Tag: Tech

Now entering our third week of ‘lockdown’ in the UK many of us have become more reliant on tech for keeping us entertained, educated, caring for our well-being, keeping us fit and helping us work from home.

In this blog I’ll share my top 5 pieces of tech I’ve been using to help adapt to life and working from home in quarantine.

1. Zoom

The Whiteoaks team has been regularly using Zoom, the conferencing tool which has to no surprise soared in popularity recently, receiving over 62 million downloads during one week in March —  this being up a massive 90% on their downloads average in 2019. The video conference app has been great in allowing me to chat to my team, keep in touch with clients and even take part in the first Whiteoaks virtual pub quiz, which has been great for team spirit and morale!

2. Netflix

Netflix has been a popular ‘go to’ for me and many others if there isn’t anything good on TV to keep me entertained in the evening. So far, I’ve binge watched the whole of Tiger King, re-watched crime series including Marcella and Luther and watched a variety of films. Netflix has also introduced a new chrome extension called ‘Netflix Party’ which allows you to watch shows with your friends and family. If you’re struggling for what to watch next Forbes has created a list.

3. Duolingo

Duolingo is a language learning app that I’d recommend. It’s been helping me to pass the time as I’ve been brushing up on my Spanish skills. The app uses gamification to add a bit more of a fun element to the learning and is quite simple and effective to use.

4. YouTube

YouTube has been another popular form of entertainment for me, from playlists to keep me motivated, to home fitness workouts. Videos from the likes of Joe Wicks have been massively popular, as he received over 1.2 million new subscribers in one week while he has been hosting PE lessons through the platform for children being schooled from home.

5. WhatsApp

Finally, while WhatsApp is a regular app for me, I’ve increased my use of the video function to have regular catch-ups with my friends and family. Instead of the various things we’ve had planned to do we’ve made sure we take the time out to spend virtual time together.

We’re lucky that there is such a wide variety of technology to suit our personal preferences and to make life a little bit easier during this challenging time. Tech isn’t just helping us as individuals – but businesses and wider society too, a topic covered in a blog drafted by our CEO.

Moving forward, what new virtual avenues will you be exploring?

With a quarter of the world’s population currently on ‘lockdown’, many of us are more reliant on broadcasters to inform, educate and entertain us than ever before. However, like most businesses, these organisations are feeling the pressure as they are forced to adapt under these unprecedented circumstances to cater to different audiences and fill the void left by unexpected disruption to their usual schedules.

But, like the rest of us, broadcasters are taking the unexpected turn of events in their stride and adapting creatively to continue providing services which have become invaluable to most. While there are certainly some challenges currently facing the industry, we take a look to see how they’re overcoming them to ensure we can all still get our sport fixes, binge watch boxsets and keep the children entertained!

• Content libraries making up for reduced outputs

As the production of soaps has come to a halt, this has led to a reduction in the number of weekly instalments of the likes of Eastenders and Coronation Street. The absence of live sports has left a space, not only in the lives of sports fans, but also in the TV guide, so many broadcasters are turning to archive content to plug the gaps.

Broadcasters have built up significant amounts of content over the years, and this is proving a great opportunity to maximise it. The BBC, for example, is ensuring it still entertains the nation by re-running classics like Gavin and Stacey, while fans of period dramas can enjoy re-watching Great Expectations and Pride & Prejudice.

The broadcaster is also making more of its video library available on BBC iPlayer so viewers can stream whatever takes their fancy, while it’s focusing more programming on news, education, fitness and religion to keep people informed and active.

Similarly, sports broadcasters like BT Sport are showing extended highlights of matches and replays to continue to provide value for their audiences, most of whom will have paid for access to the channels.

• Lowering quality to cope with increased demand

Streaming on platforms such as Netflix has hit an all-time high. This has resulted in some over-the-top (OTT) providers, including the newly launched Disney+, reducing video download quality across Europe. This initiative has helped to reduce pressure on the continent’s internet bandwidth, while also ensuring that everybody can still stream content.

