January seems like the ideal month to work from home – dark mornings, dark nights, cold busy commutes – who wouldn’t want to avoid all that?!
But when you work from home, it can be all too easy to blur the lines between work-life and home-life, which can not only kill productivity, but can also make you feel like you never get a break from work.
So here are five top tips to separate business and pleasure.
Have you ever taken a conference call while commuting? How about when out shopping? Or lying in bed? If so, you’re not alone, as a recent study from career website eFinancialCareers found that over half of us (54%) don’t pay full attention when on a conference call.
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?
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.
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?
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…
It’s hard to believe it been over three years since the UK’s new flexible working regulations came into force and now all employers will have to seriously consider their flexible working practices – it has to be right for both the employer and the employee.
With so many variables involved though, things can quickly get complicated.
So if you’re an employer or an employee considering the options, it’s a good idea to break flexible working down into two components – ‘flexi-time’ and ‘telecommute’.
Updated Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Working from home is more popular than ever in the UK, but it’s not for everyone and massive companies such as Yahoo and HP have taken the decision to reduce or even cut out flexible working completely.
The trouble is, employees have come to expect flexible working, which means it can be a cause of conflict if a request is turned down, particularly in light of the change to UK legislation introduced in 2015.
So how exactly do you tell your employees they can’t work from home?
Remote working is on the rise – the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 13.7% of the UK workforce now undertake some working from home – but why is this?