Visions of Britain 2020 Blog

Welcome to a Vision of 2020

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:42:54 GMT

Welcome to the Visions of Britain 2020 blog. I hope you find this site both enjoyable and rewarding. Both I and my colleagues look forward to sharing some of our findings with you, and most importantly, to hearing your thoughts.

Feel free to contribute comments, to ask questions of our experts or to get in touch with any thoughts about what you read on here. I’m sure people will have a lot to say, so feel free to get in touch...

Now, I’d like you to think back to a decade ago and consider what has changed in your life since 2000. Think about anything: it could be work, hobbies, family or home - think about the first thing that comes into your mind.

The chances are you have gone through quite a change since then. I know I have.

Now think ahead to 2020 and consider where you might be in ten years. Where will you be working? Where will you live? Will you be bringing up a young family? Will your children have flown the nest? Will you be able to afford the things you want? There are a lot of things to consider, and as we know from the past ten years, these things happen quicker than we expect.

Through the Visions of Britain 2020 series, we have considered some of these things too.

In the first report of the series, conducted with the Future Foundation, we have examined one of the biggest issues affecting our lives – the workplace in 2020.

We spend an increasingly significant proportion of our time at work be it at an office, in our home, in a classroom or in a workshop. We form important relationships there and of course, we earn a living there. So a preview into how it will look in 2020, and how it will have changed by then, is important to us all. I hope Visions of Britain 2020 gives us this preview.

Here is just some of what we found:

A polarisation of jobs will create two bands of workers: elite workers who work in technical, professional and managerial roles – and nearly one million excluded workers, typically younger, unskilled males who will face poor prospects and limited expectations.
The balance of power will have shifted decisively towards elite workers.
The benefits of training will be appreciated by elite workers – but the cost of it may have to be shared by all.
Outsourcing will greatly improve the quality of working life by eliminating routine jobs and creating more interesting jobs.
New measures of assessing employee productivity will be critical in the 2020 knowledge economy, meaning we are more scrutinised more heavily than ever before.

Changes in the workplace will affect each of us profoundly – whether employer or employee.

Take the job gap – or polarisation of jobs – for example. This is now at a pivotal point and is as much down to individual attitude as it is to macro-factors such as the recession or global outsourcing. Our research shows that by acting now and up-skilling, potentially excluded workers can equip themselves properly for the future. By acting too late, the consequences could be dire.

The effects on business are equally profound – how we continue to attract overseas talent, for example, will be a huge challenge for UK businesses in 2020. Human Resources will be affected considerably. Gillian Fox, my colleague will talk about this impact in our next blog post, and let’s just say, if you work in HR, then Gillian’s post will be well worth a read - as the battleground for elite employees hots up.

I’ll leave you with this thought for now though- our report says that in 2020, both job enjoyment and fulfilment will be far more important than pay. Do you agree these factors will become more important in the next ten years?

Enjoy the Visions of Britain 2020 series.

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident

The evolution of the HR function

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:08:58 GMT

As the Director of Human Resources for Friends Provident, sitting and reading the first volume of the Visions of Britain 2020 series on the future of the workplace provoked two trains of thought.

Firstly, as an HR professional, I support the report’s affirmation of the importance of people management within companies.

Our report shows that in 2020, human resources will become more critical than ever before, as companies seek to recruit and retain the demanding and empowered band of ‘elite’ workers with the skills, ideas and knowledge that drive business success. What Visions tells us quite clearly is that the battleground for talent will intensify significantly in the next decade and the businesses that succeed in the future will be those who invest heavily and strategically in their people.

Secondly, for myself and my team, Visions of Britain 2020 can make a significant contribution to how we ensure Friends Provident is a success in the future. The combination of consumer insight and expert opinion in Visions provides us with a useful roadmap for how businesses can invest in and work with their biggest asset – talent – over the next ten years.

Our first Visions report poses some challenging questions of the HR profession:

We know that keeping the elite workers is not just about remuneration – what role can HR play in supporting businesses to improve job satisfaction and enjoyment and overall engagement in the workplace?
Training and development will be a key driver for employee recruitment and retention – but how can we make this more tailored and personal? And if employees move more easily between companies and roles, who will pay for the cost of training?

