Innovation – Page 2 – Oliver Pickup

Neutral ground: Why offsite meetings will be the norm for hybrid workforces

Forget in-office or virtual meetings: The majority of collaborative-working tasks will take place at off-site venues in future.

That’s because offsites offer something offices don’t — neutral ground for employees who don’t want to work continuously from an office, but also don’t want to be entirely remote, according to Alexia Cambon, a director in management consultancy Gartner’s HR practice.

The feeling of being monitored in an office by technology or a manager creates tension and means the employee does not feel comfortable. Indeed, only 14% of 2,336 hybrid and remote employees surveyed in Gartner’s Culture in a Hybrid World report, published in May, said that they can be themselves the most when working alone, but in an office. Meanwhile, 52% preferred working solo, asynchronously, and away from colleagues.

Hence, offsite meet-ups are a good middle ground. “When you remove employees from the employer-controlled environment and put them in a third space, this neutral space, a lot of interesting things can start to happen,” said Cambon.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in October 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

How technology can help millions of seasonal affective disorder sufferers this winter

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) affected 10 million people in the U.S. alone in 2019. And the knock-on effect on a person’s mental health and by extension – their job and productivity – can be substantial. But are organizations sensitive enough to their needs? And how can technology help?

Yvonne Eskenzi, the owner of London-based cybersecurity agency Eskenzi PR, has suffered from SAD since childhood and said the onset of SAD is unmistakable. “You can smell the air change and temperature,” she said. “Then you notice the days becoming shorter and darker at night, which triggers a deep sense of foreboding, sadness and anxiety.”

Eskenzi added that she feels less creative, foggy-headed, and nowhere near as sociable as usual in a work setting. HR departments must be proactive about treating SAD in colder, darker regions. But is enough being done?

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in October 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

How employee monitoring has shifted from creepy to empowering HR teams

A friend giddily informed me a few days ago that she had “found the perfect eraser.” Perplexed as to why something that rubs out pencil marks would evoke such glee, I asked for more details. “This eraser is the ideal weight; I can rest it on the space bar, so the screen stays awake if I leave the desk,” she said. “That way, my manager thinks I’m still being active at my computer.”

Employees who feel they are being observed for no good reason tend to find a way to game the system, argued Brian Kropp, group vp and chief of research for Gartner’s HR practice. “If your employer is trying to screw you by creepily monitoring you, there are various things you can do to screw them over,” he said.

For instance, he revealed that if computer mouse activity is being tracked, then an analog watch can help. If you position the mouse on the watch, then the second hand creates just enough motion to make it still active.

Monitoring is on the rise, though. According to Gartner’s research, around 30% of the medium and large corporate organizations it assesses had tracking systems in place before the pandemic. “Now the percentage is more than 60%,” said Brian Kropp, group vp and chief of research for Gartner’s HR practice.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in September 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

Cool ideas: How technological innovations can reduce urban temperatures

Removing reflective surfaces, increasing natural shade and harnessing the power of sewage are all options to limit the heat island effect – but progress will stall without collaboration and political boldness

Below a cloudless, blueberry-blue sky, where the sun blazes fiercely and gleams from London landmarks, a multi-person mass of liquifying limbs smoulders. The caption for Zoom Rockman’s Private Eye cartoon reads: “I love London; it’s such a melting pot.”

But few people were laughing when, on 19 July, the UK temperature exceeded 40C for the first time, according to the Met Office, and the city’s infrastructure melted – literally. Half of the six areas to surpass that level were in and around the capital: St James’s Park, Kew Gardens and Northolt.

With global warming an increasingly hot topic and residents figuratively melting, the heat is being turned up on politicians, planners and other key stakeholders to keep cities cool.

The way our cities have been designed is no longer appropriate for modern times

Just days after the record high temperature, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, loosened purse strings. He awarded £2.85m from the Green and Healthy Streets fund to 19 projects, including rain gardens, tree pits and sustainable drainage areas. Further, a £1m grant will support “innovative and exemplary projects” on the Transport for London Road Network, and £150,000 was released to improve walking routes connecting green spaces.

“We cannot shy away from it: the climate crisis is on our doorstep,” wrote Khan on LinkedIn in early August, announcing the funding decisions. “We’re taking action before time runs out and investing £4m … to make London more resilient to heatwaves.”

He added: “Working with London boroughs and TfL, these projects will make London more resilient against extreme weather, plus make our streets more green and pleasant for Londoners. It’s a win-win.”

Collaboration and long-term planning are paramount to reducing the impact of extreme heat in cities. And investing in innovative technology solutions can accelerate the virtuous circle to which Khan alluded.

Beware the heat island effect

Indeed, embracing an approach to building that keeps nature in mind, rather than seeking to dominate it, will lead to better urban spaces for both people and the planet. So says Chris Bennett, co-founder and managing director of sustainability services at Evora Global, a London-headquartered real asset consultancy.

“Our urban environments are dominated by densely grouped buildings made of reflective materials creating a ‘heat island effect’,” he explains. “This is why it’s often hotter in cities than rural areas.”

Bennett believes simple tech and nature-based solutions will make a big difference. “Reducing hard reflective surfaces such as road pavements would help to lower temperatures,” he says. “Re-engineering pavements to be permeable blocks, instead of concrete or Tarmac, would allow water to flow through the pavers in wet conditions and evaporate when the heat rises, creating a cooling effect.

“Also, incorporating trees and plants reduces the reflective nature of the streetscape, provides habitats for wildlife and offers shelter from harsh ultraviolet radiation and solar heat during summer.”

Ironically, it is partly due to technology that we find ourselves in this sticky situation. Since the 1960s, planes, trains and automobiles have heavily contributed to global warming, and cities have evolved to accommodate gas-guzzling vehicles. So it’s time for a swift U-turn, says Bennett.

“In London, we are blessed with many urban parks and squares created by the Georgians and Victorians. But many of the city’s trees have been lost to provide car parking spaces,” he says. “Planting street trees will increase protection from the climate by reducing heat stress and limiting the degradation of the urban construction materials, making buildings last longer.”

Appropriate early-stage design

Another expert urging cross-industry action is Håvard Haukeland, co-founder of Spacemaker AI. His company provides early-stage analysis for architects and urban planners and enables buildings to be designed with the local microclimate in mind to minimise urban heat islands.

