Previously only parents of children under 17 (or 18 if the child is disabled) or carers for dependant adults had the right to request flexible working arrangements from their employers. With new UK legislation the same entitlement now applies to all employees, providing they have worked for their employer for at least 26 weeks 1, 2.
However, it’s important to be aware that, just as before for parents and carers, the new legislation only enables employees to make a request. It does not require employers to grant it, though they must …

Starting a family can sometimes spell disaster for your career, but it needn’t. Of course having little ones running around is going to make an enormous change to your lifestyle, but it doesn’t have to define you. Working parents need to learn to work smarter, not harder. Stress, fatigue and eventually burnout aren’t good for you or your family, so focus on manifesting these healthy habits, to see both your career and your home-life improve.
Get Some Sleep!
This is number one on the list for a good reason, because it tends …

Your Name and Age:
Freddie Underwood, 36
Principal/Franchisee at Stagecoach Performing Arts Trowbridge and Frome
Tell us about your family:
I’m married to Chris – he works in the business with me – and we have a little girl called Gigi, who’s five. People often think that’s an odd choice of name for a child, but me and Chris actually met on stage, acting in a theatre production of Gigi, so it only seemed right to give her that name! We live in Corsham, which is just outside Bath.
What did you do …

By Jonathan Amponsah CTA FCCA, The Tax Guys
Numbers are the language of business so if you tend to shy away from them it’s time to face your fear and learn to love your accounts.  Here are some tips for understanding your business numbers and using them for your decision making.

Are you profitable?

You can check if your business is profitable by looking at the profit and loss account. scroll down to the bottom figure which will show a profit (positive figure) or a loss (negative figure).
Then look at the top …

The workforce is changing as more people swap the security of a 9-to-5 job for the flexibility of freelancing, with key demographics and industries leading the self-employed sector, according to Instant Offices.
In fact, the number of female freelancers has grown by 55% since 2008. New mothers choosing to take up freelance work rather than return to full-time office employment post-baby has shot up by 79%. Comparatively, the number of men freelancing has grown by 36% in the same time frame.
Millennials and UK workers facing significant lifestyle changes, such as motherhood, …

  by Emma Sue Prince
We live and work in a world where uncertainty and change have become the norm. Even though we have all the information we could possibly want or need at our fingertips, our inability to manage its constant flow into our Smartphones and brains renders it useless. It seems as if we are constantly distracted, overwhelmed and unhappy.
But there are skills that we each have that really can help us to be happy right now. These skills need to become an essential part of our toolkit so …

Your Name and Age: Lucy Cameron, 49
Tell us about your family: Husband Clive, 3 children – Thomas 16, Amy 14 and Jamie 10.
What did you do before coming up with your business idea and how was it making the transition?
My background is in training, learning and development in large corporations including Crossrail and the Arcadia Group. I was responsible for all head office soft skills, performance management, IT, professional and technical training, coaching, mentoring and induction programmes. I finished my degree in Social Sciences in 1990 and completed my MBA …

Workers are more likely to settle quickly at smaller businesses, according to detailed research. Forty-one per cent of employees working for businesses with a staff force of less than 50 employees admitted they were welcomed with open arms on their first day. And those entering a smaller workforce claimed to feel settled a week faster than those entering larger organisations with more than 250 employees. The poll of 2,000 office workers and HR specialists also found 56 per cent of small business workers were pleased to see their workstation all …

The weather is improving, the Government  is pouring £1.2 billion into cycling*, yet new research has revealed that it is still only a slim few who are cycling to work, with many citing nervousness about cycling in traffic as the reason.
A survey of more than 7,600 UK adults published by Decathlon in the Decathlon Activity Index 2018, shows that only 7% of the nation is commuting to work with a bike.
Despite cities including Manchester, Cambridge and London having made drastic changes to accommodate cycling, more than 1 in 4 (26%) …

As much as they’d like to, online businesses can’t read minds. They can’t possibly know what’s going on in a customer’s head when they shop on their site. Of course, every business owner would love to understand things from a customer POV, like how easy or difficult it was to find what they came looking for, whether the site UX was a pleasing experience, whether the photos and descriptions were good enough, and perhaps why a shopping cart was abandoned occurred just before purchase.
Due to the fact that online surveys …