• Using alternative platforms to reach new audiences

Although they’re not technically broadcasters, over the last week, we’ve seen a growing number of social media influencers using Instagram or YouTube to broadcast everything from live workouts to cook-alongs. For instance, Joe Wicks, otherwise known as The Body Coach, is using his YouTube channel to run virtual ‘PE lessons’ for children who are no longer at school. So far, these videos have proved wildly popular, being viewed a staggering six million times.

There’s no doubt that these are uncertain times, however, it’s cheering to see broadcasters doing so much to ensure that audiences can continue to access much-needed entertainment and information despite facing disruption to their services.

Let us know what you’ve been watching so far during the ‘lockdown’.

Back at the start of December 2019, history was made in the world of UK broadcasting. Amazon Prime live streamed multiple Premier League matches simultaneously, becoming the first platform to take football’s most watched league in the world, exclusively online in the UK.

Sky has dominated broadcasting rights of the Premier League since its inception in 1992. The biggest matches, the best pundits, the most iconic moments captured – the Premier League simply wouldn’t be what it is today without Sky.

However, in recent years BT has flexed its muscles, slowly chipping away at Sky’s monopoly. First it was one match on a Saturday, then the odd mid-week game, to now – where BT has complete exclusivity on European football’s most premier competitions, as well as a prime Saturday lunchtime broadcasting slot.

While BT provides stern competition for Sky, it certainly isn’t a ‘game-changer’. In other industries intense competition between suppliers means that it’s the consumers that stand to benefit. However, that’s not really the case here. As Premier League matches became split across two paid-for television broadcasters, fans still need to subscribe to both in order to watch the biggest matches. So, it makes sense that Sky lowered its price in line with this?

Good one.

Enter: Amazon Prime. A third subscription-based service which demands fans to part with more of their hard-earned cash in exchange for live Premier League football.

While it’s long been expected that the Premier League would sell off more broadcasting rights to have an online presence (Facebook a rumoured destination for some time), another paid-for service is simply too much to ask of fans. Surely this time, we didn’t fall for it, right? Un-surprisingly, we did.

Just last week it’s been reported that Amazon Prime overtook Netflix as the UK’s fast-growing streaming service, 35% growth in 2019 compared to Netflix’s 20%, credited in the main to its new Premier League broadcasting rights (do any of us actually watch Amazon original TV shows over Netflix?).

Am I guilty of contributing to this daylight robbery? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Like most things Amazon does, the end-result was pretty superb (my opinion may have been skewed had Chelsea not beaten Aston Villa 2-1). Most of us already have the Amazon app loaded onto our phones and tablets, and it’s already there on our smart TVs too.

MTV changed music in the 80s and remained on top until Spotify changed it again. Sky (MTV in this analogy), might be on top for now but it won’t last for long as fans eventually turn their back on rising prices for more technologically advanced services. And let’s be fair, it’s not like Amazon lacks budget when it comes to the next round of TV bidding.

As consumers, will we ultimately be the ones who benefit? Or will our monthly budgets be stretched by all this choice?

Just as the BBC continues to make cuts, Sky will surely be forced to expand Sky Go to become its main viewing platform or eventually succumb to the combination of Amazon (Spotify, in my excellent analogy), Netflix, Apple TV Plus and even the soon to be launched Disney+. The streaming wars are on, and who will win is anyone’s guess. But with Amazon setting its sights on one of the UK’s most prized assets, the Premier League, maybe that’s all the competitive advantage it needs.

While employee engagement is now highly regarded as a critical enabler to business success, organisations and associated HR and internal communication teams are still faced with a number of challenges when it comes to building and maintaining it. For many businesses, this is largely shown by their employee turnover figures that continue to increase year after year, with research also reporting that 63% of companies admit retaining employees is actually harder than hiring them.

A recent survey declared British CEOs as disengaged from the workforce.  This, coupled with recent research from one our clients, employee engagement app technology company Vevox, which found over one-third (34%) of employees in large organisations say that management rarely or never listen to them and address their ideas, also suggests that there is a sizeable engagement gap between senior management and the workforce. This, in turn, is arguably affecting employees’ willingness to provide feedback – which is backed up further by Vevox’s research that revealed more than half of employees (57%) are often afraid to voice ideas to management about how their role or the business could be improved.