“The way our cities have been designed is no longer appropriate for modern times,” he says. “As temperatures rise due to climate change, the design choices previously made either due to tradition or practical considerations around energy efficiency are making our cities even hotter.”

Haukeland contends that architects and urban planners need to step up. “While solutions such as additional greenery or reflective roofs can help keep things a little cooler, the reality is the most impactful solutions are done at the early stage when new developments are being built,” he continues.

Design adaptations – including rotating structures to “open up” for wind or even altering the shape of a building – can make “the biggest difference to microclimates”, Haukeland says. Although these solutions are “much harder to implement”, he asserts that designers “must consider microclimates at the outset”.

That may be so, but how should cities upgrade older infrastructure to make it better able to withstand extreme heat? “This is the critical question when you think about the number of heritage and older buildings we have in the UK,” says Ian Ellis, smart buildings expert at Siemens Smart Infrastructure. Sensors that capture data and allow deep analysis of how people use buildings – especially as hybrid-working strategies are firmed up – could be the answer.

“This technology is already being used in buildings across the UK, where it can provide usage data on the flow of people through a building, where they congregate and how they use it,” says Ellis. “Data like this provides invaluable insights in optimising other technologies like heating and ventilation systems.”

Sensors, shade and sewage

Sebastian Peck, a partner at Kompas – an early-stage venture capital firm focused on transforming the built environment – lists some pioneering solutions to cool cities. “Vertical Field is installing sensor-controlled smart planters to purify the air from carbon dioxide and, when mounted to buildings, they help insulate them from the sun,” he says.

Meanwhile, Lumiweave has developed an innovative fabric that provides shade during the day and harvests the sun’s energy to illuminate itself and its surroundings at night. “And,” Peck continues, “TreeTube has a patented modular system of tubes that lets tree roots grow safely in a tunnel without disrupting their surroundings.”

Peter Hogg, UK cities director at global design, engineering and management consulting company Arcadis, offers a more practical but pongy example. “We are looking at using effluent as a heat exchanger that allows you to extract energy used for cooling with minimal carbon impact. Imagine the potential in a city the size of London, which houses 8.5 million people.”

At this stage, no idea should be flushed away. And while there is much work to do, the willingness to force change – and think up unusual solutions – is finally evident, suggests Hogg. “The pandemic was a watershed,” he says. “There is a collective understanding that this situation must be addressed. Today, building plans that fail to consider the climate challenge won’t attract investors.

“Before the coronavirus crisis, you would have to go to the Netherlands or the Nordics to find people taking this seriously. We now acknowledge that significant behavioural and structural changes are required, and quickly.”

Peck concludes that enough technologies are available to cool cities but to harness their power, leaders must be bold.

“The difficulty is that urban planners need to rethink our cities, make them greener and ensure water is put to good use,” he says. “But changing and building back existing urban infrastructure is expensive. Cities are under pressure to demonstrate to the public that their scarce resources are well invested.

“In other words, cooling our cities is not a technological challenge, but a political one.”

This article was first published in Raconteur’s Smart Cities report in August 2022

Lessons from Spotify’s work-from-anywhere rollout

Spotify launched a new work model called “work from anywhere” (WFA) in February 2021 – and it was music to the ears of its 8,600 employees, according to data published in early August.

The policy enabled staff to decide when they worked in a company office or wherever else on the planet, as long as the Swedish-headquartered company had a hub in that country.

The music-streaming company also tweaked its salary bands, recalibrating them by nation rather than city or region. That seemed to be a popular move: 6% of its 11,453 employees moved countries after this policy was introduced, and a large chunk of whom moved within the U.S.

The headline news, though, is that despite the great resignation trend, Spotify claimed staff churn has reduced compared to pre-pandemic levels and that it has also boosted the diversity of its workforce – as a direct result of the policy.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in August 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

Five ways financial services operators can build trust in the digital age

With cybercrime on the rise, customers expecting a better online banking experience, and more players in the market, organisations should push for positive reviews, cut back on nuisance communication, and be transparent

American business magnate Warren Buffett’s warning that “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it” is a precious lesson worth heeding by financial services operators seeking to generate trust in the digital age.

After working hard to claw back favour following the global economic crash in 2008, the industry generally impressed during the pandemic. But with cybercrime on the rise, customers expecting a better online banking experience, and more players in the market, building trust is increasingly challenging.

A report published in April by global cybersecurity company Imperva, based on responses from almost 7,000 consumers across Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, found that 63% of people don’t trust financial services organisations to keep their data safe. Clearly, there is much work to do.

Here are five ways financial services operators can build trust in the digital age.

1. Actively push for positive reviews

When was the last time you didn’t buy something because a bad review put you off? It’s the same for financial services operators. Hence why those in the sector must do more than monitor online reviews, suggests Jeremy Helm, a financial analyst at Modern World Business Solutions. “You need to be actively pushing to gain positive reviews,” he says. “You can set up an automated email via Trustpilot that goes out a week after a purchase is complete.”

And if the reviews are not favourable, learn from them. “Don’t ignore them,” continues Helm. “Others will be reading the negative reviews before making a purchase, so make sure to answer the complaint promptly and politely. But also, if you’re not to blame, there is nothing wrong with highlighting where the issue lay respectfully and factually.”

2. Cut back on nuisance communication

A recent freedom of information request, made by customer communication firm Quadient, showed an increase in spam communications from financial services operators over the past year, which is eroding consumer trust, according to the company’s principal of banking and financial services, Andrew Stevens.

“Operators urgently need to cut back on nuisance communication – irrelevant or non-useful contact, which only damages trust and drives customers away,” he says. The FOI request showed 8,796 banking-related spam calls and texts were reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2021 – 38% higher than the 2020 figure. Additionally, insurance-related nuisance calls and texts rose by 40%, with 3,989 complaints.

“Our research shows 43% of consumers are willing to blacklist businesses for sending spam,” continues Stevens. “Instead of bombarding customers with irrelevant offers and deals, they should remember that every piece of communication is an opportunity to win customers’ trust. For instance, by providing useful information to help them save money amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.”

3. Learn from tech titans and be clear about values

“Interestingly, the five most trusted brands across any industry globally are all large-scale tech firms,” says Nick Chadbourne, CEO of LMS, which supplies conveyancing services. “They provide a seamless cross-platform experience that is personalised to individual users. Google is probably the best example.”