The necessity of increasing investment in the workforce will undoubtedly result in company boards being required to measure the return on that investment more effectively, including productivity, quality of ideas and contribution to the bottom line. What can we do to measure more effectively the return on investment in people?

What Visions concludes is that for all of us, the workplace will be starkly different in 2020. For companies, this means transforming people management to meet the demands of a whole new breed of workers. I will be sharing my thoughts on how we might address this through my blog over the coming weeks and months. It would be great to hear your views.

Gillian Fox, Human Resources Director, Friends Provident

A word from the author

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:41:30 GMT

We often tend to assume that globalisation affects other people and not us. The effects of globalisation seem distant, even abstract. The consequences however are much more real than they first appear.

As author of the Workplace in 2020 report for Friends Provident, what has struck me is the way in which globalisation affects all of us and the jobs that we do. Our future is in making ideas and innovations rather than widgets and wing-nuts. As a country the UK has always been good on ideas – steam engines, railways, ocean liners, distinctive cars, television… In World War II the ingenuity of the aptly-named intelligence community contributed hugely to the ultimate victory of the Allies. We have produced numerous examples of applied imagination – the Mini, Concorde, the Swiss Re Building at St Mary Axe in London (aka the Gherkin), the internet ...

As manufacturing dwindles and as we become a knowledge economy, Britons should feel positive about the competitive position of this country in 2020. High quality thinking is something we’ve always done well and – as our report makes clear – our experts believe that the education system will be largely successful in producing enough bright young people to keep this country competitive in the next decade.

But what of companies? I suggest that a key lesson to take from the report will be their involvement in ongoing skills training; in nurturing talent and developing people in a more stimulating work environment. Education won’t be confined to the classroom and lecture hall – it will be a sustained process which will span careers. This places burden on companies and what we now know as the Human Resources function will have to become more sophisticated, moving to the centre of the organisation and becoming a strategic function. Anecdotally we find few examples of workers praising HR departments; it remains an unloved function in many organisations. In the future how many graduates with business degrees or other industry specific qualifications will choose HR as a career? How many Chief Executives have previously held the position of HR Director?

HR must come of age, in line with these changes. When operations, finance, marketing and sales departments have come so far in twenty years the progress made by the HR function could be perceived by some to be slight. We end where we came in: globalisation and the inexorable development of a knowledge economy will become apparent in our own companies as HR becomes a business-critical function.

Barry Clark, Future Foundation

The elite and the excluded: Not a bridge too far

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:55:03 GMT

Hello, and welcome to my latest blog post.

Since we launched the first report in our Visions of Britain 2020 series, our findings have generated a range of lively and interesting opinions.

The rise of the elite worker has created plenty of debate, particularly amongst the HR community, as businesses weigh up the impact of the elite worker on the recruitment and retention process. The outlook for various parts of the country has also caught the eye of many, with people in Scotland and the north looking forward to 2020 with a more upbeat view than their counterparts in the south.

A piece on Management Today’s website caught my eye in particular. The article looked at the power of the elite worker and raised an interesting point about how organisations could face a challenge in finding the managers of the future. This angle certainly presents us with food for thought; however, it was a reference to the excluded worker that really caught my eye.

The article stated: "It’s a very different story for the excluded. This growing underclass – which, according to the workplace experts consulted for this study, will mostly be young, semi-skilled males from the C2DE social class – will find themselves facing ‘poor prospects and limited expectations."

This is particularly disconcerting for the UK labour market as a whole when you consider that nearly one million people could fall into this bracket not to mention those individuals at risk of falling into this category.

But I strongly believe the power is in the hands of these individuals and we can turn this negative into a positive.

