Only one in eight British workplaces now enforce a smart dress code, according to a new survey.
Research revealed the trend set by Steve Jobs and Sir Richard Branson in staff, managers and directors abandoning shirts and ties in favour of more comfortable day-to-day attire, is still growing.
Half of workers now follow a casual or smart casual dress code at work, allowing for jeans and other dress-down styles, according to the poll.
Just 12 per cent of those surveyed said management still insisted on a smart dress code and 16 per cent said they are required to wear a specific uniform.
One in five considered the rules at their place of work to be “mostly smart”, allowing freedom for casual items of clothing.
Three quarters believed that workplace attire has become more casual across different industries in the last decade.
“As work hours have increased and the ‘always on’ culture has come to prominence thanks to developments in tech and connectivity, the lines between our work lives and our home lives have blurred,” said a spokesperson for search platform Lyst, which commissioned the poll. “This meeting of worlds is reflected in our expected work dress codes.
“Work is no longer siloed off from the rest of our lives, and therefore it is right that the rules around dress codes in the workplace have become more relaxed.
The research also assessed the position of jeans in British culture, with 75 per cent of the 2,000 adults surveyed viewing the clothing as a key component of their style and the average respondent owning five pairs.
A host of major banks and venture capital firms have signed up for the Government’s latest initiative to boost funding for female entrepreneurs, the Treasury has said.
The financial institutions signed up on Tuesday to the Investing in Women Code, agreeing to a set of measures aimed at improving equality for small business founders including publishing gender funding data.
The banks putting their name to the plans are Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Santander, TSB, Metro Bank, the Co-operative Bank and Bank of Ireland UK.
They are joined by venture capital firms Frontline and Episode 1, angel networks UK Business Angel Association and Angel Academe, and institutional investor British Business Bank.
Speaking at the launch of the Investing in Women Code at a reception in Downing Street, the Exchequer Secretary Robert Jenrick said: “Breaking down gender barriers could add billions to the UK economy.
“I’m pleased to see so many of our major banks and venture capital firms support the code, and I call on others to follow suit.
“It’s shocking that only one in three entrepreneurs are women and I hope that today’s commitment signals a turning point in attitudes towards investing in female-led businesses.”
It follows the findings of a review led by NatWest’s deputy chief executive Alison Rose earlier this year which showed closing the gap between male and female entrepreneurs could add £250 billion to the UK’s economy.
Challenges facing female founders identified by the report include low access to capital, high risk awareness, disproportionate primary care responsibilities and a lack of relatable role models.
Research commissioned by the Chancellor had previously revealed that female-led start-ups get just a penny for every £1 of venture capital investment in the UK.
Signatories of the new Investing in Women Code pledge to nominate a senior leader to take responsibility for equality, as well as adopt internal practices that will improve access to funding and resources for women-led founder teams.
They will also publish data on funding granted to businesses, showing whether the founding teams are male, female or mixed.
Ms Rose said: “When we began this process, everyone involved was in agreement that raising awareness of the Rose Review’s findings is only one small part of what is needed; what we need is action.
Britain has witnessed a remarkable period of high employment, with the number of people in work at its highest since the 1970s.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the unemployment holding steady at 3.8%, its lowest rate on record.
Wages have also increased at their fastest rate in more than a decade, data published on Tuesday shows.
But the reality of Britain’s labour market is a lot less rosy and a lot more complex than some of the headline figures suggest.
Half the new jobs are in self-employed, insecure work
Half of the past year’s employment growth has been in self-employment, which is typically far more insecure and often less well-paid than staff roles, according to the Resolution Foundation.
“One of the big changes in the job market over the past year has been the return of growing self-employment. The number of self-employed workers has increased by 167,000,” the think tank said.
It is part of a growing trend over the past decade, with increased numbers of young people employed in the gig economy and rising numbers of over-65s continuing to work on a freelance basis.
A coalition of British industry groups and education bodies, worried by the prospect of Brexit worsening skills and labour shortages, has called for the next prime minister to relax proposed reforms of the immigration system.
The #FullStrength campaign said on Wednesday it had written to both Boris Johnson, frontrunner to be the next leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister, and his rival, foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, calling for the government they would lead to lower the salary threshold proposed in draft immigration legislation from 30,000 pounds to 20,000.
In December, Britain set out in a policy paper the biggest overhaul of its immigration policy in decades, ending special treatment for European Union nationals.
Concern about the social and economic impact of immigration helped drive Britain’s 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU.
