made meaningful by workers. I was talking about spaces at work in this paper – like corridors, stairwells, and toilets. Places in which, as my research shows, workers hang out in order to seek privacy, escape the visibility of work, or hide away with colleagues for snatched conversations away from the open-plan office. But recently, my commute in my car from Bath to Bristol and back seems to be taking on similar characteristics. It’s my little space in-between. My space to escape.

November 17, 2017

Guest blog: Commuting is taking longer and making our lives harder - time for a twenty-first century approach - By Frances O'Grady, TUC General Secretary

November 17, 2017/ Frances O'Grady

British workers now spend the equivalent of 27 working days a year travelling to and from work, according to TUC figures published today. In the last ten years, the average commute has increased by 20 hours a year.

And commuting is eating up more of our money as well as our time. Rail fare increases of 3.6 per cent have already been announced for the start of 2018, and the price of petrol is predicted to rise as well.

With the days getting shorter, this is the time of year when the commuter blues really bite. Travelling home from work in the dark can be depressing – even dangerous – as weather worsens and travelling conditions become dismal.

It doesn’t have to be this way. And Commute Smart Week is a good time to start thinking about smarter alternatives, like flexi-time and high-quality home-working.

November 16, 2017

Guest blog: We can't stop the clocks going back, but we can take positive action to improve our well being - By Ian McKay, Chairman, How's My Driving.

November 16, 2017/ Phil Flaxton

In an ideal world a large proportion of people would prefer to work from home, or at least much closer to home than they currently do. The stresses of long traffic queues, delayed trains and cancelled flights all affect our physical and mental health and extend our working day.

Even without these pressures it’s a fact that “driving 25,000 miles or more a year on business is the third most dangerous activity in the UK”.

It’s not realistic for everybody to work from home, but society must start to think and act on the sheer waste of resource in people travelling hours to just sit at a desk in a corporate office.

May 11, 2020

Guest blog: Introducing the virtual model workplace - By Susan Clews - Chief Executive - Acas

In any other time, we might celebrate the fact that homeworking is on the rise. New figures from the ONS show that 49.2% of employees are now working from home (up from 45.8% in just one week). But the definition of flexible working is about employees having a choice about where and when they work. Enforced homeworking, as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, doesn’t seem to quite fit this bill.

Homeworking in the current environment

What else do we know about homeworking in the lockdown? Well we know that:

· many employees feel that as soon as work returns to anything approaching business as usual, employers will row back on homeworking, whatever the perceived benefits

· homeworking is a privilege, of sorts, only afforded to professional occupations, with lower-paid workers in precarious work less able to work from home

· working from home is more widespread in some sectors than others. A new YouGov poll for Acas shows that it’s easier for those in IT/ telecoms (90% work from home all or most of the time due to Coronavirus) and finance/accounting (84%), but not so easy for those in retail (22%) and hospitality/leisure (26%)

· homeworking is double-edged, bringing both rewards, with a sense of empowerment for some, as well as no dreaded commuting; and difficulties – in an IES survey, over half of respondents reported new pains, especially in the neck, shoulders and back; and the Acas survey reported workers missing informal/social interaction (71%) and feeling ‘out of the loop’ (51%).

May 10, 2020

Guest blog: How is COVID-19 effecting businesses and ways of working ? - By Chris Smith - Head Writer at Spend It Like Beckham

All around the world businesses are in a state of crisis. The outbreak of Covid-19 has brought many businesses, big and small, to their knees all around the world. The UK has been in almost total lockdown since mid-March, but what has this meant for the UK’s businesses?

In this article, we’re going to look at some of the most notable ways that Covid-19 has had an impact on businesses, how they are coping and what the future of work in the UK may look like once this is all over.

How Are Businesses Being Affected?

Coronavirus has impacted UK businesses in many different ways. As of April 18th, the Government issued advice that all businesses and employees that could work from home, should be. This took a toll on the UK's workforce, with employees across the country, in every sector, being affected.

Thousands were now expected to work from home; others were put on Government-backed furlough and, unfortunately, many more were let go.

Businesses have been subject to serious loss of cash flow and custom, while some are thriving, deepening on the industry.

So, let’s break down some of the effects this is having.

May 18, 2019

Guest blog: Remote without the disconnect - By Steve Bryne, CEO, Travel Counsellors.

Steve Byrne, CEO at global independent travel company, Travel Counsellors, says self-development doesn’t have to take a back seat when working smarter.

Records show that the number of UK homeworkers has increased by nearly 50% over the last two decades, and out of a UK working population of 32.5m people, four million have decided to take the opportunity to back themselves and run their own business.

With these numbers set to increase, and the next generation of talent around the corner who are well-versed in the benefits of smarter working, I’m reminded of Microsoft Corporation founder Bill Gates’ view: "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others."

