Tag Archives: employees

Business, FInance, Finance News, Wellbeing

Quantum launch SME tailored employee benefit solution

Quantum Advisory, the leading independent financial services consultancy, today announced the launch of a new solution designed with small to medium (SMEs) employers in mind.

The service, which has only been available to a handful of existing clients to now, will advise SMEs on group risk, healthcare and wellbeing solutions tailored to them, and to best meet the evolving needs of their employees.

Commenting, principal consultant Graham Yearsley, who leads the employee benefits team at the firm, said: “Although gradually improving, the experience of small to medium employers in the market is generally still poor – they are often overlooked, cannot access the same resources and opportunities as larger organisations, and the quality of advice and consultancy they receive can be lacking. With SMEs by far the majority of the market, the disparity in service levels is unacceptable.

“According to government statistics, in the private sector 5.51 million businesses in the UK have less than 49 employees – this accounts for 99.2% of the total business population. Around 37,000 are medium sized and have 50-249 employees and only around 8,000 are large at 250 employees or more. And it’s growing, in 2023 there was a 0.8% increase of SMEs from 2022.

“Employee benefits programmes are critical attraction and retention tools – meeting employee expectations, ensuring the wellbeing and ongoing loyalty of staff, as well as optimising engagement. Getting it right is important whatever your size, but for SMEs it’s crucial.

“Recruitment is extremely competitive at the best of times and offering ever increasing salaries simply isn’t an affordable option, and neither does it address the overall wellbeing of staff. Frequent staff turnover can also be a real issue for a small employer, and difficult to manage. An expertly executed benefits package can have a big impact on an employment decision and, by proxy, the quality and loyalty of a team.

“It has to include honest investments in employees’ financial security, total health and career growth. As well, of course, as being accessible and affordable for an employer.”

Yearsley continued: “Our independent status means we can act nimbly and innovatively, creating truly bespoke solutions that are fit for purpose. We are able to access new and interesting things and act upon them quickly without the shackles of external shareholders – resulting in direct benefits to our clients and to their employees.”

 

Absence Management, Awards, HR, HR News, News

ToHealth wins national accolade for new DNA and epigenetics testing venture

A new health screening venture aimed at improving employee wellbeing and reducing workplace absenteeism has won a national accolade.

The DNA and epigenetics testing service launched earlier this year by ToHealth, a division of preventative healthcare specialist PAM Group, was named Wellbeing Initiative of the Year at the Workplace Savings and Benefits Awards.

The awards, now in their 10th year, recognise employer and provider excellence. This year’s ceremony took place at the Marriott Grosvenor Square in London.

ToHealth’s DNA and epigenetics testing is carried out using one saliva sample, from which 1,000 types of DNA are analysed.

The results show whether a person is prone to developing a host of health conditions, such as diabetes, and how they can tailor their lifestyle to lower their risk as well as their biological age.

A person’s DNA holds the essential information about their development, function and growth, and cannot be changed. Epigenetics, however, adds another layer of information, enabling a person to identify how their lifestyle and environment impact the way their genes work, which can increase the risk of illness.

Each test result provided by ToHealth comes with personalised recommendations to support individuals with potential risk areas, including gut and heart health, immunity, injury risk and mental health. All of these help people to understand their biological age versus their chronological age.

The hyper-personalised genetic information and recommendations are accessible via an app, giving individuals an advanced insight into their health at the touch of a button and empowering them to improve their wellbeing and stave off the threat of disease, helping in turn to reduce workplace absenteeism.

ToHealth managing director Kerry-Dene Ihlenfeldt said: “We are passionate about empowering employees to thrive in the workplace. To be recognised with this award gives great kudos to our amazing team for their tireless work, and to our clients for their willingness to trust us to deliver services that improve the wellbeing of their employees.

“We work in partnership with our clients to ensure we offer a tailored and robust service that enables colleagues to perform at their best. Increasingly, businesses and organisations are focused on finding ways to improve the health and wellbeing of their workforce, and understand that prevention is better than cure.

“Our DNA and epigenetics screening provides a personalised and proactive health solution that enables employees to manage their own physical and mental wellbeing, reduce the risk of disease and improve longevity.

“Through testing, an employee can learn how to play the cards they have been dealt to their advantage, how their behaviours and their environment impact on them, and what lifestyle changes they need to make.

“We have an industry-leading offering which makes a tangible and positive difference, and we are immensely proud that this has been reflected with this prestigious national honour.”