With businesses facing a shortage of elite workers in 2020, the bridge between the elite and the excluded isn’t an impassable one. Indeed, with outsourcing set to continue, and in sourcing on the wane, there will be opportunities out there in the future for all workers – but only for those with a proactive attitude – a key difference between the elite and excluded worker. Look at these stats:

78% of potentially elite workers said they would consider re-training in the future for a change of career
41% of potentially excluded workers said they would consider re-training in the future for a change of career
Almost two thirds of potentially excluded workers expect a salary increase every year

This is revealing. Training and self-development is key, and apathy is dangerous. Excluded workers demonstrate an indifferent attitude towards their working life and expect everything to be fine in the future. It won’t. Without a willingness to learn new skills, workers could well become excluded.

Think ahead to 2020 now and give yourself the freedom to enjoy the future. The choices made today will decide which side of the bridge you end up on. You could be elite - a well-paid worker in a job you take pleasure from, or you could be excluded – and struggling to even find employment.

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident

HR is the key to good business

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:08:24 GMT

When we published the first Visions of Britain 2020 report, we issued a press release announcing that HR will become crucial in the ‘war for talent’ by 2020.

Over lunch in the canteen the other day, I was talking about this with a colleague.

“I’ll stay close to you then!” she said. “I want you on my side if there is going to be a scramble for the best staff out there.”

I thought her remarks hinted at a much wider truth – that HR is integral to our personal well-being and happiness, by giving us the freedom to develop ourselves at work.

I believe that without a sense of fulfilment, progress and growth in our careers, we would swiftly become de-motivated, bored and resentful, before finally moving on in search of pastures new. On the other hand, an engaged worker, tends to be a happy, motivated one who takes pride in not only their own work, but also in the wider goal of the organisation for which they work.

This is precisely the reason I choose to work in HR and it is something I take great pride in. It is also why I think an increasingly influential HR department is imperative for the business of the future.

The business that places HR at the heart of what it does, will be in pole position. It is openly saying to current and potential employees it takes the well-being of its people seriously.

To do this, the HR director must have the ear of the chief executive. They must be the conduit between the top of the organisation and the wider workforce. It is this pivotal role that adds genuine strategic value and I am pleased to see this happening more and more.

However, an education process is still vital in the boardrooms of Britain. There is a need to increase the commerciality of HR functions so that the partnership between the top team and HR can flourish. After all, how important have we been in CEO’s rise to the top, for example ensuring they have the right teams around them. In my experience – hugely.

Gillian Fox, Human Resources Director, Friends Provident

Unemployment figures are not all good news

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:43:48 GMT

This week’s unemployment figures are not all good news. Whilst overall unemployment has continued to fall, the long-term unemployed, those out of work for more than a year, has increased by 61,000 in the last three months and now stands at 687,000. This trend paints a worrying portrait of the British workforce, with many individuals increasingly disenfranchised from new opportunities.

The new figures mirror the findings of our new report, Visions of Britain 2020, which identifies significant and increasing barriers for many individuals looking for work. Visions of Britain warns that by 2020 this continued polarisation will split the workforce to create a band of 'excluded' workers who will face poor prospects and limited expectations.

But all is not lost for those currently excluded. Our Visions of Britain 2020 study shows the attitudes and choices of these individuals are the major causes of this polarisation, alongside factors such as the recession and outsourcing. Attitudes such as apathy towards training and complacency towards the changing shape of the UK economy will hinder this group’s development. Through our report we hope to raise awareness and enable people to take full advantage of the opportunities available to them now to ensure they have the freedom to keep pace with our evolving economy and can benefit from the opportunities it presents.

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident

Working 9 to 5?

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:49:50 GMT

With election fever in full swing, we are seeing MPs tweeting at all hours and campaign teams working around the clock. This is a temporary peak in work for the parties, but this got me thinking about the workforce in general and how our working day often starts before we leave for the office and continues after we have reached home.

Economists such as John Maynard Keynes predicted that people would work less in the future. However, advances in technology such as the Blackberry have extended our working day, rather than reduce it. I for one often catch up on emails and read the news on the way to work, and I see many of my fellow commuters doing the same.

Our report, Visions of Britain 2020, found that these technological advancements, combined with factors such as skills shortages, mean that working hours will not shrink and hours worked will be outside the traditional Monday to Friday nine-to-five.

So, could we reach a point where the norm is a seven day working week? Or do we need to strive to reach a happier work-life balance? I am really interested in hearing about your experiences and how you see your working day in 2020.

