Stuart Pearce, the founder of energy efficiency specialist SMARTech energy Ltd, has shared some tips for owners of larger companies just in case the UK has to cope with energy blackouts in 2023. The Austrian Defence Minister has warned that energy blackouts are inevitable this year in Europe. France is also on standby just in case this happens and notably, in August 2022, the EU passed a regulation under which member states agreed to reduce their gas demand by 15%. Current figures suggest they are currently short of this total and are only saved by the milder temperatures experienced so far…
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Author: Stephanie Clarke at SA Law. In November it was announced that Made.com was going into administration. Although the online furniture brand has been bought by retail giant Next, it was confirmed that 320 employees would still be made redundant. Some employees are pursuing legal action after they were informed they’d be losing their jobs with immediate effect on a video call. Made.com With the number of employees that were being made redundant, Made.com was obligated to go through a process of collective consultation with the employees if they wished to make redundancies lawfully. This involves notifying the Secretary of State…
Supporting employees with the cost of living crisis, providing access to healthcare services and looking after employee health and wellbeing will be top priorities for small businesses this year, according to Mark Fosh, Divisional Director at Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing. Fosh says, “2023 will bring some challenges for small businesses who will need to balance the rising costs of running their business with the need to retain talent and keep employees engaged. Financially, many businesses can’t afford to offer pay rises in line with inflation, however, there are other ways to support employees through this crisis.” “With the NHS…
It’s now less than three years until the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is switched off in the UK, which means businesses must switch to digital now. With so much misinformation around how to navigate this switch off, Kristian Torode, Director and Co-Founder of business telecoms services provider, Crystaline, busts some of the myths around the switchover to digital phonelines. Digital phonelines use a different type of technology to make calls — such as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. Instead of relying on physical, copper lines, VoIP transmits voice calls over the internet by converting the audio at one…
Irrespective of the broader economy the fight for IT talent remains and it starts with the companies’ senior managers. With the unemployment level in the UK at its lowest since 1974 and pay growth still failing to keep pace with soaring inflation, organisations looking to build out their IT teams need to look internally. This is according to managed services provider Espria. Clinton Groome, COO at Espria, stated: “For businesses large and small, organisations looking to bolster their IT teams, need to look within the organisation first to ensure that it is offering the most attractive careers.” Compounding this problem…
Author: Jeremy Kourdi, executive coach and director of leadership consultancy Kourdi Associates. Formerly VP of The Economist Group, he is an expert in leadership, business development & coaching and has written 29 business books. This may be controversial but I believe that preparing for a recession is something that every business should do, regularly, whether economic misery is on the horizon or not. Why? Because shifting mindsets, making constant improvements, and preparing for a future different to today are all vital for the sustained health of any business. That said, some actions that are always desirable become indispensable when a recession…
Louise Taft of Jurit LLP, Chair of the Employment Lawyers Association’s Brexit Standing Committee discusses the impact of the promise to scrap EU “red tape” After the political upheaval of the autumn, the Government is pressing ahead with its “Brexit Freedoms Bill”, officially known as the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. If passed, it will bring the most profound changes to employment law in decades. The Bill essentially reverses the position created by the EU Withdrawal Act, which preserved the status quo on EU derived law, creating a “snapshot” of the law as it existed at 31 December…
Nicky Tozer, SVP, EMEA, Oracle NetSuite, provides SMEToday’s readers with some pointers on how to navigate economic uncertainties in 2023. As we head into the new year, the instability of the past few years is set to draw out in a potentially lengthy downturn in the UK economy. Under the strain of supply chain issues, geo-political tensions and cost-of-living crises, businesses are being pressed to accomplish more with less resources. But how will this affect British businesses in 2023? Organisations can expect a closer examination of finances, with policymakers placing a high priority on recession-proofing. Business leaders should try to…
On 22nd January Chinese New Year will arrive, and this year it is the year of the rabbit. It’s good to be aware that for some of your colleagues this may be an important time of year. Just because you don’t traditionally celebrate the Chinese New Year, it doesn’t mean that you can’t start to do so. It’s something that can be socially beneficial for a workforce and be inclusive to people from different cultures and backgrounds. What is Chinese New Year? This history of the Chinese new year stems back over 3500 years and originated within the Shang Dynasty.…
The “SMBs Driving Economic Recovery” report from Sage – the leader in accounting, financial, HR and payroll technology for SMBs – last week revealed that, despite ongoing economic turbulence, growth in turnover for UK SMBs is expected to outperform the growth rate for all businesses from 2023-2025, with SMBs expected to make up 51.9% of total business turnover in the UK economy by 2025. Working with Cebr, one of the UK’s leading economics consultancies, Sage has researched eight markets globally to understand SMBs’ role in driving economic recovery, and using historic insights from the last recession in 2007-2009, predict trends up until 2025. The…