He spots a paradox, though. “These companies are probably utilising our data for commercial gain more than any other business. Yet, there is a perceived trust from consumers. This is partly because of how these businesses fit with their values. But also because they deliver great customer experience and hyper-personalisation. Financial services firms could benefit and build trust by taking a similar approach.”

Sébastien Marotte, president of EMEA at content management company Box, agrees. However, he calls for greater clarity about data use. “The best way for financial service organisations to build and maintain trust is through open and transparent compliance reporting.”

4. Don’t forget the importance of human touch

Financial services organisations collect more information on their customers than any other industry, according to Adam Mayer, a director at data and analytics firm, Qlik. “Trust is imperative to this industry – and needs to be built from the ground up,” he says. “Don’t forget the importance of a human touch when building trust in digital technologies.”

While AI and predictive analytics can generate powerful recommendations, employees will provide oversight into actual decision-making, Mayer adds. “And, more importantly, they will explain those decisions to the customer. Blending human and machine insights improves the accountability actions being made, which helps smoothen some of the hurdles around trust and regulation.”

Additionally, ensuring employees have the requisite data literacy to understand, question and apply the predictive forecasts to their decision-making process is critical.

5. Show your AI workings

As more financial services are investing in AI solutions, it’s vital to show how decisions have been made. “Explainable AI addresses one of the key issues for banks using AI applications, as they typically operate as ‘black boxes’ offering little if any discernible insight into how they reach their decisions across lending and fraud detection and to improve customer service,” says Hani Hagras, chief science officer at banking software company Temenos.

He provides an example. “With buy now pay later (BNPL), Temenos Explainable AI provides additional transparency, enabling the customer to understand why a particular flavour of BNPL was recommended to them and make an informed choice. This increases trust in the BNPL service and puts the customer in control.”

This article was first published in Raconteur’s The new financial services client experience insights report, sponsored by Seismic, in August 2022

Improving digital customer experience during the cost-of-living crisis

Ecommerce businesses should double down on smart automation solutions to better support consumers, win trust and generate sales

With prices in the UK currently rocketing at their fastest rate for more than 40 years, the cost-of-living crisis will also have an impact on ecommerce. During this uncertain period, companies should focus on their brand, the technology they have integrated into their online journeys and getting the customer experience right.

Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director at IMRG, the trade body considered the voice of online retail in the UK, is in no doubt about the state of the market. “Lots of retailers provide us with their sales figures so we can benchmark performance, and right now, it’s in sharp decline,” he says. “It’s been extremely turbulent recently, but the difference in impact between the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis is stark.”

The coronavirus crisis was, he says, “the most disruptive thing anyone has ever seen.” But from an online retail perspective, it was a huge accelerator. Lockdowns forced many businesses to enter the world of ecommerce for the first time. Those brave enough to embrace it reaped bountiful rewards. Now, however, with all the low-hanging fruit gobbled and consumers’ purse strings pulled tautly, it’s a different story.

“Today, the growth is low,” says Mulcahy. “It’s negative, year-on-year, and the market is shrinking.” Other metrics analysed by IMRG provoke alarm. “People are spending longer making purchasing decisions online, and looking at Q1 2022 – which is February, March and April, so includes the early fallout from the Ukraine invasion – compared to Q1 last year, the checkout completion has dropped by 22%,” he adds.

Paul Hornby, digital customer experience director at the Very Group, remains bullish about his employer and the industry’s longer-term prospects. “Yes, retail has clearly been impacted,” he says. “But we are confident about the outlook for online retail in the UK.”

Supporting customers in straitened times

As a digital retailer with over 2,000 brands that boasts almost five million active customers and a financial services provider offering its unique version of buy now, pay later (BNPL), the Very Group is well positioned to thrive in the ecommerce space. “As a multi-category retailer, our model is naturally resilient,” says Hornby. “Online is the place to be, and our flexible payment options are really popular with our customers.”

Very Pay, which most customers use, according to Hornby, allows buyers to pay for goods in three interest-free instalments over three months. There is also a BNPL option, enabling consumers to spread the cost over a year. In the current climate, the Very Group is adding value by providing visitors to the company website tips and tricks to better cope with the cost-of-living crisis.

“We’re helping customers by introducing content about money management,” Hornby says. “We aim to be customer champions and natural problem solvers, and so we will always think about different ways throughout the journey that we can help our customers.”

Matthew Parker, country manager of the UK and Ireland at Vonage, a company that builds omnichannel conversations and transforms customer experiences, stresses the urgency for ecommerce organisations to invest in technology solutions; and even more so in these straitened times, to stand out in an increasingly packed market.

“I’m seeing post-pandemic cost-saving initiatives, but in some areas, companies are doubling down,” he says. “For example, there has been an increase in technology around artificial intelligence and other tools that can bring a level of smart automation to the buyer experience, without losing the human involvement.”

Doubling down on smart automation

Hornby reveals that the Very Group was an early adopter of conversational AI. The organisation initially invested in a chatbot in 2016 to ease the workload on employees answering simple queries. “We very quickly partnered with IBM Watson to utilise its AI to help us understand customer sentiment, but also to generate the right answers,” he says.

The chatbot facility proved invaluable for the Very Group’s customers and its contact centre staff last Christmas as it was used almost 140,000 times, reducing telephone calls by 17% compared to the previous peak. Hornby states the maturity of smart automation makes it a compelling business case for those looking to boost digital customer experience.

The market’s only going to become more competitive, so speed to market is critical. That speed comes partly from the process and partly from technology. But, most critically, everything you do must truly serve your customers’ needs

“If a customer comes to the website or our smartphone app and asks a question that is more complex than the chatbot can handle, it will elegantly hand that over to one of our customer care colleagues so there is the appropriate level of human intervention,” he says. “We will definitely continue to invest in this technology.”

Mulcahy argues that ecommerce businesses don’t have to spend big on improving digital customer experience; sometimes, a little goes a long way. “If you took two websites and they both have exactly the same products at the same prices, one can generate more sales just by optimising certain bits,” he says. “You might offer free delivery, for instance, or it’s easier to navigate. There are many things you could do, and now with traffic expensive to pay for and conversion rates down, this stuff is essential to get right.”