Organisations are also somewhat challenged by the ever-changing employee demands prompted by our multi-generational workforce. With so many varied needs and expectations, it can be difficult for companies to cater for everyone. But if they aren’t doing so, it will likely have a negative effect on how their employees engage with them.

Fortunately, today’s technology is giving businesses a good chance at improving engagement levels and building positive relationships between senior management teams and employees. There is a new array of communication and engagement gamification apps that not only appeal to younger, tech-savvy workers, but also open up opportunities for organisations to offer employees new ways of engaging with the business and sharing feedback and ideas.

In addition to this, AI and data analytics technologies are providing businesses with intelligent insights that enable HR teams to identify and track employee trends, monitor satisfaction and create tailored development and career plans to enhance engagement and retain staff.

Social media is also another valuable platform that organisations can utilise to engage with their workforce. Giving employees the opportunity to engage with different channels can encourage them to feel continuously connected with the business and keeps them informed with the latest updates and company news.

As today’s business landscape continues to evolve and change, employee engagement is likely to continue to present some challenges. But, if organisations utilise the engagement tools that are available to them to the best of their advantage, they do have the potential to derive great value from their workforce.

To say that technology has become an all-encompassing entity amidst modern-day life would be to state an obvious fact. Most of us would only need to look at our daily routines to grasp a sense of how digitally dependent we truly are. No longer do we walk to our local travel agents to book a holiday abroad, we simply download a mobile app that allows us to from the comfort of our own home – but wait, there’s more. Now we can book ourselves a taxi to the airport. We can pre-order food to eat before our flight. We have mobile banking to convert the British pound into our necessary currency. Tech has enabled us to achieve more than we could possibly imagine, and for many businesses, technology and the subsequent effect it has on our lives brings the promise of professional perks, as well as plenty of potential pitfalls.

In a 2019 article that explores the benefits of technology in business, Alison Coleman of The Telegraph states that business leaders aim to focus their attention on the rise of social media. Surveys conducted by Brother UK and Telegraph Spark which Coleman samples within her article state that 35% of business owners believe social media will be their central focus over the next 12 months in order to future-proof their enterprise. Online platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter are all used to promote global businesses and the sales of their products and goods. It can also be argued that these same social media applications are used to ‘sell’ our own self-image, whether that be our authentic selves or an ideal image of our life which we hope other people will believe and accept. According to a recent UENI study (as featured in The Telegraph), Facebook is named as the preferred platform for selling products, with five out of six small businesses admitting to using social media platforms as a way of increasing their company sales. Here we can see a prime example of how technology is used to increase efficiency and productivity in our daily work environment, supporting the idea that the effect of technology on our lives is one that provides positive results.

Another form of technology piquing the interest of business owners is artificial intelligence (AI). The rise of AI and the effect it has on our working lives has garnered much attention in recent years, including media coverage from publications such as Forbes who discuss the use of AI during the business recruitment process. The 2019 article states that AI-enabled machines are now being implemented to help business owners choose the right candidates based on cognitive and emotional responses. While this ideology may help pick the appropriate candidates based on intelligence, it seems that the human interaction of a face-to-face interview could now become a distant memory as a result.

A recent statistic from thinktank platform Reform (as featured in a 2017 article from HRreview) indicates that 250,000 administrative jobs could be taken over by AI-based technologies as of the year 2030. This statement foreshadows a more drastic effect that technology could have on the everyday lives of working humans; a future that highlights our society’s reliance on technology, as well as the potential for an AI-dominant workplace. In terms of how workers themselves feel about this change, YouGov reveals that 38% of workers believe their current job will still exist for them in 15 years’ time, however, 15% of employees believe that their job will soon be replaced by AI entirely.

To conclude, it seems that rather than influencing our lives, technology has simply become a part of life itself. The reality is that technology is not going away. But rather than assessing whether this digital uprising is a positive or negative thing we should be embracing and acknowledging both sides of the coin while keeping our eyes peeled for the latest and greatest advancements.

Technology trends such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing have been hot topics in the news for some time due to their influence on our everyday lives. The same certainly applies to human resources, as I have seen first-hand how technology is bringing multiple benefits to every stage of the employee lifecycle, from recruitment through to employee wellbeing.

