Weekly roundup: workplace innovation and a look overseas
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This week in HR news: what the workplace of the future could look like and a glimpse of what our neighbours in the UK and US are experiencing.
Virtual offices
Some believe the future of virtual reality has a place in the office. With flexible working becoming increasingly common, virtual reality is being used by some to create workplace environments.
In support of this technology, corporate vice president of modern work at Microsoft, Jared Spataro said: “New innovations like cameras, digital whiteboards, and virtual meeting rooms all help give everyone a voice and seat at the table so they can be seen, heard, and contribute in a meaningful way.”
Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Meta Horizon Workrooms in August 2021. This technology allows you to create an avatar and chat to your colleagues in a virtual world. Meta has now announced their new VR headset; the Meta Quest Pro, which can be used to connect to their Metaverse.
The downside to a four-day work week
There have been talks of reducing the working week to four days for a while now, we recently discussed it on HR Leader. However, according to a report by the CIPD, the reduction of work hours could see a reduction in pay.
The four-day week: Employer perspectives on moving to a shorter working week noted: “16 per cent of employers have reduced working hours in the past five years, while 10 per cent of employers have done so without reducing pay.”
“Only 1 per cent of employers plan to reduce working hours without reducing pay over the next three years.”
Of the employer respondents who reduced their working hours, 90 per cent of them reduced pay as well.
31 per cent of employees are open to a four-day work week, but only 11 per cent would be willing to take the pay cut. One third of companies surveyed believe a four-day week will become the norm in the next decade.
The report outlined the reasons for companies reducing hours: “Over a third of organisations that had reduced working hours did so for wellbeing reasons, and slightly less than a third did so to help with recruitment and retention. About a third reduced working hours because demand for their services had reduced.”
WFH more popular in the city in the US
The US Census Bureau released its work from home statistics for 2021. The data found that people primarily working from home tripled between 2019 and 2021. The data included the most popular work from home areas, many were surprised that the top spots are populous cities and suburbs and not remote, rural areas.
The increase in work from home has seen reduced traffic, as the report said: “With more people working from home and fewer commuting by private vehicle, the average one-way travel time to work dropped to 25.6 minutes in 2021, among the shortest times in the last decade. The average commute was two minutes shorter than the average of 27.6 minutes in 2019.”
Sickness causing a rise in the economically inactive in the UK
According to recent ONS data, both employment and unemployment are down in the UK, but the rate of those who are economically inactive is up.
The ONS defines being economically inactive as: “People not in employment who have not been seeking work within the last 4 weeks and/or are unable to start work within the next 2 weeks.”
June – August 2022 saw the inactivity rate raise to 21.7 per cent, 0.6 percentage points more than March – May 2022.
The ONS says the reason for this rise was an increase in people who are ‘long-term sick’ and students. Those aged 50-64 and 16-24 made up the most of this data. Nearly 2.5 million people in the UK are inactive due to long-term health issues.
Look below to see some of our other roundup articles:
https://www.hrleader.com.au/business/23352-this-week-in-hr-news-from-the-uk
Jack Campbell
Jack is the editor at HR Leader.