Hornby agrees: “Having friction throughout the user journey is a surefire way to send the customer into the arms of a competitor, so we have to obsess about the problems on our site and solve them.”

Top tips to improve digital customer experience

Parker from Vonage believes the way to improve digital customer experience is by ultimately being a trusted retailer. “Trust boils down to four things: integrity, intent, capabilities and track record,” he says. “Brands that best demonstrate those four things, focus on customer needs, and don’t bombard people, will do the best.”

And for ecommerce players unsure about their future, or where to invest, Mulcahy offers soothing words. “Don’t panic. It is a very different time, but it’s rough for most businesses. Those who focus on building their brand and make the online journey simple will do well.”

Hornby stresses the importance of keeping the customer at the heart of any digital design. Forget futuristic and hyped concepts, such as shopping in the metaverse or non-fungible tokens; what consumers want today, especially during this cost-of-living crisis, is a retailer they can rely upon that serves them well.

“You have to embed the customer in all of your thinking, which is easy to say but difficult to do,” he says. “The market’s only going to become more competitive, so speed to market is critical. That speed comes partly from the process and partly from technology. But, most critically, everything you do must truly serve your customers’ needs.”

Retailers have had to face years of disruptive events. But, armed with the technology and the online know-how, they can now ensure they get the digital customer experience right for all their audiences.

This article was first published on Raconteur.net in August 2022 – it’s a write-up of a virtual roundtable that I moderated, sponsored by Vonage

Tech troubles, urgency bias, bad communication: Hybrid working’s biggest hurdles

New data confirms what most already suspected: hybrid working is not working for a large majority of companies.

The XpertHR research, gathered from 292 U.K. organizations with a combined workforce of over 350,000 employees, revealed that 95% of companies have struggled to implement a hybrid-working strategy. Reluctant returners – staff who don’t want to head back to the office – are the primary reason for failure. However, there are plenty of other causes besides.

The data indicated that 59% of organizations’ staff spend two or three days in the office, but 37% of employers are unhappy and would rather spend less time there. This finding echoed results from Slack’s Q2 global Future Forum study, which questioned 10,000 knowledge workers in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany and Japan on how they feel about their work environments and employers.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in July 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

Managers are not being trained to run hybrid teams – and it’s a big problem

Hands up, who really wants to be a manager today, in an uncertain and fast-paced, post-pandemic world, where organizations worldwide are shifting to hybrid working and struggling to attract and retain talent, plus employees are demanding more attention than ever?

At the heart of operations, trusted to pull the strings, are managers, many of whom are promoted to their positions after excelling in non-management roles. “Managers often have the most accountability to the largest proportion of the workforce,” said Emma Price, head of customer success at management process automation company ActiveOps. “They are responsible for delivering against cost, quality, and service and managing customer outcomes.”

However, many would-be puppet masters are now tied up in additional, complex tasks that weren’t part of their already stacked workload in early 2020. They are crying out to be untangled by their bosses, yet evidence suggests the critical training and tools they require are not being made available. This lack of support is baffling when one considers the cost of the great resignation alongside the truism that “people leave managers, not companies.”

Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, published in March, concluded that “managers feel wedged between leadership and employee expectations.” The survey, featuring responses from over 30,000 workers across 31 markets, revealed that 54% of managers say company leadership is out of touch with employees, and almost three-quarters (74%) lament not having the influence or resources to implement the necessary changes for their teams.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in July 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

Former Twitter VP on why we need an ‘in-the-office’ status

The bestselling author and former Twitter VP, Bruce Daisley, feels that many firms may be allowing hybrid workers to waste their precious time at HQ. He’s not alone

On 1 April, Bruce Daisley, author of The Joy of Work, posted a whimsical observation on LinkedIn that would ignite a serious debate about the modern workplace. He questioned whether an ‘in the office’ (ITO) message should supersede the traditional ‘out of office’ auto-reply (OOO). Given the timing of his post, the biggest fools are employers failing to adapt, because the old normal is no longer fit for purpose.

“Heard a brilliant thing today,” he wrote. “One firm says they don’t want workers in the office spending all day on email. The suggestion is that everyone should put their ‘in the office’ message on and deal with email from home.”

Daisley explains that he made the comment after he’d got wind of complaints from several employers that their hybrid workers were spending too much of their time in the office catching up on their emails, participating in video calls and completing other tasks that they could perform just as well remotely.

“We’ve spent two years reflecting on the best way to get our work done and then we’ve sleepwalked into a horrible solution,” says Daisley, who argues that the onus is on employers to determine which activities are most suitable in each workplace.

Noting that people often confuse being busy with being productive, he adds: “Hybrid working isn’t the best of both worlds; it’s the worst. We need to redefine our cultures. The more intentional we get about what we’re using the office for, the better. The office is a brilliant resource, but we don’t need to use it for everything.”

The argument is that the Covid crisis has generally tilted the balance of power at work towards employees, so the evolution of the office must keep pace with their changing preferences. Moreover, offices should be markedly different from remote working environments. Although much time, money and effort are required to make a success of hybrid working, culture should be the true key to progress.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results of a survey published by digital IT consultancy Ricoh Europe in March suggest that underinvestment and poor planning have reduced the effectiveness of firms’ return-to-office policies.

The indications are that employers throughout Europe have been struggling to adapt. Of the 3,000 workers polled on Ricoh’s behalf in the UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy the Netherlands and Spain, 36% said they had felt pressured to return to the office, while 44% agreed that their company’s culture had suffered during the Covid lockdowns. Pertinent to the debate about office-based work, 48% considered themselves “more productive when working remotely”.

Molly Johnson-Jones, co-founder and CEO of Flexa Careers, says she has been heartened to see that some organisations have understood recent changes in how employees view working in the office. But she argues that most of them need to do much more in this respect to attract and retain talent.

“The fact that we need to indicate when we are ‘in the office’ signals how people have come expect to work remotely for some, if not most, of their time,” she says. “For many companies we work with, office work is now reserved purely for the tasks and conversations that face-to-face meetings make easier. Having ‘ITO’ days for this kind of work can help to keep teams connected, maintain a sense of structure and boost staff wellbeing.”

The office is a brilliant resource, but we don’t need to use it for everything

Johnson-Jones cites research published in April by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development indicating that remote work is far more likely to boost an employee’s productivity than reduce it.

