Cash-strapped education professionals work longer hours but struggle to make ends meet
Brand new research from CV-Library, the UK’s leading independent job board, reveals that despite 62.5% of professionals in the education sector working more hours than they’re contracted to, over half (61.1%) struggle to make ends meet at the end of each month. The study surveyed 1,200 working professionals and found that one in four (44.2%) work 1-3 hours extra per week, amounting to 96 hours per year and meaning education professionals are missing out on £1,467.84* unpaid overtime. Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, comments on the findings: “We’ve certainly built a reputation for ourselves in the UK for working overtime, with full-time employees working two and half weeks more than the EU average. This is no different in the education sector, where severe underfunding for schools has put extra pressure on its professionals to work longer hours. “Of course, we all have stressful days which cause us to work longer than we’re contracted to. However, if you’re continuing to go the extra mile, without your efforts being recognised, then something’s gone wrong. It’s unfair for managers to expect you to give up your valuable time without financial recognition. Know your worth and don’t settle for any less!” Although professionals in the education sector may be putting in extra hours in the hopes of impressing their boss and securing a pay rise, it appears that employers are failing to pick up on their efforts. The majority (77.8%) of the sector’s professionals believe they’re underpaid, with the survey revealing that: 66.7% of education professionals go into their overdraft before the end of the month 26.3% struggle to pay off their credit card each month 44.4% think that colleagues at a similar level earn more than them Aside from living costs, the top three expenditures of education professionals are groceries (44.4%), insurance (29.6%) and entertainment (24.1%) Biggins concludes: “It’s highly demotivating to feel like you’re putting in extra hours, without reaping the rewards. So, if you think you deserve it, don’t be afraid to ask for a pay review. It will do wonders for your motivation and productivity to have your boss acknowledge your hard work. Plus, we deserve to enjoy our hard-earned money by socialising and doing things we enjoy, rather than worrying about how to pay the bills at the end of the month!”
phs provides free-vend sanitary dispensers to education sector to tackle period poverty
Washroom services and consumables provider phs Group has launched a free-vend sanitary dispenser for schools, colleges and universities in a bid to tackle period poverty. The purpose-designed free-vend dispenser was created in response to the growing period poverty agenda and rise in demand from customers across the UK and Ireland. It has already been extensively trialled in Scotland following a directive by the Scottish Government to make free sanitary products available to all pupils and students. In the Spring Statement today (Wednesday, March 13), Chancellor Philip Hammond was set to announce a similar scheme for secondary schools across England from September. phs worked with facilities management companies as well as education establishments to develop a solution which would best meet their needs and offer free sanitary products to students in the most convenient and accessible way. Several establishments, including schools, colleges and universities, now have permanent free-vend machines from phs to provide free sanitary products to students. And since being introduced to market, demand has already started to grow across the UK – despite no legal requirement to provide free sanitary wear. The phs slim line free-vend machines stock individually-wrapped sanitary products and can be accessed without the use of a coin. The units are offered by phs for rent or sale, with stock available from phs DIRECT. Clare Noble, Head of Healthcare of phs, said: “Period poverty is a growing concern and an issue which needs to be addressed. Sanitary products are not a luxury, they are an essential and it’s been proven that being unable to afford these items can have a detrimental affect – whether it’s by causing females to skip school, miss work or expose themselves to health risks. “Free-vend machines are a real solution in tackling period poverty. Installing these within washrooms gives females who need it instant and discreet access to sanitary products without the embarrassment or inconvenience of having to visit an office or school nurse. The products are also stored appropriately so they are kept clean and dry, dispensing one item at a time as needed.” The University of St Andrews provides 15 free-vend machines for students within its washrooms, including within student residences, the student association building, the library and sports centre. Gillian Jordan, estates cleaning manager at the University of St Andrews, said: “Providing a range of sanitary products in educational establishments gives girls choice and less worry around their periods, particularly if they have a low income. We collectively decided that free-vend was the most discreet way of doing this and they are now in place in the most appropriate and busiest buildings to ensure products are available for girls who need them. The feedback from students has been positive.” For more information, visit https://www.phs.co.uk or follow @phsGroup on Twitter and phs Group on LinkedIn
Education sector to host over 50% of its workloads in the cloud by 2020