ToHealth is partnering with testing company Muhdo for the offering.

The accolade is the latest for Warrington-based PAM Group, one of the largest occupational health, employee assistance and wellbeing providers in the UK. It offers a range of integrated services to public and private sector clients, supporting more than a million employees at over 1,000 businesses and organisations.

News

Brits make up nearly 12% of all global ‘quiet quitting’ web searches

New research has revealed that the UK is a world leader when it comes to searching about ‘quiet quitting’ as the phenomenon grips the globe.

A new report from digital intelligence provider, Similarweb, has investigated the ‘quiet quitting’ revolution that first appeared on the internet in articles in March 2022. The term refers to the trend of employees doing the bare minimum at a job, rather than working extra hard and doing more than is asked of them.

Similarweb data shows that interest in ‘quiet quitting’ and related search terms (‘what is quiet quitting’, ‘quiet quitting job’ ‘quietly quitting’ and ‘quiet quitting meaning’) has skyrocketed, rising 3,334% globally in August compared July, reaching 1.2 million web searches.

When broken down country by country, the UK made up 11.8% of ‘quiet quitting’ searches, the second highest of any nation. This was well behind the United States, which made up a massive 40.9% of searches, and just ahead of Germany, which was third in the list at 9.5%.

However it’s not just ‘quiet quitting’ searches that have been on the rise. The report also revealed there has been an increase in searches for “quiet firing”, which refers to employers side-lining unproductive or problematic workers by denying them raises, promotions or challenging assignments, instead of firing them, in hopes they will quit on their own.

In August there were 16.3k searches for ‘quiet firing’, versus virtually none the month prior. While it is still very small in its overall presence on the internet, the report’s author Jim Corridore, believes it is clearly a response to “quiet quitting” trends.

Employee Experience, News

The majority of employees wish their workspace was quieter, survey reveals

  • IRIS Clarity poll finds that the majority of workers don’t like noise in the office, with respondents wearing headphones to avoid it
  • Over a fifth of work calls are interrupted multiple times each call due to background noise

London, UK; Monday 11 July: The majority of employees wish their working space is quieter than it is now. That’s according to a poll by IRIS Clarity, the AI-powered voice isolation app, which surveyed UK and US respondents on their attitudes towards office noise.

Seventy-one percent of respondents wish their working space was quieter than it is now. This is more prevalent in the UK (79%) compared to in the US (63%).

The poll found that the majority of respondents don’t like noise in the office (54%) and actively wear headphones to avoid it, compared to 46% who feel like some office buzz and noise fuel their creativity. Interestingly, male respondents were more likely to thrive on office noise (53%), whereas female respondents prefer quieter offices (58%). When comparing the results between ages 18-34 and 35+, those in the younger age bracket prefer atmospheric offices (57%). Those 35 and above don’t like office noise (63%).

When asked how frequently background noise interrupts their calls throughout the day, the majority of respondents said they were disrupted at least once a day on calls they conduct (89% at home and 91% at work). Additionally, those surveyed said they are more likely to be distracted in the office (54%) compared to at home (46%).

Jacobi Anstruther, founder and CEO of IRIS Clarity, commented: “Whether you love or hate office buzz, it shouldn’t be disrupting crucial conversations on work calls. Distracting noise reduces concentration and productivity, while also causing workplace stress. At IRIS, we ensure the focus remains on what’s important: your words.”

Using the latest in AI technology, IRIS Clarity’s software removes distracting background noise from VoIP and customer calls. Real-time and bi-directional, IRIS Clarity allows participants on both sides of a call to immediately enjoy clearer sound, no matter where they are. IRIS Clarity improves focus, engagement, and wellbeing, bringing control to otherwise uncontrollable environments.

To learn more about IRIS Clarity, visit the website here: https://iris.audio/clarity-enterprise.

Health, News, North of England, Science

PAM Group accelerates growth for ToHealth division with new DNA and epigenetic tests

A series of tests which show whether a person is prone to developing a host of health conditions including diabetes and cancer, and how they can tailor their lifestyle to lower their risk, are being launched by preventative healthcare specialist PAM Group to accelerate growth for its ToHealth division.

They are the latest addition to Warrington-headquartered PAM Group’s offering and follow the backing it received from private equity firm LDC last year to support its expansion and the launch of new products and services.

ToHealth’s DNA and Epigenetic tests analyse 1,000 types of DNA from one saliva sample.