Empowering people to work smarter requires a tangible level of trust. It requires trust between the company, as the enabler, and their employees, or in Travel Counsellors case, over 1800 franchise owners across the globe who run their own corporate and leisure travel businesses from home.

Nurturing trusted relationships between employer and employee must go hand-in-hand with creating a strong sense of community across an organisation - a community of people that supports and champions each other to achieve their personal and professional goals, backed by a technology platform that ensures that they feel constantly engaged and digitally connected. The result, in Travel Counsellors case, is a global group of hundreds of professionals, sharing knowledge, support and expertise to provide their customers with the best travel experiences possible. Afterall, you are only ever one Skype call away from a helping hand.

Being trusted to do your job to the very best of your ability is an incredibly powerful tool. Not only for the good of individual and collective business growth, but for the betterment of a person’s self-belief and self-development, both in and out of the workplace. To quote the American educator Booker T. Washington, “Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.”

November 16, 2018

Guest blog: Why you should get involved with Road Safety Week - By Sam Nahk, Senior Public Affairs Officer, Brake

It’s almost that time of year again… The UK’s biggest road safety event, Road Safety Week, will run from 19–25 November, and we will be encouraging everyone to shout about the safety of those on two wheels and sharing how we can all be ‘Bike Smart’.

Cyclists and motorcyclists are among the most vulnerable of all road users; in the UK, more than a third of all people killed or seriously injured on our roads were travelling by bike. However, every single one of these crashes could have been prevented with the right policies, infrastructure and behaviours in place. That’s why this Road Safety Week we are going to do something about it.

Every single one of us has a role to play in being Bike Smart. Whether you’re a policy maker deciding on the rollout of safer speed limits, a driver committing to be alert and give bike riders plenty of space, or a cyclist/motorcyclist yourself, using safe riding behaviours and with appropriate training and equipment.

Throughout Road Safety Week we will be focusing on several key topics, where evidence indicates that significant improvements can be made to protect the safety of cyclists and motorcyclists – a crucial one of these is rural road safety. A shocking two-thirds of all deaths involving a cyclist or motorcyclist take place on a rural road and the cause can often be attributed to speed. We believe that the current 60mph default limit is far too high for many of these roads and is a key factor in their increased risk – rest assured we will be making this point loud and clear.

November 13, 2018

Guest blog: Beating the commuter blues - By Frances O'Grady - General Secretary of the TUC

As November bites, many of us will be commuting in the cold and the dark.

Most weather forecasters are predicting a very cold winter, which is certainly a chilling thought. You don’t have to live in Scotland, where the first snow fell back in 20 September, in order to suffer a case of the commuting blues.

Commute Smart Week, which is organised by Work Wise UK, is a great opportunity to talk about how we can make travelling to work take less time – or even eliminate the journey altogether

Commuting is taking too much of our time

New TUC research published today shows that commuting is taking up more and more of our time.

Ten years ago, the average commuter spent about 200 hours a year getting to work and back – the equivalent of five week’s work. Since then, the average commute has increased by 18 hours a year.

Longer commutes often feel like wasted time and the experience can be frustrating and unpleasant. With more commuters travelling for longer, we all too often find ourselves sitting in a traffic jam or squeezed into packed public transport.

BME workers have the most time-consuming commutes

Our research shows that the average employee from a black or ethnic minority background spends an hour and 9 minutes each day commuting – or 12 minutes more than their white counterparts. BME workers are also more likely to live in urban areas, have lower average pay and are more likely to travel by bus, which is a relatively slow way of getting to work

November 11, 2018

Chairman's blog: Brexit and the future of work - Don't panic!! - By David Lennan - Chairman - Work Wise UK

Commute Smart week is with us again and what a year it’s been, disruption in many sectors, trade wars, confusion and misinformation all adding to worry and fear as new events and emotions impact on us daily. Have we really got that much to worry about and fear? I don’t think so. No matter what the headlines and pundits say, or whatever discomforts or displeasures we may suffer or witness in our workplaces, the world of work changes relatively slowly. This is not because we are slow learners or developers, but in reality we really don’t like change and most people would rather rake over the past rather than think positively about creating the future. We can’t put the clocks back, well only by an hour at this time of year and even that is a point of controversy and indecision.

And so it is today, when we still can’t make our minds up about “ In or Out” whether we want to be Global or European, Adventurers or Followers, Entrepreneurial or Steered along, supported by Common or Civil Law and these are just some questions that we should have answers to by now, or at least our Leaders should!

Around this time last year The Government set Sir Charlie Mayfield the task of finding “The Missing Billions” £130bn to be more precise, which was said to be lost to the British economy through poor productivity. Well, here we are now in full flow and ebb on occasions, towards Brexitgate, the Missing millions team don’t seem to have found the answers, or at least they haven’t told us yet.

Blog

Welcome to the Blog Spot

Work Wise UK