You may want to keep an eye on the site too, as we'll explore this and flexible working a bit more in our next report on the workforce, later this month.

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident.

Who is responsible for gender inequality?

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:44:32 GMT

The first report in our Visions of Britain 2020 series has thrown up a number of findings about the HR industry which are certainly provoking some thought and discussion around Friends Provident.

I have shared some of these before, but on delving deeper into the report other interesting findings have emerged. That is the real advantage of a report of this kind - the wealth of material that comes to light the second or third time you read it.

A couple of findings, however, have done much more than catch my eye – they have stunned me – specifically the statement that 'Women will not have reached full pay parity with men by 2020'.

When I read this sentence the first time, I have to admit I wasn’t that shocked. Despite a shift towards increased gender equality in the workplace, it is common knowledge that the glass ceiling is still in place.

However this ceiling is gradually being smashed isn’t it? With more and more women making it to the top and having a real impact in business, a knock-on effect is starting. More and more people are beginning to understand the role women play and gradually old-fashioned attitudes are fading away. Or are they?

According to our report, they are not. Look at these statements:

37% of Britons agree that a woman should be prepared to cut down on her paid work for the sake of her family
One in eight Britons agree that men have more of a right to jobs when they are scarce

I agree with Barry Clark, the report author, when he says that these views are surprising and shocking.

However the 1,000 consumers we polled for the report back up these views, revealing startling differences between the sexes, and the extent to which attitudes amongst women are acting as a barrier to future equality in the workplace.

Our very own findings suggest shifting priorities amongst women when compared with their male counterparts, which is perhaps perpetuating the idea that men are still the ‘breadwinners’. Our findings show:

24% of women consider salary to be the most important factor at work, compared to 37% of men
23% of women would rather work less and be paid less – compared to 17% of men
One in five (20%) of women would be prepared to take a salary cut for more holiday entitlement, compared to just 10% of men
Over half of women questioned, 56%, would not move at all for their job. This compares to 40% of men

To me, this suggests a huge difference in the way men and women approach work and is therefore a key consideration when looking at future equality in the workplace. It it potentially reinforces traditional stereotypes about the role of women in the workplace and spells a dilemma for employers in the future. Employers will have to start thinking creatively about how to continue to recognise and reward women in the next decade. But more of that in our next chapter ...

So you see, the thing about this report is although it clearly floats my boat as an HR director, I think it is far bigger than that and presents each of us with our own challenges and food for thought. I’d love to hear what you think. What are you most concerned about in the next decade when it comes to your working life? Are your priorities the same as the women we spoke to or do you disagree?

Gillian Fox, Human Resources Director, Friends Provident

Why this election matters for 2020

Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In 24 hours, we will know the outcome of the most keenly fought general election in decades. Even as I write this, who will win remains unclear.

Dozens of daily polls offer wildly differing scenarios, and the tribal nature of politics means we are bombarded with conflicting messages from each of the three main parties around the clock. The television debates have certainly engaged more of the electorate than ever before. The media frenzy is rampant.

This is because the outcome of this general election is so important. The Economist is correct when it says:

"Whatever they tell you in school, not all elections matter equally... The British general election on May 6th is not one of those."

The Government we elect will have to make some of the toughest decisions that have ever faced the country, both in the short-term and the long-term.

The issues we intend to explore in our Visions of Britain 2020 series will be directly affected by the events of the next day or so.

Our Workplace, the Health & well-being of ourselves and those closest to us, and not to mention how we are all Ageing & thinking about retirement – are all critical pieces of our future jigsaw. And the outcome of this political contest will undoubtedly shape the finished puzzle. In precisely what way remains as unclear as which party will win, if one does win of course.

There has been much written about a hung parliament, with many opinion polls predicting that no party will win an overall majority, meaning the government will not be able to pass laws without the support of other parties.

Some say the implications are terrible; that the pound will fall and that the huge task of tackling the budget deficit will be deferred. Others, however, respond that a coalition government can be effective in building consensus around spending cuts. And I'd argue that certainly for financial services politicians being prevented from tinkering around the policy edges and instead striving for a longer term approach might not be a bad idea!