An individual’s DNA holds the essential information to their development, function and growth and cannot be changed. Epigenetics adds another layer of information, enabling a person to identify how their lifestyle and environment impacts the way their genes work, which can raise the risk of illness.

Each test result comes with a personalised insight into an individual’s state of health and can reveal a wide range of potential risk areas. These include immunity risk, response to stress, biological age and the risk of developing hidden conditions such as diabetes, cancer, stroke, hypertension and coronary heart disease.

The genetic information and insights are accessible via an app which aims to help individuals tailor their lifestyle to improve their wellbeing and stave off the threat of disease, helping to reduce workplace absenteeism.

The new service for ToHealth’s corporate clients forms part of its employee wellbeing offering and will be a key driver for expansion as it targets revenues of £9m this year, up from £5m in 2021.

ToHealth managing director Kerry-Dene Ihlenfeldt said: “As a business, we don’t stand still. We continuously seek innovative solutions to positively impact the health and wellbeing of our clients’ employees.

“Epigenetics strengthens our position at the forefront of proactive and preventative health screening, and our investment in these new tests provides us with a significant opportunity to further accelerate our growth.

“They complement our existing offering and enable individuals to take control of their health and lifestyle through a hyper-personalised analysis of the test results.”

She added: “We know that a large proportion of workplace absenteeism is caused by stress, anxiety or depression, and that most cases involve lifestyle issues such as inactivity, a poor diet or being overweight. The underlying issues are often the same as those for cardiac problems, diabetes and cancer.

“The pandemic has thrust employee health and wellbeing into the spotlight. Our recent research shows that most employees feel that support in this area from their employer would make them less likely to want to move jobs, but that employers are missing valuable opportunities to stop their people getting sick in the first place.

“We have also found that 40 per cent of people value wellbeing advice based on personalised data and are more confident in digital health solutions.

“Taking these factors into consideration, we believe that there is significant demand for our new tests.”

Kerry added: “Employers will benefit from the test outcomes, as reduced absenteeism will boost efficiency, productivity and employee satisfaction, leading to an improved business performance.

“We will through extensive investment in our data strategy provide clients with access to real-time employee health insights, enabling them to gain a holistic view of the health and wellbeing of their workforce and to effectively respond to changes by making data-driven business decisions.”

ToHealth is partnering with testing company Muhdo for the new offering.

PAM Group is one of the largest occupational health, employee assistance and wellbeing providers in the UK. It offers a range of integrated services to public and private sector clients, supporting more than a million employees at over 1,000 businesses and organisations.

The group is looking to double turnover to £80m over the next few years through continued organic growth and acquisitions.

Business News, News

Go Beyond Smart MFDs to Connect the Dots between Present Needs and Your Digital Future

By Gabriela Garner, Product Marketing Director at Kofax

London 26th April, 2022: There’s no doubt about it—the hybrid workplace is here to stay. The majority of companies will adopt a hybrid work model, employing a mix of in-person and remote employees, according to the Forrester 2021 Predictions: Accelerating Out of the Crisis report.

But what’s remote work? During the pandemic, remote work became synonymous with people working from home, sporting “business on top and PJs on the bottom.” While this image can give us a good a laugh, it doesn’t fully encompass all that remote work truly is for the modern-day organization. Long before COVID-19, remote work of a different sort was in full swing as colleagues collaborated with other departments within the same building and different offices around the world. When we look at this expanded definition, most of us have probably been engaging in remote work for a long time.

Organizations have been able to support employees as they work with colleagues in different teams, buildings, cities and countries thanks to the vast improvements in access to digital information. The post-pandemic version of remote work, however, ushered in a sudden shift in the workplace dynamic. Many companies quickly realized they weren’t far enough along in their digital transformation efforts to support the rapid rise of this new type of remote work and the data it generates.

Instead, they found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to find a way to keep the wheels of “business as usual” turning while steadily rising to the level of digital aptitude required to help employees thrive in the new hybrid and remote work models. This may seem like an impossible battle to win, but there are innovative and effective technologies that can help organizations work toward the future without compromising the present. In fact, the right solution can even accelerate the speed with which today’s workflows are executed while simultaneously boosting strategic progress toward a more automated, digital tomorrow.

