Category: 16. Organisations

Posts per category

• How to make ‘remote work’ more productive An interesting slant on the pandemic impact follows – published by FastCompany.com and written by behavioural scientist Kristen Berman It might seem like the glorious era of remote work is upon us, driven by a pandemic push. Zoom! Slack! Who needs the office? The promise of uncompromised productivity paired with freedom is alluring. While software can ostensibly ...
• Office productivity OFFICES ARE ABOUT TO CAUSE PRODUCTIVITY TO EXPLODE So claims Mike Phillips in one of Bisnow.com’s featured series on the ‘Future of Work’ – it’s more realisation that the pandemic has given a massive kick-start to many business changes needed given the enabling technology has been around but not used well for many years now  The way ...
• A shorter work week? Some interesting views from The Socialist, an Australian publication Microsoft recently granted its workers in Japan five Friday’s off in a row, resulting in a 40% productivity jump. Similar recent experiments have resulted in healthier, happier more efficient workers.  Around the world the idea of reducing working hours is a topic of debate and discussion once more. The ...
• M/S says “Remote working is here for good” An Inc.com report by Jason Aten follows – with only a few changes: If nothing else, in these past few weeks, we’ve learned that as a whole, people are quite resourceful when it comes to figuring out how to adapt and stay productive, even in extraordinary circumstances. You have to admit that it’s impressive how well ...
• Will the Pandemic make us more productive? The following thoughts, published by Bloomberg Opinion, are from Karl W. Smith, a former assistant professor of economics at the University of North Carolina and vice president for federal policy at the Tax Foundation. The Great Suppression will continue to cause enormous economic and personal hardship for scores of millions of Americans. It is possible, however, ...
• A pandemic positive! Hamza Mudassar, writing in ‘Entrepreneur’, believes the global Covid-19 pandemic currently raging  around the world ‘will shape businesses for decades to come’ Black swan events, such as economic recessions and pandemics, change the trajectory of governments, economies and businesses — altering the course of history. The Black Death in the 1300s broke the long-ingrained feudal system in ...
• Important trends for SME productivity All business managers want their teams to get more done in less time – this means there needs to be a focus on prioritising efficient workflows while remaining consistently effective. According to therealtimereport.com, there are some important business productivity trends that all business owners and their teams need to be aware of : 1. The Rise of ...
• Beware ‘snooptech’ Ben Gallagher, co-founder of B+A, a management consultancy, raised an interesting slant on new digital possibilities ‘Snooptech’, as the Telegraph reported recently, is a £2.7billion industry The increasing sophistication of digital tools, as well as the continued stagnancy of productivity in the UK, has created a market for technology whose sole purpose is to allow companies to watch ...
• Wealth gains and distribution US Fed Chairman Jerome Powell believes our two greatest challenges for the next decade are ‘the widening wealth gap and sluggish productivity’ But Lawrence Fuller, in an article for Seeking Alpha, claims the Fed’s attempts to create a wealth effect by inflating the value of financial assets has mostly benefited the top 10%, and even more ...
• The perfect working environment? According to an article by Michael Odell in The Times, Basecamp is a US software/ tech company that supposedly runs without the scourge of 80 hour weeks, unrealistic deadlines, weekend emails and meetings Two American guys, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, run Basecamp – they’re also authors of a new book called It Doesn’t have to ...
• UK manufacturing to become ‘smarter’ The UK magazine Drives & Controls has just reported that a group of UK manufacturing business leaders and academics have joined forces with the government to create the Made Smarter Commission (MSC) which aims to make UK manufacturing “smarter”. The inaugural meeting of the commission was chaired by Siemens CEO Professor Juergen Maier and Business Secretary Greg ...
• NHS must suppress demand and cut waste The UK’s NHS (National Health Service) is widely considered to be a national treasure – it’s also the biggest employer in Europe with around 1,500,000 staff: Healthcare services for all ailments are offered ‘free at the point of delivery’ (except such as dentistry, some prescriptions and eye tests ) to all UK citizens Poor families, in particular, ...
• Freelancing is good for many Freelance employment should be used much more by most organisations in sectors which: Need certain specialist skills, but not on a full-time basis Have fluctuating demand patterns making employment of a full-time workforce to supply in good time prohibitively expensive Using freelance labour (say 20% part-time, 80% full-time) is much like outsourcing some processes – the aim is ...
• The birth of life insurance In 1744, two Presbyterian clergymen, Alexander Webster and Robert Wallace, decided to set up a life-insurance fund that would provide pensions for the widows and orphans of dead clergymen Each of their church’s ministers would pay a small portion of his income into the fund which would invest the money If a minister died, his widow would ...
• Clusters of SMEs are a priority According to research conducted by Opus Energy, the top three geographical areas in the UK where SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) have productivity issues are: West Midlands North East London To compete, SMEs there are being forced to implement a wave of changes, including: Introducing flexible working Paying employees above the average wage Offering incentives and perks to raise team morale However, ...
• Scrap traditional organisation structures Alison Vekshin, a freelance journalist, says: “Companies have followed a linear top-down organisation structure, but that approach is quickly becoming outdated – business leaders now favour a more flexible structure, and have seen that workers are more productive and innovative in an autonomous work environment” The traditional linear organisation chart was designed to ‘create order and ...
• Passports to productivity Improvement? Some say the ‘Productivity Puzzle’ is the result of a storm of problems affecting both supply and demand in G7 developed nations viz: Supply: In the past, major technological advances (aka Schumpeter discontinuities) enabled quantum leaps in productivity levels – G7 nations would all adopt them and improve at about the same rate – now, without more significant ...
• Diageo appoints a CPO Many companies employ inspectors and quality controllers in an effort to minimise waste and boost good output volumes Very few indeed  have anyone specifically in charge of productivity or widespread employment of best practices, whether from internal or external sources Now, at long last, a major company has appointed a Chief Productivity Officer (CPO) – at least ...