Flexibility is vital, which means that dictating when staff have ITO days can prove detrimental, she stresses.

“On days when coming into the office isn’t going to provide workers with any of the benefits mentioned – perhaps when they want to focus on deep work – they must not feel bound to do so,” says Johnson-Jones. “This is when companies risk tipping into creating a culture of presenteeism.”

She continues: “ITO days are helpful only if we keep them flexible. Employers must recognise that remote and office-based work are complementary and also that it’s no bad thing if one occurs more often than the other.”

Just over three-quarters (77%) of organisations are planning to redesign their offices to include more open-plan areas and collaboration spaces, according to new research from Poly, a US provider of telecoms tech.

This finding tallies with Tim Oldman’s belief that the “hotelification” of the workplace is a growing trend. He is the founder and CEO of Leesman, a firm that helps firms to assess the employee experience provided by their workplaces.

“Employees will treat offices differently because they are using them nomadically, booking in for a conscious stay,” Oldman notes. “They need to be beacons of warmth and hospitality to motivate them to come.”

He makes an important point about the feeling of sanctuary that returning to the office can offer to people whose remote workplaces are far from ideal.

“In a typical knowledge business, up to a third of employees do not have a separate space at home that they can designate for work,” he explains. “These people risk being a forgotten minority, whose needs are overlooked by those further progressed in their careers who are privileged enough to have a private room to spare.”

Of the idea that ITO is becoming the new OOO, Oldman says: “It’s happening already, although on a small scale. We aren’t yet at the point of this becoming a trend, but we are experimenting with post-pandemic practices.”

Stuart Templeton, head of Slack Technologies in the UK, offers a different take. He believes that “all businesses should be introducing and prioritising a digital headquarters: a place that serves as the main hub for collaboration, communication and connection between teams, wherever they are. The digital HQ doesn’t mean the office will disappear; it will be used for social, collaborative and dynamic activities.”

A digital HQ might be too futuristic for some people. But what’s evident is that where and when work takes place should be hugely different from the norm before the pandemic struck. A recent survey of 10,000 knowledge workers by Future Forum, a research consortium supported by Slack, has found that schedule flexibility is more important to them than location flexibility.

“Whatever work is done in the physical office, employees need to have a say in when they’re there,” Templeton argues. “Employers that don’t act accordingly will pay the price. Workers who are unsatisfied with their level of flexibility – in both where and when they work – are three times likelier than those who are satisfied to say they will ‘definitely’ seek a new employer in the coming year.”

He adds: “If you’re coming into an office daily just to stare at a screen, something’s gone wrong.”

This article was first published in Raconteur’s Hybrid Working report in May 2022

‘I was thrown off a project because I misheard’: Deaf inclusivity in the workplace still an issue

The LinkedIn profile image of culture and behavioral change consultant Simon Houghton, shows him wearing a black mask with white writing that reads: “I’m deaf. I can’t read your lips with your mask on.”

Houghton, based in Reading in the U.K., has significant hearing loss so relies heavily on lipreading when communicating – a skill which became even harder to use during the pandemic when everyone wore masks. And while the rise of virtual meetings has helped to some extent (people still turn their cameras off blocking lipreading), workplaces still don’t cater well enough to people with hidden conditions like deafness or severe hearing loss.

To boost awareness Houghton launched social enterprise WeSupportDeafAwareness during the pandemic. His message is clear: not enough is being done to support deaf workers, who make up a large chunk of the population. Consider that 1.5 billion people – almost 20% of the global population – live with a degree of hearing loss, according to the latest World Health Organization calculations.

Houghton has had to pay a heavy price for this lack of inclusivity at work. One of his worst memories he still recalls. “I was working for a big-four management consultancy firm and was thrown off a project because I misheard an action during a client meeting,” he said.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in July 2022 – to read the complete piece please click HERE.

Which laws around the world are reshaping how we work?

Societal, political, and ethical forces are reshaping the world of work.

To get a handle on some of the changes, a slew of laws have been introduced. Some of them have been passed to tackle cultural trends that have arisen since – or been expedited by – the pandemic. Others are more freestanding.

When considering how the laws that have come into force – or are due to be passed soon – since the start of the pandemic will shape the future of work, a quotation attributed to American-Canadian writer William Gibson, father of the cyberpunk sub-genre of science-fiction, comes to mind. “The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed.”

Here are five new laws that will affect how work is done in the specific nations in which they have been inked:

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in July 2022 – to read the complete piece please click HERE.

Which tech has the greatest potential to transform banking?

A whole array of emerging technologies could grant a crucial edge to banks that can apply them successfully. How do their innovation specialists go about finding a winning combination?

In the long shadow of the 2007-08 global financial crisis, concurrent advances in three technologies – smartphones, 4G cellular networks and cloud computing – sparked an explosion of innovation in financial services. Their convergence enabled mobile banking: the sector’s most significant development in generations.

Just over a decade later, the industry is again “on the cusp of another inflexion point”. That’s the belief of Prakash Pattni, MD of digital transformation at IBM Cloud for Financial Services. He predicts that progress in tech including 5G, blockchain, artificial intelligence and quantum computing will trigger “another spurt” of innovation.

“People talk about data being the new oil,” Pattni says. “Well, blockchain is the new oil rig, and AI is the new refinery. The coming together of these things makes it an exciting time to be part of the industry.”

Given that R&D is notoriously costly and success is never guaranteed, how do banks approach experimenting with tech that might just as easily fall by the wayside as revolutionise their industry?

As head of innovation, global functions, at HSBC, Steve Suarez is particularly well qualified to answer this. He believes that the secret to successful innovation is to stay focused on “how to make things cheaper, faster and frictionless for people”. The bank is “constantly scanning the horizon to see how we can apply new technologies. We want to gather data that enables us to personalise banking and give our customers what they need, quickly but also securely.”

The London-based American applies what he calls a “three horizon” approach to innovation. Horizon one concerns “the stuff that we already know well and will incrementally improve things in the short term. Horizon two, which is about two or three years from now, concerns technologies that are fairly new to the industry – blockchain, for instance. We look at how we can provide use cases with these to make the bank better.”