If you’re wondering how to get started and connect the dots between today and tomorrow, look no further than your multi-function devices (MFDs). MFDs have been a mainstay in most organizations for quite some time, but when the right automation technology is applied to them, they’re transformed into versatile powerhouses. Intelligent automation unlocks the full potential of MFDs, making them smart devices that can accelerate your digital strategy and serve as the connective tissue between your current state of digital transformation and where it needs to go.

The Journey: Today versus Tomorrow

Just about every organization—regardless of where they are in their digital transformation—is leveraging automation as part of the effort to achieve their vision for the future. But there’s much work to be done. Almost half (48 percent) of decision makers surveyed said their organizations have manual or only partially automated processes, according to The Kofax 2021 Intelligent Automation Benchmark Study Part 1: Successful Automation Requires an Integrated Vendor Strategy. Another piece of the study discovered that while the number of use cases for which organizations are utilizing automation is increasing, adoption rates for more mature use cases such as back-office tasks, decisioning and accounts payable are still fairly low. In other words, there’s a lot of room for improvement.

When asked what they consider to be the most critical use cases for automation, decision makers listed robotic process automation (RPA) (61 percent), artificial intelligence/machine learning (43 percent) and digital process automation (40 percent) as the top three responses. It’s interesting that all three require document intelligence in order to succeed. Organizations must be able to ingest, classify and extract unstructured data from all documents, regardless of format, so the data can be processed and analyzed for actionable insight. The only way to accomplish this is with document intelligence. A combination of intelligent automation technologies such as intelligent capture with advanced content-aware capabilities empowers organizations to classify documents, extract all relevant data and make well-informed decisions with the information as well as automatically initiate document-based workflows.

Where’s your business today when it comes to documents? Perhaps your company is moving away from printing completely. If so, you’re not alone. Digital scanning and capture are faster, more accurate, more easily accessible and more efficient. Just think about how much time is saved by searching for a digital document as opposed to flipping through stacks of paper or filing cabinets.

At the same time, there are several reasons why printing isn’t going away. Disparate systems within the company may not connect with each other, and in the new hybrid world, employees may not have access to paper documents when they need them. For these organizations, printing remains a critical element of the business infrastructure. But as the volume of data collected grows at exponential rates, the need to digitize becomes stronger by the minute.

The challenge, then, is how to progress toward digitization without interrupting the day-to-day operations. Is it even possible?

Bridge Today AND Tomorrow with Smart MFDs and Intelligent Automation

You may not think of your MFDs as a stepping stone to digital workflow transformation, but by applying intelligent automation capabilities to MFDs they become an on-ramp to transformation and a bridge that connects organizations to their digital futures. What’s even better is that smart MFDs also improve speed, efficiency and productivity now, enabling you to do a better job today while accelerating the journey to your future vision.

You may be asking, “Why intelligent automation?” Anything less, such as a piecemeal approach to automation, has several drawbacks. According to decision makers, a siloed approach results in high technical debt (46 percent), delays in successful outcomes (35 percent) and problems of scale (34 percent), as discovered in part two of the benchmark study, Automation at Scale: Bridging the Gap Between IT and the Business. Intelligent automation provides a comprehensive set of capabilities so organizations can achieve end-to-end automation with a flexible and scalable platform.

MFD fleets powered by intelligent automation software allow companies to meet (and even exceed) the needs of today, while speeding up the path to tomorrow by empowering companies to:

  1. Achieve continual improvement on short-term business objectives while sustainably executing on the broader transformation vision. MFDs can intelligently capture information from digital and physical documents, process the information and transmit it wherever it needs to go across the enterprise.
  2. Digitally connect disparate systems within an organization’s ecosystem and eliminate manual, error-prone, paper-based processes. Intelligent automation eliminates the need for separate systems to print, sign, scan and fax. Integration with enterprise applications, legacy systems, transforms enterprise document management workflows.
  3. Control the rate of progress based on the changing needs of the business. Keep printing where it’s still essential—manage everything securely and ensure compliance with redaction, watermarking and audit trail reporting capabilities. Meanwhile, other areas can shift to data capture and all-digital workflows. A flexible platform gives organizations a choice and supports growth, meeting your immediate and long-term needs.
  4. Improve productivity of the distributed workforce and delight remote employees in any capacity with access to critical business information from any location without connectivity disruptions. A consistent user experience for print, capture and mobile across all devices is convenient and simple, keeping your remote and hybrid workers agile and connected.
  5. Accelerate the business results of today while maximizing your strategic goals for business transformation tomorrow. Advanced capture and print workflows drive efficiency and productivity of the daily grind. Employees have easy access to more accurate information from any location and device, so they can get work done faster while the business simultaneously moves toward the digitization needed for future success. Predictive analytics allow users to harness the power of data, so you can make informed business decisions on the digital transformation journey.

