Employers are increasingly willing to allow staff to work from home, find two new surveys. The latest UK Labour Force Survey released on January 16 shows 1.7 million – about six percent of the working population – work from home with the use of a computer and a telephone at least one full day a week. The popularity of working outside the traditional office environment is also seen in a report by the business analysts Datamonitor, published on January 23. The study finds that the UK has the highest rate of homeworkers in all of Europe, with 6.5 million working from home at some time or other. The research also shows the majority of homeworkers are male (60%), in non-manual work and have higher than average levels of education. Contact Labour Market Helpline, ONS, on 020 7533 5714 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk); Krishna Rao, Datamonitor, on 020 7675 7271 (http://www.datamonitor.com)
Working partnerships
Increased productivity and profitability, lower staff turnover and less sickness absence are among the chief benefits of a strong relationship between employers and employees, according to a paper released by the TUC on January 4 entitled Partnership works.
However, another report, Partnerships under Pressure, published by the Institute of Employment Research on January 3, uses a case study analysis to highlight how partnerships between management and workers’ unions are not working. Both reports offer principles on which sustained partnerships between the two groups can be built. Contact David Coats, TUC, on 020 7467 1205 (http://www.tuc.org.uk); Peter Reilly, IES, on 01273 873 669 (http://www.employmentstudies. co.uk)
Sharing in success – and failure
Employee-owned businesses tend to outperform the average, because of their clarity of purpose, greater sense of partnership and desire to contribute to the community, according to a report published by The Centre for Tomorrow’s Company on December 27, in conjunction with the John Lewis Partnership. The study, which includes case studies from TTP Group and Xansa, found that the key is combining employee ownership with high levels of participation. The Employee Ownership Index, comprising companies with more than 10% of shares held by staff, has risen 370% since 1991, twice the FTSE All-Share Index. Contact Mark Goyder, Tomorrow’s Company, on 020 7930 5150 (http://www.tomorrowscompany.com)
news in brief
316 unlawful discrimination cases received awards from employment tribunals in 2000, leaving employers with a bill of £3.53 million. The figures, released by the Equal Opportunities Review on January 7, show a rise of almost two-fifths (38%) on the previous year. Contact Sue Johnstone, EOR, on 020 7354 6787 (http://www.eordirect.com)
BP Oil is one of nine overall winners of the government-backed National Training Awards 2001. BP was presented with the accolade on December 11 for its Developing People programme which equips service station operators and staff. Contact John Browning, BP Oil, on 01908 853 815
Editorial Comment
Ooops. Having lost their jobs, their life savings and their pension fund, many Enron employees will have a different perspective, to put it mildly, on whether it makes sense to encourage greater share ownership among the workforce. (Many Railtrack employees have had a similarly painful experience too.) Of course the causes of the Enron collapse go deeper and its ramifications will go much wider, but it’s a timely reminder. Indeed if employee ownership is self-evidently such a great idea, why do governments in the UK and in the US feel they have to encourage it through tax incentives? The key objective is to make real the stake employees already have in their firms, to whom they devote most of their waking hours. As the small print of the Tomorrow’s Company report shows, it is the broad range of participatory measures that makes the difference, not ownership per se; such as open governance, transparent conduct, honest management, sharing profits genuinely created? all the things apparently lacking at Enron.
COMMENTS