As a business owner, there’s no telling when an urgent matter will suddenly rear its head. Whether it’s a website going down or a delay to an important delivery, you’ll need staff to rally around to put things right.
But what if some key stakeholders are away from the office, maybe working from home? There’s no time to call everyone into the workplace. That’s where a conference call can help out.
More of us than ever before are working from home. The ongoing popularity of hybrid working means more employees have been given the option to work away from the office for at least part of the week. And although the number of people working from home dropped by 7% between 2021 and 2022, remote workers still account for 30% of the UK workforce.
But if you had to choose one day to work from home, which would you choose?
Women entrepreneurs are thriving. The UK has witnessed a rapid rise in the number of start-ups in recent years, and the number of new female entrepreneurs in the UK has risen far faster than men in the past decade. It also seems investment funding is more forthcoming than ever before.
More than half of UK workers say they wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for the money. Although that sounds obvious – most of us work because we need the money – the figure of 60% who would opt out of having a job is higher than any comparable workforce in the world.
The findings from a study by Randstad, a provider of workforce insights, back up another study that revealed almost half (46%) of all employees feel more stressed at work than they did a year ago.
So if you’ve been feeling more stressed out with work than usual lately, you’re not alone.
Back in 2016, there were more than three million workers whose commute took longer than two hours a day. The pandemic and a switch to hybrid working have changed the routine for many of us, and the latest figures from studies by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) show that average commuting times are on the up.
We all know that getting to and from work can be an inconvenience, but did you know it can actually be bad for your health?
Did you know that if you work from home, you may be able to claim tax breaks on certain bills and expenses?
Cybercrime has been on the rise since the pandemic. More of us have had to make online purchases, which means scammers have more opportunity to defraud us.
If you regularly make online payments, whether for goods or services, you’ll need to watch out for the latest technique fraudsters are using to get their hands on your money – push payment fraud.
Figures from UK Finance, the banking trade body, have revealed that £236 million was lost to push payment fraud, with banks unable to return nearly three-quarters (74%) of the lost money.
In the vast majority of cases (88%) it was individual consumers who were conned out of their money, with an average loss of £2,784. The remaining cases were made up of businesses, who lost an average of £24,335 each.
If your business is planning Christmas drinks and parties while getting ready for the seasonal wind-down, the atmosphere around the office will be getting very Christmassy over the next couple of weeks. But spare a thought for those freelancers who work tirelessly all year but never get to see any of the fun stuff.
OK, they don’t have to contend with the commute or the office politics, and they can work in their pyjamas should the fancy take them, but that doesn’t mean those that work from home should be left out of the festive revelry.
So, this year, why not get your freelancers involved in the festive fun?
Presentations can be tricky things to pull off, particularly conference call presentations where you can’t see your audience and adjust your delivery speed and pitch to match their reactions.
Not only that, there’s also no guarantee they’ll be looking at the slides you’ve sent across – you’d be surprised the things people get up to while on a teleconference.
So it’s important you make any presentations as engaging as possible, here’s how…
If you’ve had to return to the office lately, you may have enjoyed the face-to-face interaction with work colleagues and the chance to leave the house after a couple of years of working from home. Those little things we took for granted before the pandemic.
But one thing you probably haven’t missed is the commute. Whether you walk, cycle, drive, or take public transport – here’s how to have a happier commute.