No matter where you rank on the digital aptitude scale, one thing is clear—smart MFDs backed by intelligent automation help organizations build a foundation today for a complete digital transformation tomorrow. Connect the dots between the present and the future, faster than ever, and start working like tomorrow, today.

IT Services, News

A third of employers did not implement technology when adjusting to ‘new normal’, says TDM Group

New research from Managed Business IT Services provider (M-BiTS) TDM Group shows that 29% of businesses with a turnover of more than £500 million felt their employees had the right tools to navigate the pandemic, while only 20% of businesses with a turnover of between £10 million – £49.99 million felt the same.

The study was conducted across 152 C-level executives and 155 employees from UK-based companies with 250-500 employees in late 2021.

Tarek Meliti, CEO of TDM Group commented: “The startling aspect of these findings is the number of businesses within these brackets that don’t believe their employees had the right tools to navigate the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, it appears that businesses with a higher turnover were better placed to provide the necessary resources.

Business leaders from organisations of all sizes must learn from their experiences during this challenging and unprecedented period. This should be viewed as an opportunity for them to empower employees with new technology that they’re willing to embrace and will help the business achieve its goals. Rather than wasting time and money by implementing new technology for the sake of it.”

Meliti added: “Business leaders must also ensure the organisation’s mindset in adopting new technology through pandemic-fuelled necessity is harnessed to foster a culture that embraces innovation and drives future growth”.

This white paper highlights the barriers businesses have faced – and continue to face – when implementing technology amid change, both from the perspective of business leaders and employees. The research will help you understand everything from current attitudes towards digital transformation to the required staff training – all of which impacts the bottom line.

News

The Recruitment and Retention Race

Covid-19 has changed the world for good, and as the world of work has changed, the expectations and demands of employees have grown. As the world starts to emerge from restrictions and lockdowns, the race to secure resources has begun and, within organisations, human resources and the quality of those human resources are crucial. Therefore, it is vital that organisations promote, understand and execute a flexible and attractive recruitment process in order to be in a better position to fill jobs promptly with quality candidates.

That being said, employees now have different expectations when pursuing new roles because of the shift in their priorities, especially when considering their work/life balance. Steven Atkins, Global Analytics Enablement Director, SplashBI, discusses how employers need to think about 24/7 recruiting in a way that they’ve never thought of before, to keep up with the change of employees’ expectations and provide long term success.

Putting candidates first

As businesses were plunged into lockdown for months, employers were forced to quickly adapt in order to ensure businesses ran as usual by transitioning to remote working. As a result of this successful approach, 85% of employees want to continue to use a “hybrid working” model to keep a better work-life balance.

It is crucial for employers to ensure flexibility as this is now one of the top incentives for employees. Pre-pandemic, location has always been crucial when searching for a job. What used to be a significant barrier to applying for a new job, is now no longer a problem. If candidates lived five hours away from the workplace, traditionally they wouldn’t apply for the job. Now, with remote and hybrid working, opportunities are farther afield allowing employees to have a vast choice of jobs because they aren’t tied down to a certain location..

Additionally, the hybrid model benefits employers too. It means they can spread their recruitment net much further and look for talent across counties, countries and continents.

Over the past year, employees have proved that they can get the same work done at home just as well as they could within the office. It is therefore viewed as a win-win situation for both employees and employers to continue the hybrid way of working as we move on from the pandemic. Companies will have to adapt quickly or they will be left behind as prospective employees will now expect this type of flexibility in their working lives to be the norm, rather than the exception. 

In today’s rapidly changing world of work, offering some flexibility in employee work schedules is key to retaining and attracting top talent, whether it’s allowing employees to work from home or letting them work outside of the standard nine-to-five schedule, depending on their availability.

Listening to your workforce

Offices are reopening their doors – and business leaders need to start planning. A hybrid model that suits one employee might not suit everyone, and imposing rules that completely undermine the concept of flexible working undermines the concept as well. Employees need to be educated about the advantages of face-to-face interactions with colleagues as well as understand their perceptions of hybrid working. They need to highlight to clients and suppliers the value of hybrid working – before companies stumble by default back into unhealthy, unproductive working models.