With a rise in trends like remote working and the influx of a younger workforce, people are becoming increasingly disparate, posing a fresh set of challenges for HR leaders to ensure a happy, connected and productive environment. While there is an argument that reducing the human element from HR management can lead to workers feeling isolated, in today’s digitally savvy workplace, technology has instead become a critical enabler in driving a better experience for companies and their employees alike. For example, there is an increasing requirement for employers to support their employees on issues that extend beyond the office environment, helping them to manage physical, financial and mental wellbeing as well as their work-life balance.

How we use HR technology continues to change how we manage our employee data, HR processes and the benefits offered to our teams. The abundance of data that the latest solutions provide allow us to better inform business decisions and facilitate a more efficient and happier workplace. Automated workflows and collaboration make working life easier, more engaging and fun; with the wrong system in place people can easily become disengaged and hinder overall productivity.

HR technology is not one size fits all – solutions are required that use technology to allow employees and employers to interact intuitively with the ability to scale and grow with your business. There is an increasing demand for apps and other technologies to cover the whole employee lifecycle; from supporting recruitment and staff retention to fostering staff wellbeing and boosting performance. The ability to manage payroll, performance reviews and company suggestions remotely is nothing short of a game-changer, as creating a streamlined and automated process removes the administrative stranglehold and frees up time for senior HR professionals to focus on more strategic issues.

To conclude, managing employee wellbeing in today’s working environment requires a modern approach. HR managers must adapt to both mitigate the issues and take advantages of the opportunities that a technologically advanced workplace can bring.

There’s one story that has dominated the tech news this week and that’s the unveiling of Tesla’s much anticipated Cybertruck. Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised something different and that’s exactly what we got. The electric pickup looks like a mashup between something you would expect to see in Back to the Future and Blade Runner, and the design has certainly divided opinion. You can’t help but admire Musk’s insistence on being deliberately different!

A Tesla pickup truck makes plenty of sense on paper – the three top-selling vehicles in the US are pickup trucks and the consumer appetite for electric cars is clearly growing, so Musk knows his product has a market. But the Cybertruck needs to be aesthetically appealing to the majority of potential buyers to really make a dent in the marketplace and despite impressive pre-sale figures, those looks could restrict potential eventual sales.

Speaking of impacts, Musk used the launch event to demonstrate the durability of the truck’s bodywork by having the doors walloped with a sledgehammer. Unfortunately, the impact weakened the supposedly bulletproof ‘Armour glass’ of the windows, which shattered when a metal ball was thrown at them in an experiment that was supposed to demonstrate their strength…

Not many vehicles are currently fitted with bulletproof glass so this isn’t exactly a security measure that potential owners will be especially bothered about. But there is a big security question mark over a long-promised feature for Tesla vehicles, one that is yet to materialise. Musk has been promising fully self-driving capabilities for Tesla vehicles for a while now, meaning passengers won’t have to pay any attention to the road. Tesla’s existing self-driving functionality requires drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road. While it doesn’t look like full self-driving mode will happen anytime soon, the risks are already being explored.

A new report from Europe’s cybersecurity agency ENISA warns that increased connectivity and automation exposes vehicle owners to several crucial cyber threats. Armour glass might help us escape from hijacking events, but automakers need to think about security measures to stop vehicles being hacked and systems being overridden while we’re riding in them.

As the world becomes increasingly connected, we are becoming more exposed to cyber threats and as we see more connectivity and automation – not just in the way we travel but in other sectors too including construction and infrastructure – security will become increasingly important.

To overcome the challenge ahead, automakers may have to work closely with cybersecurity experts and agencies like ENISA to keep potential threats at bay. It’s inevitable that as the reality of self-driving vehicles on public roads draws closer, regulations will be put into place to protect public safety and this could add further delay to Musk’s promise of a fully autonomous Tesla.

If, and when, self-driving cars and haulage trucks take to the roads, automakers need to be considering the safety aspects of the technology that is being put into vehicles. If they don’t, we could really find ourselves in a dystopian thriller like those that inspired the design of the Cybertruck.