But what this does tell me is that nobody can accurately predict what will happen over the next few days. What is certain is that this is a huge moment for Britain, both for today and for our future. Our future reports in the Visions of Britain 2020 series will keep a close eye on goings on.

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident

Visions of Britain - Chapter 2

Mon, 17 May 2010 13:00:47 GMT

Welcome to the latest chapter in our Visions of Britain 2020 series, looking at the workforce of 2020. This is the second chapter in our research campaign and revealing what the workforce could look like in a decade’s time seems the perfect place to conclude our employment theme. And what a different workforce it will be.

As with our last report, which looked at the workplace, our findings demonstrate some startling differences for the decade to come. I’ll share some of these in further detail soon, but for now let me give you an overview of what we’ve found.

Older workers look set to grow in numbers and in power. Over the next decade, as experience and the power of corporate memory becomes more valued, two million extra older workers will hold the aces.
Britain’s graduates are in for a tough time. With over nine million graduates in the workplace in 2020 – an increase of 50% on today’s numbers – job opportunities will be even scarcer, requiring graduates to resort to more enterprising methods of finding employment than ever before.
Faced with a squeeze on both their money and their time, the sandwich generation will require sympathetic employers. The relative shortage of skilled labour and the appreciating value of experience will be their levers to force a more flexible approach from employers.
However, flexible working won’t solve all our problems. The trade-off for more flexible working is actually more hours at work.

This is just a snapshot, but what it says to me is that workers must prepare themselves for the increasingly competitive and challenging times ahead. We need to recognise that an innovative and enthusiastic approach to work will be vital to succeed.

I hope you enjoy the report and I’d be very interested in your thoughts.

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident

The future is bright - for older workers

Wed, 19 May 2010 17:22:32 GMT

G’day – in my last blog I promised I’d share my thoughts on the main findings of our second chapter in the Visions of Britain 2020 series, so here goes …

I was going to write about the impact of the tightening job market on graduates, but something really caught my eye in the news the other day, so I thought I’d devote my attention to the older worker!

The latest UK employment statistics show 146,000 over-50s have now been out of work for over a year. This is staggering and extremely sad news for those affected, but our report reveals a much brighter future for older workers.

It shows older workers will want to keep working and two million more of them will actually be working (one in five workers overall). More importantly, their value in the workplace will have soared to new levels. In short, older workers will hold more aces in the 2020 workforce than ever before.

Why is this? General wisdom says that as people grow older they want to slow down and let the younger talent rise through the ranks. Thankfully, this still holds true.

However, this younger talent is now drawing on the wisdom and knowledge of older workers more than ever before. Older workers are seen as a source of counsel, able to draw on their experiences and dispense advice based on what they have seen and witnessed before.

Just look at the recession. Many companies claimed they had too few people around who had experienced a recession prior to this one. The knowledge of how to cope with such a situation had retired from the organisation, leaving staff unable to rely on past experience. They were completely new to such a situation.

A key learning for business from this recession should therefore be ‘Experience matters’.

I’m encouraged that the future holds a more positive outlook for older workers. I’d love to hear your views on this too.

Thanks,

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident

Here's to you Mrs Robinson...

Mon, 24 May 2010 15:32:00 GMT

“I’m a little worried about my future,” proclaimed Ben Braddock in The Graduate. He was lucky, he only had to worry about whether to have an affair with Mrs Robinson whilst she stayed at home.

Fast forward a few decades and young graduates now have every reason to worry about their future job prospects whilst the older and more experienced workers are highly sought after by employers. The Mrs Robinson’s aren’t sat at home any longer, they are doing the high-flying jobs that young graduates desire but struggle to get.

Until very recently a good degree used to be viewed as a passport to a glittering career. However unemployment is at a 15 year high of 2.50 million people which continues to steadily rise while another batch of graduates is about to join the ranks of those looking for work making the competition even tougher.