The bottom line is that business owners and managers need to acknowledge that managing employees has become  a lot more complicated. As a result, organisations need to put in place a powerful Human Capital Management (HCM) solution. HCM is vital to help HR hire and onboard  the right candidates but even more so for your current employees, to increase engagement with work-life solutions that help motivate employees and deliver a great employee experience. Active management is going to be crucial if they want to build a productive, well-balanced, and committed workforce. In addition, employee wellness and mindfulness are critical things to consider to ensure your teams are best placed to cope with the new demands placed on them.

Understanding and utilising data

As many organisations struggle with the new ways of working, data should sit at the heart of the decision making. Companies harvest all kinds of valuable and usable data from their employees and they need to capitalise it. Decision making is a critical function within any business and decisions that have been taken based on data nearly always produce better outcomes – with 91% of businesses stating that data-driven decision-making is important to the growth of their business. So, if organisations use this methodology for product development or marketing, why don’t they use that approach when it comes to recruitment and retention?

Organisations need to select data from across their HR infrastructure, such as an ATS or Talent System, and then begin the analysis journey to understand employee behaviour.  Organisations are now utilising and maximising people analytics tools that can help drive successful decision making, and more importantly, based on evidence to support these decisions.  In order to analyse past and present data, predictive analytics in HR is needed to forecast future outcomes and identify patterns that may be crucial for organisations retaining their current talent. With the help of these tools, businesses can not only select the important data but crucially analyse the data efficiently.

Conclusion

It is vital for organisations to ensure they never stop recruiting and boosting their investment in Talent Acquisition. Maximising people resources not only helps drive business success but it helps drive recruitment and retention success. For employers, hiring decisions can now be based on talent rather than geography. Employee outlook has dramatically changed over the last twelve months but organisations who don’t adapt, run the risk of losing their talent to other businesses that meet employees personal and professional goals.

Organisations have skills and talents in the workforce but do they really understand what those skills are and where they are located? Do they know how they are measured in terms of diversity? Can they drill into the information to see which areas are doing well and which are doing not so well? Harvesting and utilising people analytics data will ultimately help drive internal mobility for employees and drive better company culture as well as drawing in new talent and retaining your experts, and all the while delivering improved business outcomes.

 

 

HR News, News

STB Graphic Designers passes 33-year legacy to its employees

STB Graphic Designers today announces its evolution into an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). It joins a fast-growing movement of UK businesses looking to maximise their potential by empowering its staff to drive the company forward.

According to the Employee Ownership Association, employee-owned businesses are more productive, more innovative, and more resilient to economic turbulence. Their people are also more engaged, more fulfilled, and less stressed. With 730 businesses in the UK currently employee owned, their economic contribution is already significant, 4 per cent of the UK’s annual GDP and rising.

This new EOT structure launches alongside a refreshed brand proposition. For STB, graphic design has a simple purpose: to deliver commercial results for clients. The studio’s straightforward, no-nonsense process maintains its focus on executing effective, well-researched ideas in a beautiful yet commercially sound way, with clients’ needs at the heart of every decision.

STB Graphic Designers began in 1988 as Stocks Taylor Benson. Tired of the waffle that permeates the design industry, Glenn Taylor joined forces with his colleagues Dean Stocks and John Benson to start an ideas-led studio that would produce brilliant graphic design with no bullshit.

They built the business from the ground up, working with an enviable list of national and international brands over the years including Avon, Aldi, Next, Black & Decker, Virgin Trains, Majid Al Futtaim, Morrisons, Avanti West Coast, Baker Hughes, British Airways, Canon, Metro Bank, Centrica and Experian.

For this next stage in STB’s evolution, Glenn – currently the sole owner – is passing on a three-decade legacy by transferring 90 per cent ownership to its employees. Glenn will continue as CEO supported by the existing executive management team. The move means STB will continue to deliver the very best quality and service that it has become well known for, whilst seamlessly securing a sustainable future for the business, its employees, and its clients.

STB has a proud heritage of giving back to the industry and nurturing the next generation of talent. The studio channels the time and resource that it once spent entering design awards into supporting charitable causes through its Good Deeds initiative. With close ties to local universities, STB also supports design courses with live briefs, portfolio reviews, mentoring and sponsorship.