#FullStrength brings together bodies including London First, techUK, the British Retail Consortium, the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, UKHospitality, the Federation of Master Builders and Universities UK. Collectively they represent tens of thousands of businesses and employ millions of workers across all sectors and regions of Britain.
Their joint letter said more than 60% of all jobs in the UK currently fall under the proposed 30,000-pound salary threshold, highlighting the risk in setting the future level too high for vital services such as health and social care.
Britain’s easyJet on Thursday reported third quarter trading in line with expectations, boosted by more customers taking optional extra services and enabling it to reiterate its full-year profit forecasts. The budget airline also announced that it had poached Peter Bellew as its chief operating officer from Ryanair.
EasyJet said revenue for the quarter ending June 30 increased by 11.4% to £1.8 billion, driven by more bookings, initiatives to optimise its pricing and more ancillary revenue from additional services such as allocated seating and luggage check-ins.
Shares rose 3.2% after the update.
The robust trading, at a time when many the industry are struggling, comes despite a general softening of demand due to tougher economic conditions across Europe as well as Brexit-related consumer uncertainty in Britain, it said.
“Make no mistake – it is still tough out of there. It is still a challenging environment… but I think what we are seeing is that the actions we are taking ourselves is having a positive effect,” Chief Executive Johan Lundgren told reporters on Thursday.
“We’ve been pleased with how the late trading has come in, which has been supported by these initiatives.”
The airline said it expected to deliver a profit before tax of between £400 million and £440 million, in line with market expectations, and Lundgren said that second-half forward bookings were at 78%, giving the airline better visibility.
The group added that it had hired Bellew who is stepping down from his role at Ryanair at the end of the year, according to a memo to staff seen by Reuters.
The former chief executive of Malaysian Airlines re-joined the Irish carrier in December 2017.
Ryanair on Tuesday said it had cut its forecast for growth in traveller numbers for summer 2020 to provide for the possibility of further delays in deliveries of the grounded Boeing 737 MAX.
Lundgren said that easyJet’s strategy on capacity wouldn’t change with anything a competitor was doing.
Lloyds Bank’s Business In Britain survey showed a rise in business confidence, but firms also said that it is getting harder and harder for them to find the staff they need to capitalise on it.
The bank reported that while confidence was at an 18 month high, challenges in hiring were at a ten year high.
A staggering 52 per cent of respondents said they struggled to recruit skilled staff in the last six months.
It should be stated at this point that this is no cynical attempt by Lloyds to garner a bit of cheap publicity. The Business in Britain report is in its 25th year and is put together from the views of 1,500 companies, mostly small and medium sized enterprises that are (as we keep being told) the engines of growth. As such, its findings are worthy of note.
Now, regular readers won’t be surprised to see me using this as yet more evidence of just how stupid, and damaging, the current Government’s approach to immigration is.
Making EU residents feel unwelcome, and pandering to racists, will cause real, and lasting economic damage to this country. They’ve already started to vote with their feet, exacerbating the nation’s yawning skills gap.
However, at the same time, it is also fair to ask whether businesses are doing enough to mitigate the problem themselves, and whether their approach to recruitment isn’t making the difficult situation they identify worse than it otherwise might be.
After all, we were talking about the skills gap before the EU referendum and it would likely have continued to cause problems even had David Cameron’s decision to call it not resulted in an outbreak of collective insanity.
Part of the reason why it continues to be an issue is that businesses are failing to exploit the talent that is under their noses.
For example, I constantly highlight the disability employment gap within these pages. Despite the labour shortages Lloyds references, skilled disabled people can’t find jobs.
According to disability charity Scope, the difference between the rate of employment among able bodied people when compared to that of disabled people currently stands at a staggering 31.3 percentage points.
But it isn’t just disabled people. Unemployment is also markedly higher among black and minority ethnic people, about twice the rate found among white Britons in fact.
Last year, I revealed the results of a TUC study that found that the disparity in incomes between BAME workers and their white workers actually increases the more qualifications they get.
Meanwhile, we constantly see reports highlighting poor treatment of female staff, and of LGBT staff.
What all this indicates is that UK businesses are failing to tap into some substantial pools of talented and skilled workers, failing to make the best of the workers from them when that they do hire them, failing to treat them well.
Part of the problem might be being caused by recruitment agencies. Many firms use them, and they may sub consciously, or even deliberately, exclude certain candidates from shortlists to minimise what they misguidedly perceive as “risk”, all with the aim of keeping their clients happy.
Half of firms expect to recruit staff next year, with smaller firms most confident, according to a new study.
A survey of almost 300 companies, employing one million workers, also found that most believed a diverse workforce was important to their future success.