In a recession, employers are able to hire the cream of the metaphorical crop. From one point of view this means that the most experienced and capable candidates are the ones who land the jobs. The problem is that determined and ambitious graduates who have accrued thousands of pounds worth of debt in the misguided belief that a degree will help kick-start their chosen career, increasingly now face the bleak reality of the dole queue.

I graduated in 2008 with a 2:1 in Political Communication from Swansea University originally planning to stay in South Wales; however my meagre savings ran out before I managed to secure a full time job there. Left with no other choice, I gratefully moved home in April 2009 and reluctantly filled in some forms to officially become a statistic of the Credit Crunch in return for the princely sum of £51.85 per week Job Seekers Allowance.

Between April and November 2009 I applied for over 150 jobs before starting at Friends Provident in January 2010. The majority of employers willing to speak to me when I followed up an application cited the lack of experience as being the main reason for not taking an application any further. It's a frustrating Catch 22 situation when you lack experience, because you need it in order to get it.

I had decided that if I wasn’t in full time employment by January 2010, as an enterprising experiment I would sell myself on eBay and market it as a publicity stunt in the hope that an employer would be willing to “buy” me. Luckily that wasn’t needed and now I’m gaining valuable experience with Friends Provident which should stand me in good stead when I apply for the Friends graduate scheme next spring.

Christian Walton, Friends Provident

Flexible working may not be the Holy Grail

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:39:07 GMT

Juggling life and work is one of the biggest challenges facing us all and it will continue to faze us in the future. Many employers and workers say flexible working is the solution to this conundrum. Yet, the latest Visions of Britain report suggests that flexible working is not the Holy Grail it is sometimes made out to be. Men in particular don’t seem to be taking up the opportunity to work on a flexible basis.

Without a doubt, flexible working can be good for people but also good for business. Flexible working can be an antidote to the inflexibility of full-time employment. Staff working on a part-time basis are often more motivated and can schedule non-work commitments, such as hospital appointments, outside of working hours. Our report shows that 90% of women thought that the offer of flexible working was an important consideration when they were choosing an employer. In order to recruit and retain the very best people, employers cannot afford not to offer flexible working.

Yet our latest report reveals a degree of scepticism towards flexible working amongst many workers who fear that it could be used as a smokescreen by employers to cut costs. Some respondents say that working on a flexible basis could cut them off from the corporate culture of an organisation. Men in particular seem worried that their visibility within an organisation could be reduced which may affect their future career prospects.

This perhaps explains why few men currently take up paternity leave with only one in five choosing to do so. But I also don’t think the contradictions within the current law help! As it stands today, fathers are only entitled to two weeks’ statutory paternity leave compared to mothers who are entitled to 52 weeks’ maternity leave with 39 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay. The new Coalition Government has issued a commitment to redress this imbalance by encouraging shared parenting, including promoting a system of flexible parental leave for mothers and fathers.

These are sensible changes but may not offer an immediate solution, given the low number of men currently taking up the paternity leave to which they are entitled. Legislative change needs to be accompanied by behavioural change to convince fathers of the benefits of flexible working. Whilst the Coalition Government’s commitment is a step in the right direction, this may not be enough on its own. The challenge for the future will be to confront the scepticism which both employers and workers sometimes hold about flexible working.

Gillian Fox, HR Director at Friends Provident

Flexible Times

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:42:18 GMT

The press reported last week that David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be adopting ‘flexible times’ for Cabinet meetings so the two fathers can take their children to school. Mr Clegg said this was symbolic of the ‘new politics’ and added that he tries to finish early a few times a week so he can put his children to bed too. Whether or not it’s the new politics, this unprecedented behaviour by senior politicians certainly symbolises the widespread belief that childcare is for fathers too.

This can be regarded as one of the more benign legacies of the last Government, which introduced the statutory right to request flexible working. It subsequently chose to extend the right on a piecemeal basis, claiming credit for each fresh addition to the group of employees affected. This never made sense in the workplace, where employers rapidly concluded they should treat all or most employees similarly on grounds of fairness.

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey found that flexible working was the most valued benefit for UK employees, ahead of material perks such as bonuses. Why should flexible working have such a powerful effect on employee attitudes? Psychologists would say it’s because workers seek autonomy and control over their working environment.