He continues: “And then there is horizon three, which is about the long shots. Right now, they include the metaverse and quantum computing, which could turn out to be a game-changer for financial services.”

The possibility that a horizon-three punt might come off is clearly exciting to Suarez, but he’s careful not to get too preoccupied with the potential benefits of such tech.

“We’re all betting on these technologies to achieve an advantage. There are huge opportunities, but we also need to look at the risks from a security perspective and work out how we might need to structure ourselves,” he says. “As we process 1.5 trillion transactions a day, we understand our great responsibility to protect all customers.”

HSBC’s recent horizon-three R&D activities have included hiring experts in quantum computing and announcing a three-year collaboration with IBM to explore applications for this nascent tech and so ensure its “organisational readiness” to take full advantage of it.

The bank has also bought a plot of virtual real estate in an online gaming space called The Sandbox, marking its first significant foray into the metaverse.

People talk about data being the new oil. Well, blockchain is the new oil rig and AI is the new refinery

The term ‘metaverse’ was coined by sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash. He was referring to a digital realm in which humans, avatars and software programs could interact and where property could be purchased. Suarez indicates that HSBC intends to stay loyal to Stephenson’s original meaning.

“We will be building on our plot, putting in virtual stadiums and working out how to better serve our customers,” he says, hinting that the bank might seek to engage with sports and e-sports fans in the metaverse.

Jehangir Byramji is senior innovation manager and fintech lead at Lloyds Banking Group. He also revels in exploring potentially transformative emerging tech and “analysing weak signals from other markets and regions that the bank can use in the future”.

Byramji’s approach is slightly different from that of Suarez, though. He organises the bank’s IT innovation work into three broad categories: data; AI (particularly machine learning); and Web3 (tech based on decentralised systems such as blockchains) and the metaverse.

“On the data pillar, there’s this whole idea of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ identities. Younger people are more worried about losing their social media profile than their passport,” he says. “They are more likely to embrace machine-to-machine payments. As a bank, you therefore need to think about non-traditional ways of processing their data.”

In this category he also places digital twins – virtual representations of real entities “to help you understand both your own organisation and its customers and clients”.

But Byramji is most enthused by the latest developments in machine learning. “You’re going to see more intelligent agents, just as much in the physical world as in the data realm,” he says, adding that the internet of things will play a key role in this field. “Some of our clients have connected factories or farms – the latest combine harvesters are covered in sensors, for instance – so we’re asking how we can use the data these smart machines gather in an intelligent way and work with clients to better serve them.”

Given the sheer range of possibilities, banks must remain focused on use cases that are most likely to benefit the customer, Byramji stresses. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time, money and effort.

“We’re starting to see quite gimmicky AI, with deep-fake videos and things like that,” he says. “While they are interesting developments, we have to remember our first principle: better serve our customers.”

That said, Byramji can’t help but be fascinated by the longer-term potential offered by Web3.

“Banks are unpicking blockchain technologies more effectively than they did a few years ago. We are starting to understand smart contracts and other capabilities that minimise risk and build trust,” he reports. “With these related technologies, I think we can form relationships with fintech firms, build ecosystems, develop new markets and unlock some exciting opportunities.”

This article was first published in Raconteur’s Future of Banking report in May 2022

Business leaders’ latest headache: Supporting staff through cost-of-living crisis, while staying profitable

The unholy trinity of rising energy, fuel and food prices is forcing U.K. residents to sacrifice luxuries — and even necessities — in a cost-of-living crisis that is already far worse than many predicted earlier in the year. Things are similarly bleak in the U.S., where inflation hit 8.6% in May, and the Federal Reserve has responded by raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point — the sharpest hike in 28 years.

Granted, the war in Ukraine has exacerbated the situation. But with inflation now at 9.1% in the U.K. and the Bank of England, which raised interest rates to 1.25% in mid-June, predicting that will increase to 11% in the fall, plus almost daily record-high petrol and diesel costs, things are unlikely to improve any time soon.

In response to all of this, employers on both sides of the Atlantic are pushing through new policies to better support their employees.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in June 2022 – to read the complete piece please click HERE.

Future of banking: what next-generation operating models are required?

Composability, partnerships with fintechs, and meeting customers on their preferred channel are all vital, according to a roundtable of experts. Watch the full roundtable here

Financial services operators were, according to ServiceNow’s Keith Pearson, “the white knights of the pandemic”. They came to the rescue of people and businesses stricken by the fallout of the coronavirus crisis. But, with the global economy in peril, they must saddle up again.

And yet, despite being saviours for many in the last two-and-a-half years, there is an incredible demand for banks, in particular, to evolve rapidly and offer personalised services and an omnichannel customer experience to rival the best in other industries.

To gallop along with change, steer clear of disruption, and continue to fight the good fight, those wishing to lead the way in the future of banking must partner with fintech experts, argues Pearson, AVP of financial services industry go to market at ServiceNow.

He points to a recent Gartner report, 2022 CIO Agenda: A Banking and Investment Perspective, which captures the challenge. “We are in a time of indefinite volatility, making it difficult for banks to plan for an indefinite future,” it reads. “Mastering business composability prepares banks to maximise business value regardless of ongoing uncertainty.”

Fay Wood, head of retail strategy at Natwest, sets the scene. “There is a looming cost-of-living crisis after unprecedented events – a global pandemic and a war in Europe – that few would have predicted three years ago,” she says. “Money management and supporting customers with budgeting and financial tools will be critical for the industry. As a result, these services are becoming much more embedded in people’s lives.”

Increased duty of care

Concurrently, regulators argue there is a greater responsibility on regulated firms to hold customers’ hands, metaphorically, and support them. Interestingly, some new financial terrains, whether it’s cryptocurrencies or buy now, pay later products, for instance, are not yet regulated.

Indeed, the Financial Conduct Authority’s final regulations on its new Consumer Duty will be available at the end of July and, following consultation, appear likely to force regulated firms to deliver “the best outcomes” for retail clients, says Wood. As an example of how NatWest better educates customers, the recently acquired Rooster Money app, with a pre-paid pocket-money card for those aged three and up, is currently free to access for the bank’s 17 million customers. “We wanted to do more for children,” she adds, highlighting the role acquisition is playing in the future of banking.