Nutanix-commissioned survey by Vanson Bourne reveals the education sector will benefit from increased security, decreased TCO and ease of management Nutanix has announced the findings of its first ever global Enterprise Cloud Index, which included education institutions’ plans for adopting private, hybrid and public clouds*. The Index found that 55% of educational institutions’ workloads will be running in the cloud by 2020, compared to 38% currently. The results depict a future powered by hyperconverged infrastructure, with institutions in the education sector to benefit from advantages including improved scalability, lower total cost of operation and flexibility of workload applications. The report also revealed that in the education sector specifically, 32% of IT decision makers envision all of their applications working in the hybrid cloud within the next 1-2 years, mostly due to the flexibility on offer with a hybrid environment. Overall, seven in ten (70%) IT decision makers stated that the flexibility to choose the right cloud for each application is a major benefit of hybrid cloud. The findings also revealed that application mobility across any cloud is a top priority for 97% of respondents – with 88% of respondents saying it would “solve a lot of my problems.” One example of how hybrid deployments really work in educational institutions comes from The University of Reading who – driven by the requirement to reduce and simplify IT infrastructure while making it cheaper, opening up computing power to all academics and freeing up time for the IT team – turned to Nutanix to build its own on-premise Reading Research. While the public cloud could deliver the on-demand agility and self-service management it was after, the unpredictable workloads of the education sector meant it would be more expensive and potentially harder and more time consuming to manage, which is why the University looked to work with Nutanix. Running its workloads in a hybrid cloud environment provides a scalable, manageable and cost effective solution that benefits both the IT team as well as the researchers, teachers and students at The University of Reading. Other key findings of the report include: • Hybrid cloud better addresses business needs over single public cloud, including the price tag: 87% of respondents said that hybrid cloud was having a positive impact on their businesses, and more hybrid cloud users reported all their needs were being met (49%) compared to single public users (37%). • Security is top of mind for determining workloads: 71% of respondents surveyed for the report ranked data security and regulatory compliance as the top factor in determining where to provision workloads. • App developers circumventing IT: 57% of respondents said developers are circumventing IT when it comes to deciding where applications run, putting the organisation at potential risk. • Finding hybrid IT talent is difficult: With clear benefits to a hybrid model, respondents say scarcity of hybrid experts is a challenge. • EMEA is expected to surpass the Americas with hybrid adoption: U.K. businesses, in particular, plan to decrease data centre workloads by more than half in the next two years, and double use of hybrid clouds. Nutanix commissioned Vanson Bourne to survey IT decision makers about where they are running their business applications today, where they plan to run them in the future, challenges in setting up their cloud environments and how their initiatives stack up against other IT projects and priorities. The survey resulted in approximately 2,300 respondents from multiple industries, business sizes and geographies in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) regions. To learn more about the report and findings, please download the full “Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index 2018”, here.
Top of the Class for Metro Rod!
Busy schools, colleges and universities simply can’t afford to close indefinitely due to issues with drainage, but if proper care and maintenance isn’t scheduled in, that is exactly what they may be forced to do! Drainage experts Metro Rod work with a vast number of education providers, both on a planned maintenance and also reactive basis, ensuring schools and colleges across the nation can carry on providing the great service they do, with minimal interruption. For John Pardoe, from Metro Rod Mersey, working with schools and colleges is a weekly, if not daily occurrence! “We provide Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) to many of our local education providers, because it helps them ensure against any unforeseen drainage issues. It also means we can arrange visits to fall within school holidays to make sure that minimal disruption is caused!” “Our PPM usually encompasses emptying gullies and slot drains, checking and jetting surface and foul water lines if necessary, and clearing downpipes, gutters and grease traps. Maintenance work can also involve small bore pipework (sinks, urinals etc), downpipes and all internal and external drainage runs.” Comments John, who has been with the network for 12 years and has a wealth of experience in this field. “Obviously some things can never be predicted, and so a lot of the work we do is on a reactive basis. We understand drainage issues don’t just occur 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday, which is why we have engineers available 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. We also aim to be with our customers as soon as we can, usually within two to four hours after the call-out. “We have developed a hugely loyal customer-base with many education providers, and I think it’s down to the overall level of service we provide. We are reliable, our engineers are professionally trained and each hold DBS checks – particularly important in an educational environment! Our reports are thorough and prompt, and we do whatever it takes to get the job done efficiently and effectively!” says John. Eva Bird, Assistant Facilities Manager at Engie, who provide facilities management services to a growing nationwide portfolio of commercial and industrial customers, including the education sector, has been working with Metro Rod for many years now, and hugely values the service they deliver. “We use Metro Rod for planned maintenance on all our 17 schools across Liverpool and Knowsley, and they also complete on average, 120 reactive works a year on 9 of our Liverpool schools. “We trust Metro Rod to get the job done quickly and that is why they receive so much work from us. The paperwork and communication is also second to none, and we know we can count on Metro Rod to ensure we comply with the very strict Service Level Agreements (SLA) on all our contracts.” John concludes, “We get a great deal of satisfaction from our work with the Education sector and always try to go above and beyond our customer’s expectations, which is really valued by our clients.” If you’d like to read more about the work that Metro Rod do nationally for the Education sector, click here for further case studies. For a completely free of charge assessment of your drainage, simply call 0800 66 88 00 or visit www.metrorod.co.uk, and they’ll be happy to help!