But now the new government has announced its intention to apply the statutory right to all employees, we should perhaps be generous enough to recognise the ethical dimension to the selective approach preferred by their predecessors. Maybe they were not wrong to give preferential treatment to those who could claim a higher social value for their time off, by caring for children or older people, rather than simply watching football or playing golf. Now flexible working is likely to be a key feature of employers’ response to removal of the default retirement age too.

It comes down in the end to employees’ enthusiasm for getting a better work-life balance. This unwieldy phrase stands for the aspiration, that feels like a fundamental part of the human condition, to have a life within which people’s needs for financial security, social support and personal growth are all met. Given the pressures on both home and working life, this aspiration must often be disappointed. However the opportunity to adjust working patterns at least allows people to make their own judgements as to what will suit them best.

CIPD research suggests that flexible workers are more engaged, which benefits both them and their employer. In which case, it makes good sense for employers to ask whether they can offer a wider range of vacancies on a flexible working basis. It begins to look as if flexible working may be part of the process by which capitalism evolves and adapts to resist the charges of alienation and anonymity.

Mike Emmott, CIPD Employee Relations Adviser
http://www.cipd.co.uk/pressoffice/_experts/MikeEmmott.htm

Working beyond expectation - Default Retirement Age 'phase out' is a wake up call to savers

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:45:24 GMT

G'day – in my last message I talked about the desire of older workers to work longer and the good news for those people is that our new coalition government is to phase out the Default Retirement Age enabling those older workers to do just that.

But here’s the rub… the Default Retirement Age may well make it easier for people in the UK to carry on working beyond a set age but the simple fact is a proportion of the 'greying' population may not be physically able to work!

Our report shows the number of workers aged 55 plus is expected to grow from 5.14 million to 7.16 million in the next decade. The fact we are all living longer is certainly something I think we should celebrate.

But my concern is that if people choose to defer retirement, they may also choose to defer saving for it. And a recent report out from the ONS shows people in the UK are saving less today than at any time in the past 40 years so perhaps my fears are already being confirmed!

Another interesting snippet from our research was that 48% of workers today would like to work either full or part-time beyond the Default Retirement Age, but is our welfare system robust enough to cope with this?

As a nation we need to start viewing retirement as a process in our lives and not a one-off event. I hope abolishing the Default Retirement Age will help people today face the reality of working longer in the future.

But to help this 'process' mentality when it comes to saving, we need to provide the right options that will help us save in a way that suits our lifestyles. We need our new coalition government to support employers’ endeavours and foster a savings culture.

Ultimately working longer should be a choice, not a necessity, don’t you think?

I’d love to hear your views on this too.

Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident

To penalise or not to penalise - that is the question

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:50:57 GMT

Looking at our latest research it seems Britons are on a slippery slope and legislation to penalise unhealthy behaviours is inevitable by 2020. But the question I put to you is whether or not the government should adopt a carrot and stick approach now? Should people be incentivised and rewarded if they adopt healthy behaviours now so that in the future the impact of the legislative stick will be less painful? Or should the government leave people to take responsibility for their wellbeing and to deal with the consequences of unhealthy behaviour?

There’s a lot of debate on this topic at the moment with some conflicting views and both sides have good reasoning to back their arguments. On the one side there are some people who think unhealthy behaviours such as smoking and excessive drinking should be penalised in the future, because people should be more responsible for their own health. On the flip side however other people feel that those who smoke and drink already pay through the tax levied on cigarettes and alcohol which could go towards funding the NHS and as a result they should not be penalised.

But is there a fine line? If people are penalised for their unhealthy behaviour that costs the NHS should those who work or play sports that are considered physically dangerous be penalised because there is a risk they will suffer injury? If not, are we discriminating?

I believe that with careful planning and consideration of the choices available to us, challenges can be made into opportunities. By making informed and considered choices about our health and wellbeing, we can secure the freedom to enjoy our lives.

I’d love to hear your views and if you have questions please put them to our expert panel.

Ed Stuart Brown, head of protection sales, Friends Provident