Metro Bank’s David Thomasson, managing director of digital and products, concurs that banks have to support customers better, whether online or offline, and build on the trust generated in the last two-and-a-half years. “Now, more so than before, they need to talk to somebody at the bank,” he says. “While digital is clearly becoming more important, seeing someone face to face is also vital. Our data shows that customers might not use a Metro Bank store for two months or even two years, but knowing that there is someone in a trusted environment nearby who can speak to you at a time that suits you is crucial.”

You must be prepared to think differently about your organisation’s structure and operating model and follow that through with your technology investment

It is not just individuals who crave that support. Thomasson states that 80% of Metro Bank’s business customers gained since the start of the pandemic operate within an eight-mile radius of a branch. “This shows the importance of the bank within a community,” he continues. “A service-led proposition and being there for communities will differentiate financial services organisations going forward.”

Banking in the metaverse

The “big difference” identified by Nadya Hijazi, global head of wholesale digital channels at HSBC, is that banks have to go to customers, not vice versa. In March, HSBC revealed it had bought a plot of virtual real estate in The Sandbox, an online gaming space, marking the bank’s first significant foray into the metaverse. She says: “It’s about ensuring your services are available wherever your customer wants to be, whether that’s in the metaverse or using WeChat in China. You must embed your services and be at the heart of the community.”

Banks can’t afford to ease up on innovation, and a mindset change is required to develop products and services that don’t need to be fixed, per se, Hijazi warns. “When you’ve got a revenue stream, there is no driver for change,” she says. “Usually, things change because something is not working. But now it’s dangerous to be complacent because if you don’t keep improving, then you will lose connectivity with customers.”

This concept chimes with Jasmeet Narang, chief transformation officer and head of operations at Santander UK. “Customers want choice and convenience, not just a load of off-the-shelf products,” he says. “The old stack-them-high and sell-them-cheap approach doesn’t work anymore. Instead, you have to understand customer needs, and most critically, you have to have that human touch.”

He stresses the importance of collaborating across the business and “organising design around the customer”, using their predicted wants and requirements as the guiding star, and justification, for any innovation. “Otherwise, you’ll always function in silos.” However, humans must be involved in the service, whatever technology is used. “It is those touch points with customers that are gold dust and will define the winners and the losers in the future of banking.”

Culture conundrum and composability

Narang says leaders have to activate a cultural change to drive innovation. “Top-down sponsorship is essential,” he adds. “Once you have that and a clear, long-term structure, other things follow. Also, you have got to be true to your convictions. The world will throw pandemics and wars at you, and at times you might have to be agile and flexible, but those that will succeed will keep the overall destination in mind.”

Yorkshire Building Society’s chief commercial officer, David Morris, believes the “evolution of banking distribution models is going to have quite pronounced effects, whether that’s embedded finance or banking in the metaverse, among many examples. New entrants, whether challenger banks or technology companies, will find ways of competing in the value chain in different ways. Therefore, that’s going to have big implications for business models.”

He continues: “How do you make sure you’re not left behind or not investing in the wrong technology? And how do you build that in an environment where you have to handle legacy infrastructure, macroeconomic uncertainty, and evolving regulations? Running an enterprise and building something different is incredibly difficult, and requires careful prioritisation and creative solution design.”

ServiceNow’s Pearson counters that bold banking leaders who look to partner with fintechs, use the agility of the cloud, and are willing to rip up old plans will triumph. “You must be prepared to think differently about your organisation’s structure and operating model and follow that through with your technology investment.”

He suggests the quicker banks can focus on building “composability” – essentially, a system design principle that deals with the interoperability of components – at scale, the better. “That’s what the future of banking will look and feel like,” Pearson concludes.

To find out how ServiceNow can enable digital transformation and improve experiences in your organisation, visit your.servicenow.com/businessinsights

This article was first published in Raconteur’s Future of Fintech report in June 2022

Sales talk: how conversational AI can win over customers

Conversational AI can mimic human interactions. With today’s consumers turned off by the hard sell, the technology holds strong potential for businesses

When it comes to sales, businesses should reverse Elvis’s famous advice: a little more conversation and a little less action, please.

The secret to success with today’s consumers revolves around small talk and a long-term approach. Direct approaches – seeking to add notches to the sales equivalent of a bedpost – are a huge turn-off for customers.

Happily, so-called conversational AI is now mature enough to assist adroitly with the more mundane topics, enabling humans to enter the chat room later, at the most appropriate point.

Conversational AI refers to tech solutions such as chatbots or virtual agents that use vast volumes of data, machine learning and natural language processing to imitate human interactions. Businesses today must adopt the technology as a matter of urgency, with laggards likely to lose out.

Technology doesn’t have working hours like a human employee does, meaning that customers can gain the help they desire on their terms

Over 70% of customers expect conversational service, meaning human-like interactions – complete with emojis, gifs, images and videos – whenever they engage with a brand, according to Zendesk. But only 40% of businesses can deliver this successfully.

Little wonder the global software-as-a-service company recently announced new capabilities for its Sunshine Platform, a customer relationship management service, including conversational automation via bot technology. The upgrade enables organisations to expand automation to messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and allows them to build and train custom bots to address common issues.

“A quick conversation can resolve most things in life,” says Matthias Goehler, Zendesk’s chief technology officer in EMEA. “Embracing advances in AI to deliver conversational exchanges with customers easily is a natural direction for customer experience (CX) teams to take.”

Resolving customer issues

One of the most significant benefits of conversational AI is that all customer communications are retained, Goehler adds. This means a more complete picture is achieved, allowing businesses to understand people’s personal preferences better and enrich their experience. It facilitates a personalised, data-driven service, removing some of the burdens on human agents and empowering them to do more for the customer in less time, he says.

“A conversational approach makes interactions more informed – built with the context of the customer’s history. When done right, it can even help increase a customer’s spending with you by making useful and simple recommendations to purchase from within a chat.”

Katie King is the author of two books about AI for sales and marketing and a member of the government’s All-Party Parliamentary Group Taskforce for the enterprise adoption of AI. Companies that embrace conversational AI will charm employees and customers alike, she says.

“Often, many of the queries that cross the service agent’s desk are frequently asked questions with simple answers,” she says. “While these queries might be easy to answer, they still take up valuable time and limit the agent’s capabilities to handle some of the more complex issues. It’s overwhelming and leads to faster employee burnout and potential staffing issues for the company.”

