How emotional intelligence can transform your business October 20, 2016 You don't have to be an HR director to know that stress is an expensive business. And it’s on the increase. In 2014-15 stress accounted for 35 per cent of all work-related ill-health cases, and 43 per cent of all working days lost due to ill health in UK. Traditionally, organisations have simply given stress [...]
Feeding Britain’s largest manufacturing sector October 20, 2016 The food and drink industry is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, contributing about £95.4bn to the economy every year. It is also one of Britain’s biggest exporters. Out of a total of £12.3bn food and non-alcoholic drinks exports in 2015, British businesses sold an impressive £580m of chocolate overseas, while cheese and salmon exports were worth [...]
One in four caught out by current account fraud October 19, 2016 Around a quarter of Brits have fallen victim to a fraud involving their current account, research out today has found. Price comparison site USwitch also discovered that victims were parted with an average of £828, while one in five of those affected are still out of pocket following their bank's investigation. Meanwhile, over half (59 per cent) of [...]
Experts react to dropping of Osborne’s flagship secondary annuity market October 19, 2016 Yesterday's announcement to scrap George Osborne's plans to create a secondary annuity market was unsurprising to many. According to some experts the writing was on the wall as soon as the process was delayed until April 2017. Nevertheless, there was a lot of noise from analysts and experts. Read more: Government bins plans for secondary [...]
City A.M. Unregulated podcast: Smoothie operator – meet the man behind the Nutribullet October 19, 2016 Gordon Black is the man behind best-selling clean eating craze the Nutribullet – and the richest retail tycoon you've never heard of. He joins the team from Yorkshire to tell the story of his family's business, Peter Black, and explain how it became one of Marks & Spencer's largest suppliers – as well as when to keep a business in the family, and [...]
Most Brits do not realise that they’ll be paying more and more into their pension scheme in years to come October 19, 2016 British workers are blissfully unaware of a number of key government initiatives on saving for retirement after wide-ranging report revealed the extent of the country's understanding on workplace pensions. With two-thirds of eligible UK workers now enrolled into a workplace scheme, according to a report prepared by Scottish Widows 68 per cent of people do not realise that their [...]
The Brexit rally is less fragile than it looks October 19, 2016 The performance of UK shares has generally confounded most strategists. Since the vote to leave the EU in June, UK savers have enjoyed returns of close to 15 per cent. While the weakness of sterling has eaten most of those returns for overseas investors, we are in a much better place than many were predicting in [...]
Why is good behaviour in business such a radical idea? October 19, 2016 One of the most significant passages of Theresa May’s wide-ranging speech at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month criticised selfish bosses, rigged markets and dysfunctional businesses. Calling for a new spirit of citizenship, the Prime Minister highlighted a rogues’ gallery of those companies who refused to play by the rules, infuriated their customers and [...]
Gap between RPI and CPI is a £100bn problem for final salary pension schemes October 18, 2016 Experts said that today's inflation figures indicate that £100bn could be saved by switching annual adjustments in pension pay outs from the retail price index (RPI) to the consumer price index (CPI). Defined benefit, or final salary, pension schemes are adjusted for inflation and many have a "hardwire" link to RPI rather than the government's current main reference index, the CPI. RPI for September was [...]
Economic minister Simon Kirby bins plans for secondary annuity market: Is this a sign that more pension reforms are on the horizon? October 18, 2016 One of George Osborne's cornerstone policies on increasing pension freedoms has been dropped by the government, the economic secretary announced today. In March 2015, the government announced plans to set up a secondary market in order to give pensioners greater access to cashing in annuities. Read more: Over-55s need to go on this kind of shopping spree more [...]