Glenn. W. Taylor MISD, FCSD, CEO and founder of STB Graphic Designers, comments:

“Over the years, I’ve been proud to work with some of the best graphic designers in the business. Our job is to help our clients make more money by selling more stuff – whether cornflakes or cars. Simple as that. It’s about solving the brief, beautifully, and putting our clients’ needs first. Becoming an Employee Ownership Trust will secure the future of STB. We are placing it in the hands of the people who have helped it grow over the last 33 years and enabling them to share in its success.”

Deb Oxley OBE, CEO of the Employee Ownership Association, comments:

“Congratulations to STB Graphic Designers on its transition to employee ownership securing the values, ethos and culture of the business for future generations. Businesses that give employees a stake and a say build trust and shared responsibility, therefore uniting leaders and employees behind a common purpose. This leaves the business in a better position to flex and adapt as the economy looks to recover and renew.”

Greg Jolley, Executive Client Director of STB Graphic Designers, comments:

“We are hugely excited that STB is becoming an employee-owned business. This is the perfect opportunity to come together as a team and redefine our positioning and proposition. Glenn has built this thriving business from scratch. Passing his legacy on to the team will enable us to attract top talent, to work with more of the world’s leading brands and businesses, and ultimately to accelerate growth.”

News, Remote Working

Nearly half of employees find working from home harder than being in the office – but over 80 per cent are reluctant to return post-pandemic, say researchers

New research conducted by Accountancy and Finance, HR and Data Analytics recruiter, Wade Macdonald has found that 44 per cent of employees are finding working from home much harder, physically, mentally and emotionally, than being in the office.

The survey canvassed opinions from 415 respondents – nearly all of whom reported the biggest challenge being faced relates to people, or the lack of them. Employees stated they miss the regular social interaction with colleagues and find it much harder to conduct meetings, conferences and training sessions.

The issue of isolation extends further than day-to-day bug bears of work; nearly a third (28 per cent) of employees said that their mental health has declined as a direct result of the pandemic.

Other issues were reported by respondents, with the most common hurdles faced when working found to be:

  • Broadband and connectivity (30.5 per cent)
  • Home schooling (31.4 per cent)
  • IT infrastructure (24.7 per cent)

Nevertheless, despite the negativity surrounding the struggles of working from home, a significantly large proportion (86 per cent) would be happy to work from home more frequently than before post-pandemic. Nearly 20 per cent of those would be happy never to return to the office again.

The understanding is that this high desire to continue working from home post-pandemic comes with the knowledge that, once we are out of lockdown, children will return to school, broadband will be less heavily used, therefore performing much better, and companies will have had enough time to iron out any issues with IT infrastructure. These aspects will undoubtedly make remote working more viable and efficient.

What else has changed for the workforce over the past year?

As a consequence of the pandemic, nearly a third of workers say that their expectations from an employer proposition have changed significantly compared to pre-pandemic. Of this percentage of workers, the most valued benefit is flexible working (73 per cent), followed by a good pension scheme (38 per cent), a bonus scheme (34 per cent) and healthcare (31 per cent). Parking was also highly rated (20 per cent), as was a gym membership (14 per cent).

Healthcare and parking increased in value significantly compared to an earlier report conducted by Wade Macdonald in 2019. This can be most certainly explained by the pandemic. Employees are more concerned about their health than they were a year ago and less people are keen on using public transport due to the high transmission risk, and they are looking to their employers to help support them in keeping themselves and their families safe and well.

Other than COVID-19, another significant item on last year’s agenda was the Black Lives Matter movement, and this has had a large ripple effect which has permeated into workplaces and working cultures; employees now rate the importance of having a diverse work culture as 7.4 out of 10. Moving forward into 2021, organisations that demonstrate awareness and create a policy around a more diverse and inclusive working culture will certainly be at a competitive advantage over those that do not.

Chris Goulding, Managing Director for Wade Macdonald, said: “Working from home for most employees will no longer be a ‘nice to have’.

“Despite its hurdles, the pandemic has proved, and continues to prove, that working most of the time from home does not necessarily have a negative effect.

“We anticipate the shift to be accelerated in the coming months, especially with the third lockdown recently implemented. However, employers still need to ensure that the technology is robust enough to support the ‘new normal’ and that major financial investment continues.

“Additionally, due to the change in attitudes amongst staff as to what benefits and perks are of importance to themselves and their families, companies would be wise to ensure that they are listening to individuals closely to provide tailored packages. This will not only retain current staff but give businesses a competitive edge.”