Conversational AI can help tackle this challenge, so appeals to many organisations, notes King. “AI can cut out that first step of the process by engaging the customer and potentially resolving their issue without human intervention,” she says. “Additionally, technology doesn’t have working hours like a human employee does, meaning that customers can gain the help they desire on their terms.”

When done right, it can even help increase a customer’s spending with you by making useful and simple recommendations to purchase

With the surge in energy prices, concerned customers of E.ON – the largest energy and renewable electricity supplier in the UK – have certainly wanted help. Conversational AI is easing the load.

Nikolai Berenbrock is the company’s head of conversational experiences. He says the company currently has more than 50 conversational AI solutions across the group, serving customers and employees and covering about 30% of demand. “This has enabled us to offer a better customer service experience and a massive reduction in our operational costs,” Berenbrock says.

E.ON uses AI to automate repetitive tasks so that agents are “available to jump in where they can make a valuable difference”, he adds. The technology “allows us to scale our customer service in a location and time-independent way, so that we can be where our customers are by offering our service on our website in a LiveChat channel, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, telephony channel, etc, whenever they need us, 24/7.”

Talking up the possibilities

Jason Costain is head of fraud prevention at NatWest, which serves 19 million customers across 12 banking and financial services brands. He offers another example of how conversational AI is being utilised.

“Using voice-biometric technology, we’re building a clear picture of our customers’ voices and what criminal voices sound like,” he says. “We can detect when we get a fraudulent voice coming in across our network as soon as it happens. Using a combination of biometric and behavioural data, we now have far greater confidence that we are speaking to our genuine customers and keeping them safe.”

Demand for conversational AI isn’t limited to customer experience, says Goehler. “We’re seeing huge demand from companies using our solutions for employee experience, with tickets filled by corporate employees jumping 31% last year – nearly double the rates seen by customer-facing support teams at B2B and B2C companies,” he says, signposting the direction of travel.

Despite the clear advantages of conversational AI and the momentum behind the technology, Goehler sounds a note of caution to business leaders who, to quote another Elvis song, can’t help falling in love with the technology. “While just over half of EMEA companies report that chatbots are becoming more human-like, AI can’t – and shouldn’t – be a 100% solution,” he says.

Zendesk research indicates more than 60% of customers will walk away after one poor experience – up 22% from last year. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, who can blame their suspicious minds?

This article was first published in Raconteur’s AI for Business report in June 2022

Why more companies are sending new hires straight to the metaverse for improved onboarding

What will you learn on your first day at work in the metaverse?

This year, some 150,000 joiners will begin their careers at Accenture in the company’s virtual campus, called the Nth Floor, according to Allison Horn, the company’s executive director of global talent, based in Washington DC.

The Nth Floor is where new hires and existing Accenture staff “can have a more immersive experience for learning and networking,” said Jon Ayres, U.K. managing director for talent and organization at the company. It is one of a growing list of examples showcasing how employers are using pioneering technology to attract and retain top talent.

Given the tussle for top talent and the need for greater connection with colleagues in the age of hybrid working, Ayres predicts that companies will “experiment with new technology so employees can collaborate in a more meaningful way, which will advance the virtual working tools used widely today.” His statement is supported by new McKinsey research, published mid-June, which calculates metaverse spending will hit $5 trillion by 2030.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in June 2022 – to read the complete piece please click HERE.

Flexibility is key to recruitment – and keeping your staff

Fallout from Brexit and the pandemic has led to more vacancies than applicants, but paying extra is not a long-term option

When the Office for National Statistics published its latest job vacancies data this week, it exposed the post-pandemic recruitment challenges facing most businesses. The number of unfilled positions in the UK increased by 20,000 between March and May to a record 1.3 million, while in the three months from February to April the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 per cent, the lowest since 1974.

“For the first time since records began there are fewer unemployed people than job vacancies,” said Jack Kennedy, a UK economist at the job-listing platform Indeed. “That marks a dramatic turnaround from last summer when there were four unemployed people per vacancy. It also highlights the extreme tightness of the labour market, which has been fuelling hiring difficulties across many sectors.”

Cleaning, construction, warehouse, manufacturing and hospitality roles are all receiving lower interest levels on average than before the pandemic, he added. Brexit is exacerbating the challenges for sectors that relied on workers from the European Union.

The lack of flexible working in these roles, in comparison with desk-based jobs, is another factor, as is the number of people opting for early retirement.

The pandemic “put the brakes on decades of improvement” in employment rates among those in their fifties and sixties, said Ian Nicholas, the global managing director at the employment agency Reed. “The number of people in this age group who are not even looking for work has risen by 228,000,” he said, adding that companies should encourage older staff to stay in work to share knowledge and engage with younger members of the workforce.

This article was first published in The Times in June 2022 – to read the complete piece please click HERE (note: it is behind a paywall).

‘A business imperative’: How Salesforce developed its employee-centric hybrid model

The truism that a happy worker is a productive worker has perhaps never been more closely scrutinized.

At Salesforce, it has become the motto that underpins the company’s entire flexible workforce structure, which it has rolled out for its 77,000 employees globally.

This ‘Success from Anywhere’ model, launched in 2021, was the fruits of two years worth of internal employee surveys the company ran to get a grasp on what employees want from their workplace and their jobs, post-pandemic.

The model has made it a popular place to work. Salesforce is one of only four employers that feature on all five country lists — the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France and Germany) in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in 2022. And in late April, it was ranked top in the “super large” classification – organizations with over 1,000 employees – of the U.K.’s Best Workplaces 2022, elevated from third place last year, according to management consultancy Great Place to Work.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in June 2022 – to read the complete piece please click HERE.

How switching to a 4-day week solved challenger bank Atom’s talent shortage

Six months ago, challenger bank Atom was in a tight spot: its growth tear was being stunted by a major talent shortage.

The company had 70 unfilled job vacancies and, in a tight labor market, was struggling to find the best talent to fill them.

To boost its visibility as a great place to work and attract top talent, Atom’s U.K.-based leadership decided to take the plunge and trial a four-day week, to see if it boosted the volume of candidates applying.

It worked. The company had a 500% increase in applications for open roles, according to Atom’s chief people officer Anne-Marie Lister.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in June 2022 – to read the complete piece please click HERE.