DEBATE: Should more businesses consider offering ‘hangover days’? December 13, 2019 Should more businesses consider offering ‘hangover days’? Claire Crompton, director of The Audit Lab, says YES. Hangover days are essentially sexed-up working from home days. We offer them to allow employees the flexibility to be accountable for their own productivity and targets. We are decisively anti-micro management, and trust the people who work for us. [...]
The green belt cannot remain sacred if we are to solve London’s housing crisis December 13, 2019 With the General Election over and the nation reflecting on the result, the focus on politics in the capital is far from over, as 2020 sees Londoners turn their attention to the race to be the next mayor. Among many key issues for discussion ahead of May’s election will be housing shortages, particularly the thorny [...]
This is the moment to remake the case for global liberalism December 13, 2019 Penning a comment piece for the day of an election is a difficult task. You have to speculate, tread the political waters carefully, and perhaps dare to make a prediction before people head to the polls. But writing something to be published the day after an election is even more daunting. The world of politics [...]
It takes two chief executives to shake up a business December 13, 2019 In the words of Marvin Gaye, sometimes it takes two. And as the world of business changes and evolves, the same rule could also apply — because one person at the helm is no longer enough. The technological revolution of the past 20 years has had a huge impact on the economy, and disrupted nearly [...]
Don’t ignore your opponent’s ideas — you could learn from them December 13, 2019 UK politics is a machine for killing good ideas. It’s brutal, adversarial, and first past the post. Our party-bound MPs almost never ask the only question that matters: based on the facts, what is best for the country? Imagine that your company has a complex problem. Three of you work up ideas to solve it. [...]
Ted Baker needs a dose of urgent first aid December 13, 2019 Oh, the irony. David Bernstein was in Switzerland in his capacity as chairman of the British Red Cross when he took a phone call ousting him as chairman of Ted Baker on Monday evening. Forget the Red Cross: it’s the fashion retailer which requires emergency aid. In the nine months since founder Ray Kelvin quit [...]
A tourist tax like Edinburgh’s could be the answer to London’s funding squeeze December 12, 2019 London is one of the most-visited cities on the planet. These visitors bring investment, diversity and vibrancy — and their numbers are rising. By 2025, London is projected to attract over 40m overnight visitors a year, up from 31m in 2016. But while the tourism industry is a boon to the national economy and employment, [...]
The chaos of Brexit is nothing compared to the risk of Jeremy Corbyn December 12, 2019 Every election is important, but some elections are indisputably more important than others. In the British context, the clearest examples of the past century have been 1945 and 1979. In both cases, the electorate decisively rejected the pre-election consensus that had held sway for an entire epoch. In 1945, Labour’s New Jerusalem and capture of [...]
This Labour party does not deserve your support, however tactical or temporary you consider it to be December 12, 2019 Today you’ll have the opportunity to vote in the most consequential election for 40 years. You’ll have your own motivations and concerns, your own views on what constitutes a good result. Maybe one party’s victory is something you hope for, maybe it’s something you dread. For a lot of readers, the outcome may not be [...]
You don’t have to follow the old boys’ club rules of networking December 12, 2019 As the saying goes, “it’s not what you know but who you know” — and the reality today is that if you want to be successful, you need to have a great network of relevant connections. In fact, a report from Virgin found that up to 46 per cent of jobs are filled through networking, [...]