HUNTER ROBERTS IN THE NEWS

The COVID-19 pandemic and the looming impact of Brexit have placed many organisations under unprecedented financial pressures. These pressures have sent managers into a tailspin of frenzied activity; how do you prioritise when everything is a priority? The result is to be the proverbial busy fool; working exceptionally long hours with no breaks, but never seeming to achieve anything. This is clearly unsustainable: work-related stress, depression and anxiety have rocketed in the last year, with 828,000 workers affected and 17.9m working days lost. There’s unlikely to be a large injection of cash to fund an increased workforce, so to safeguard organisations – and our health - we need to learn how to work smarter, not harder. But there’s no quick fix: we have to put the tools in place that allow us to share the burden and keep people productive without overloading them to the point of burnout. Read more

During the first lockdown, it was easy to imagine that working from home was a temporary novelty. Many of us didn’t even bother to set up a proper workspace, thinking it would all be over in a few weeks. But it quickly became clear this was not the case, and even with vaccine hopes on the horizon, home-working looks like it will have a long-lasting impact on corporate culture. Read more

Does ‘friending’ staff on social media show genuine interest, or is it an invasion of privacy? Read more

The majority of us have spent the past few months adjusting to the ‘new normal’ since the outbreak of COVID-19. We’ve socially distanced, worn masks to every outing and our working lives have most definitely changed; mainly through working from home. But what lasting effects will COVID-19 have on the way we work? Has this new normal highlighted the pitfalls of our usual ways of working? Do business owners and staff actually prefer the current working conditions? In this article, the business energy experts at Business Electricity Prices explore how companies can learn from the ‘new normal’ and improve productivity and work rates. Read more

It’s easy to feel isolated when everyone is working from home – but you really can turn colleagues into friends. Here are some expert tips. Read more

In today’s workplace, saying yes to everything isn’t realistic – or healthy. By learning to say no the right way, you can reduce stress levels and advance your career, without burning a single bridge. Read more