The CBI said its research found that a shortage of skilled workers was the biggest worry for companies, with many worried about being able to attract overseas employees.
Half of the companies questioned said they were aiming to increase pay at least in line with inflation in the coming year, slightly fewer than this time a year ago.
Fewer than one in three said they would be able to absorb the costs of increases in the national living wage, with one in five planning to increase prices or restructure their business.
Neil Carberry, the CBI’s managing director for people policy, said: “Britain’s record on job creation is second to none, and this year’s survey shows that this is set to continue in 2018.
“But with softening economic growth matched with high employment, the survey again emphasises the vital need to make progress on the industrial strategy and secure a good Brexit deal to improve productivity, support job creation and boost pay growth.
“The survey also shows that firms are concerned about finding the right staff in the future and this is damaging the outlook for investment in the longer term.”
Tracy Evans of recruitment firm Pertemps, which helped with the survey, added: “Although there has been a lot of change in 2017, confidence is high among employers, with most expecting to expand on opportunities in the coming year.
“One of the big problems we face in recruitment at the moment is the skills gap and how to overcome it. Finding the right staff is obviously key in recruitment and we need to find a solution to this ever-growing problem.”
All 12,000 staff employed by sandwich and coffee chain Pret A Manger will receive a £1,000 bonus once the sale of the firm is completed.
The company is to be sold by its private equity owners Bridgepoint to Luxembourg-based JAB Holdings.
The two firms did not say how much JAB was paying, although one report put the value of the deal at £1.5bn.
Pret a Manger opened its first store in London in 1986 and Bridgepoint bought the chain in 2008 for about £350m.
As well as its strong presence on the UK High Street the chain has expanded into the US, Hong Kong, China and France.
Pret operates 530 stores worldwide, generating group revenues of £879m. Its sale is expected to be completed this summer.
Pret a Manger chief executive Clive Schlee, said: “The £1,000 bonus will be paid to all employees who are on the payroll during the week the deal completes. It’s serendipity for those who have just joined.”
William Jackson, chairman of Pret and managing partner of Bridgepoint, said: “We’re proud of what we’ve achieved over the last 10 years with Pret and its management team.”
According to new research from Barclays, UK graduates spend an average of £550 attending job interviews before securing a job
The research which polled 1,000 graduates found that 48% of graduate jobseekers have to borrow money, take out credit cards or go into their overdrafts to fund expensive commuting fares to interviews, which makes finding a job inaccessible for many.
Jobseekers frequently spend £80 on buying appropriate clothing, £90 on travel and accommodation, £205 on resources to boost employability and £175 on software to enable upskilling – so the costs quickly rack up.
And, the survey revealed that 61% of prospective employers wouldn’t even cover the basic costs of an interview, while 54% have had to turn down interviews or not even applied (51%) because they know that they can’t afford to attend the interview.
So, to tackle this problem following results from the survey, Barclays are launching their Graduate Fund scheme to help student jobseekers access their careers more easily.
Graduates can apply for grants from the £20,000 pool of ‘free money’ to make attending interviews more affordable. And, this money can be used for anything from interview clothing, travel and accommodation to training and development resources and upskilling.
This grant is a one-off cash injection that doesn’t need to be paid back.
Wages are on the increase amid near record rates of employment, according to official figures.
Data released by the Office for National Statistics this morning reveals unemployment fell by 47,000 to 1.36m in the three months to August and pay rose by 3.1% over the quarter, compared with a year ago, while inflation for the same period was 2.5%.
There were 32.39m people in work over the quarter – down 5,000 on the previous quarter.
Commenting on the data, Pawel Adrjan, UK economist at the global job site Indeed, said Britain’s labour market is slowly pivoting from job growth to pay growth: “Average pay is now growing at its fastest rate since 2008, and the curtain could finally be starting to come down on the lost decade of stagnant wages.
“With the number of new jobs created flatlining as the economy hovers close to full employment, employers are having to fight harder and pay more to recruit staff.
“For the economy to deliver more sustained pay growth it needs an injection of the labour market ‘X factor’: better productivity.”
Also commenting Recruitment & Employment Confederation CEO Neil Carberry said the data reflected the strong performance of the UK’s flexible jobs market, with wages rising in real terms and near record rates of employment.
“But there is some evidence that progress has slowed as businesses enter a holding pattern ahead of any Brexit deal.
“What we need now is for the government to take a pragmatic approach that delivers a smooth Brexit for the economy – and for people’s jobs. A transition period and longer-term clarity and stability on terms of trade and mobility between the UK and the EU are essential to avoiding a bumpy landing.”
