If you find your productivity levels drop as temperatures rise, don’t beat yourself up trying to find out why – it might not even be your fault! Here’s why…
Tag: <span>flexible working</span>
We all want our employees to be as productive as possible, and finding the right work/life balance can be key to keeping employees happy – and happy employees are generally more productive.
The trouble is, finding the right work/life balance can be tricky – while having the option of working from home will be enough for some, remote working doesn’t agree with everyone, even though advances in mobile technology mean that working from anywhere is easier than ever before.
So, how can you improve the work/life balance of your employees?
Offering work from home benefits is a great way to both attract and retain the best talent.
If this is something your business offers, or is thinking of offering, you need to have clear work-from-home guidelines in place to protect both your business and its employees.
Here’s how to draft a work from home policy.
There are loads of positives to freelancing and working remotely, not least that you can fit your work schedule around other priorities in life – doing away with the nine-to-five means freelancing can be particularly good for parents, who have to factor school runs and childcare into the working day.
A study from Kalido, a professional networking app, has found that as many as half (50%) of all workers are expected to turn freelance in the next two years. It also found that almost two-thirds (64%) of UK-based businesses currently rely on freelance workers in some capacity; and over a third (39%) of business owners predict that their use of freelancers will grow faster than their number of permanent hires in the next five years.
On the face of it, this is great for everyone’s life/work balance, but there’s evidence to suggest that a growth in remote working could lead to an increase in mental health issues, particularly for those who work alone at home.
If you’re a new parent, or you’ve ever had to juggle a job with a baby or a toddler, you’ll know just how much of a hassle it can be.
If you’ve ever worked freelance, had last-minute jobs land on your lap and chase clients for payments, you’ll know how much hassle that can be too.
If you’ve ever done both, it may have surprised you to learn that both can work perfectly together.
The summer heatwave looks like it’s here to stay, and one would assume this has to be good for productivity – the longer, brighter, warmer days should make even the most chronic couch potato want to get up and out into the world.
But, in the world of work, this can bring its own problems – yes, everyone wants to get out of the house when the weather is good, but they don’t necessarily want to go and then spend a day locked away in the office instead. And so the summer sick note becomes a thing, when the number of staff turning in for work seems drop in direct correlation with the rise in temperature.
If this sounds like your workplace, your business is far from alone, as research commissioned by PMI Health Group, has found a third of businesses recorded an increase in the number of staff calling in sick as the summer heatwave gripped the UK.
And of those companies questioned as part of the study, over half (54%) reported that they do not operate flexible working hours that staff can take advantage of at short notice.
So, could these companies benefit from introducing more accessible working from home policies or would that mean they’re being dictated to by employees who are all to quick to call in sick.
Remember the old days of office work?
A 9 am-sharp start, trapped in a sectioned off workstation for the best part of day – save for the odd five minute conversation with colleagues here and there – before finally clocking off at 5pm.
Eight hours of mindless grind.
It’s not like that these days though, not only are people working from home on a more regular basis, they’re also sharing their work space with entirely different businesses.
So could co-working be an option for you and your business?
Are you fed-up of your winter morning commute? Tired of having to get up ten minutes early to de-ice the car? And sick of sitting in stationary stationary traffic or on crammed public transport with all manner of airborne viruses ready knock the stuffing out of you?
If so, it’s high time you looked at ways to avoid the morning commute.
The last few decade hasn’t been great for Ireland’s economy as it slipped into recession for the first time since the 1980s. So bad was the financial crisis that was described as the country’s worst period since the potato famine.
It was eventually bailed out by a trio of international lenders who stepped forward with a €67.5billion loan in 2010 and three years later became the first of the eurozone states to exit its rescue programme. Greece, Cyrpus and Portugal are still involved in rescue programmes.
Ireland is on course to be the fastest growing economy in the euro zone for a fourth straight year, according to Davy Stockbrokers.
These days though, the Irish economy is in great shape – after years of economic downturn and a subsequent bailout following the 2008 global crash, the Bank of Ireland’s latest economic forecast has seen it revise the Emerald Isle’s gross domestic product growth projections from 3.2% to 4.8% this year and to 3.8% from 3.1% for 2018.
If you’re not already doing business out there, it’s time you were – Ireland is the UK’s fifth largest export market and imports more from the UK than any other country – mainly food, drink, clothing, fashion and footwear – and the UK accounts for 34% of imports into Ireland.
In 2012, total trade in goods and services from the UK to Ireland was £27 billion and two-way trade stands at €1 billion.
Here’s everything you need to know about exporting to Ireland…
When you’re having a bad week, the daily commute only serves to the prolong the agony – the last thing you want at the end of each torturous day is a tortuous journey – but have you ever wondered just how long we all spend stuck behind the wheel, or sat on a packed train?