Will the 4 Day Week become the New Normal?
The effect the pandemic has had on people’s mental health has been well documented. Many people have been juggling work, a home, a family, a relationship, as well as elderly relatives they haven’t been able to see, or daren’t take the risk of seeing. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has changed attitudes…
Is cash too safe?
One of the great themes of the past 16 months has been accidental savings: the amount people in the UK have “saved” by the simple expedient of not being able to go out and spend. “Thrifty Brits stash the cash in lockdown” has been a typical headline, quickly followed by…
What Lessons can Businesses Learn from Gareth Southgate?
In 1996 England went out of the Euros on penalties. The man who missed the crucial penalty was Gareth Southgate, now the England manager. Speaking about the miss recently he said, “I’ve had a couple of decades to think about it. I was a volunteer. The type of character I…
Back to Normal? Or ‘the Great Resign?’
Two articles were published in early June. One, on the BBC website, had a very simple headline: “Five day office week will become the norm again.” The other article, in City AM. was equally straightforward: “Avoiding the great resignation will require some creative thinking.” They can’t both be right. So…
The Mental Health of Business Owners
It may not have appeared on your radar, but the week of June 14th to 18th was Loneliness Awareness Week. We’ve heard a lot about loneliness over the past 15 months. Mental health in general has, rightly, occupied a lot of column inches during the pandemic. Understandably, there has been…
Who will Pay the Bill for Covid-19?
Government borrowing is at its highest level since the Second World War. According to the Office for National Statistics it reached £303.1bn in the year to March – nearly £250bn higher than in the previous year. Borrowing in March was £28bn – the latest month to set an unwelcome record.
Is it time to abandon Diversification?
For many years it has been the accepted wisdom that you should diversify your investment portfolio. That means diversifying by types of investments – with say, your exposure to the stock market balanced by more cautious investments in bonds and, perhaps, funds that invest in property. Common wisdom says you…
What to do about the ‘bulls’ and the ‘bears’
You have likely heard the terms ‘bull market’ and ‘bear market.’ A bull market is one where stock markets are rising and investors are feeling confident: a bear market is the opposite. ‘Bullish’ has even come to be used in a wider sense, meaning generally optimistic: “I’m feeling bullish about…
Lessons in Work Life Balance from Mr. Frostick
You may have come across the recent story of Jonathan Frostick. Mr Frostick is a contractor, managing a team of 20 people for HSBC. In the middle of April he sadly suffered a heart attack. Starting his recovery in hospital he wrote a post on LinkedIn, vowing ‘to restructure his…
Financial planning in a post-pandemic world
‘Fail to plan, plan to fail.’ It’s an expression that anybody who has worked in management or the military must have heard a thousand times. Like all oft-repeated clichés, it carries a kernel of truth – and in no aspect of human life is the phrase more apt than in…