04
magazine
businessinfomag.uk
Tech workers expect offices to be transformed
in the future with 4D printing, retina scans,
robots and VR meetings, according to new
research from Dice, the online career site for
the technology community.
Tech pros believe whiteboards will be replaced
by interactive projectors (51%), security fobs by
finger print recognition (34%) and conference
calls by virtual reality meetings (30%). Over a
third (37%) believe offices of the future will be
paperless and 21% say teleconferences will be
replaced by holograms.
The majority of tech professionals (96%) agree
that the office environment is important to their
happiness and well-being. Yet nearly half say
their current office environment doesn’t promote
creativity (48%) and 52% say buildings in the UK
are not suitable for tech businesses.
In the future, shared working spaces (49%),
free food and drink at in-house restaurants (45%),
facial recognition software (39%) and space to
take breaks from technology, such as tech-free
relaxation zones (37%), will be the norm. One
quarter think there will no longer be physical
offices, as businesses go virtual.
uk.dice.com
Softcat wins best workplace award
IT infrastructure provider Softcat has been
named ‘Best Workplace’ in the UK in the 500+
employee category by Great Place toWork.
This is the fifth year in a row that the company
has been ranked a Best Workplace. The awards
are based on an employee survey and an audit
of each organisation’s management and HR
practices.
Softcat chief executive Martin Hellawell said:
“We don’t have any intellectual property – we
haven’t invented any products or make any – so
the attitude of our employees and quality and
enthusiasm of the
customer service
we offer is how we
differentiate ourselves;
it is the cornerstone of
our success. Our formula is simple: we recruit the
right staff in the first place, continuously train and
develop them and ensure they are engaged so they
offer a fantastic service to customers.”
Softcat, which employs more than 900 people,
was runner up in the Best Workplaces awards (large
business category) in both 2014 and 2015.
agenda
UK offices not suitable for tech
businesses
Employers putting
Baby Boomers out to
pasture too soon
Organisations are failing to realise
the potential of the Baby Boomer
generation, with HR focusing on
retirement planning for the over
50s, rather than helping older
workers to use their skills and
expertise for the benefit of the
business.
In its new report
Don’t Put Baby
(Boomers) in the Corner: Realising the
Potential of the Over 50s at Work
,
Ashridge argues that Baby Boomers,
some of whom have as many 20 years
left to work, are becoming frustrated
and demotivated by the lack of
opportunity to develop their careers
and/or pass their knowledge on to
younger workers.
Although older workers are still
ambitious and want challenging
jobs and career development, HR
professionals tend to focus on
younger generations. Only 1% of HR
respondents feel older workers need
career development.
To help over 50s maximise their
contribution and continue to thrive at
work, the report advises businesses to
take a more individual and informal
approach to career discussions,
introduce coaching and mentoring
initiatives and explore options for
older workers to get involved in
advisory roles or special projects.
Subsidised training
for the self-
employed
Freelancers and self-employed
professionals are being offered
subsidised training courses by
the Association of Independent
Professionals and the Self
Employed (IPSE).
The new IPSE Academy brings
together leading training providers
offering thousands of courses in
everything from Photoshop to
advanced accountancy qualifications.
Courses are open to any independent
professional, but IPSE members receive
a discount of up to 50%.
Independent renewable capacity grew 28% last
year and now supplies 7.6% of the UK’s power
demand, according to the fourth annual
Energy
Entrepreneurs Report
from SmartestEnergy,
Britain’s leading purchaser of electricity from
independent renewable generators.
However, a 20% drop in wholesale electricity
prices caused by falling oil and gas prices means
that while independent renewables capacity grew
by 28%, the wholesale value of the electricity it
generated dropped by more than 4%.
In 2015 independent energy entrepreneurs
across the UK generated more than £1 billion of
electricity from a total of 5,467 projects, enough to
power 6.2 million households.
Last year energy entrepreneurs outside the
traditional electricity supply sector invested over
£376 million in more than 1,000 new commercial-
scale projects, adding 2.4GW of renewable capacity
to meet UK energy demand.
This includes 155 corporate
on-site generation projects, which
added 99MW of new energy capacity
or almost £100 million worth of
electricity. The most active on-
site generators are retailers and
wholesalers, as supermarket and
warehouse roofs are ideally suited
to solar. Together, they developed 88
new projects, adding 9.3MW of new capacity.
Overall, there are now 728 corporate on-site
generation projects around the country, accounting
for 13% of all renewables projects and 6% of
renewable energy capacity.
In the four years since SmartestEnergy began
tracking independent renewable energy generation,
almost £2.5 billion has been invested in projects
above 50KW, more than doubling independent
capacity from 4.7GW to nearly 11GW or 40% of
UK renewable power.
Businesses boost renewables through on-site generation
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