February 13, 2019

Guest blog: Mental Health is now being taken much more seriously in the workplace - by Sara Orsbourn, Operations Manager, Yofis

February 13, 2019/ Phil Flaxton

Mental health is now being taken much more seriously in the workplace. It’s hard not to when an average of 12.5 million working days are lost to the UK economy each year according to the Economics Foundation. Many employers are providing counselling support and interventions for sufferers which is quite clearly a good thing compared to what happened in the past.

Wouldn’t it be much more sensible however, if employers provided early interventions before people started to suffer and develop such serious issues that they needed to take extended periods of time off or even give up work altogether?

It’s a no brainer to say that people are more likely to have better mental health when they feel positive and good about themselves. In the workplace this is likely to happen when they feel valued by their employer and their colleagues. When they have purpose which fits with the job they are doing and when they have a good work life balance. This is all something that it is within the power of an employer to do something about. Organisations need to talk to their staff and find out what is important to them and what motivates them and then they need to act on this information.

November 16, 2018

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

November 16, 2018/ Phil Flaxton

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

November 13, 2018/ Frances O'Grady

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

November 11, 2018/ David Lennan

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.

July 18, 2018

Guest blog: How to stay secure when working from home - By Alex Tebbs, co-founder of unified communications specialist VIA

July 18, 2018/ David Lennan

The latest statistics on flexible working show that it’s the new normal for British workplaces. It’s no longer a desirable benefit, but something that’s seen as a key component in becoming an ‘employer of choice’ and providing employees with a better work-life balance.

According to one 2017 survey, 58% of employees are already offered some form of flexible working arrangement. Another survey puts that figure at 63%, which rises to 87% when you include workers who say that they would like their business to provide the option if they don’t already.

In addition, 70% of workers say that flexible working makes a potential job more attractive to them and it’s hard to imagine an employee who currently benefits from it moving to a new job where they wouldn’t. Perhaps more than any of the others, these statistics should encourage forward-thinking employers to consider implementing a flexible working policy.

Understanding the risks and benefits

However, any policy that allows employees to work outside of the office comes with security risks. Proper precautions must be taken to ensure that these risks don’t turn into problems that outweigh the benefits of flexible working.

In this article, we’ll focus on three areas of risk: online security, hardware and offline risks that come from using paper materials. Each of these areas demands a different solution, but employers can’t afford to ignore any of them.

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.”

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