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UK Edition
28th September 2021
 
THE HOT STORY
Commuting helps work-life balance, study says
A study by neuroscientists at University College London (UCL) suggests that travelling to the office compartmentalises work and home life and can have a positive impact on mental health. Almost half of the 3,000 people surveyed said being in an office put them in a better mindset for work. “The commute delineates boundaries between home and work life and can be used to switch one off and transition to the other, which can have a positive impact on cognitive performance, wellbeing and productivity,” Joseph Devlin, professor of brain sciences at UCL, said. “Just going to work generates more diverse experiences than working from home, especially through interactions with other people.” Household chores, taking deliveries and longer lunch breaks were the biggest distractions for those working from home, according to respondents.
HIRING
Jobseekers offered free broadband
Jobseekers are to be offered six months of free broadband via a programme launched by telecoms company TalkTalk and the Department for Work and Pensions. The scheme will look to tackle digital exclusion and remove barriers to employment by giving jobseekers access to “high-quality” broadband to help them search for jobs. They will be offered a no-contract voucher for six months of a TalkTalk package which normally costs £23 a month. Employment Minister Mims Davies said: “We want to support jobseekers in any way we can on their journey to securing employment, which includes levelling up opportunities by making sure they are digitally connected and can access the full range of support offered by our Plan for Jobs and our JobHelp website.”
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TECHNOLOGY
Monzo co-founder invests in HR app
Tom Blomfield, co-founder of banking services firm Monzo, has become an investor and adviser at Tahora, an HR app which is trying to help young employees build meaningful relationships in the hybrid working world. Tahora’s app is being used by the Metropolitan Police, Google and NatWest. “We are a B2B product . . . but the [experience] needs to be more like the Monzo level where you open it up and enjoy using it. Until now a lot of the products that employers provide people with haven’t had that,” Tahora co-founder Ben Towers said.
WORKFORCE
French shipbuilding town hit by loss of Australian submarine order
Reuters reports on how the French shipbuilding town of Cherbourg is in shock following the cancellation of Australia’s deal with France's Naval Group to supply a dozen diesel-powered submarines. The Australian government is instead joining a security pact with the United States and Britain that would help it acquire U.S. nuclear-powered submarines. Australia's order accounted for 10% of the annual revenues of Naval Group, which unions say employs 3,400 people in Cherbourg. Sub-contractors provide hundreds more jobs locally. David Margueritte, vice-president of the Normandy regional authority, observed: "There will be economic repercussions, there's no hiding from it, but they will be cushioned by the fact that Naval Group has strong orders from the French state on its books."
Boohoo lists factories in transparency move
Online fashion retailer Boohoo has published a list of the 1,100 factories it uses around the world as part of its pledge to be more transparent. This comes after the firm’s supply chain came into focus when it was revealed that some factory workers in Leicester were earning below the minimum wage. Transparency over the factories Boohoo uses was one of the recommendations made by an independent review produced by Alison Levitt QC. The review delivered 17 recommendations, with these broken down into 34 deliverables. Boohoo says 28 have been completed and the remainder are expected to be signed off “in the coming months.” Boohoo has also announced it intends to sign the legally binding International Accord for Health and Safety.
Shadow Employment Secretary quits over minimum wage stance
Shadow Employment Secretary Andy McDonald has quit his shadow cabinet role, saying his position had been made “untenable” by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to back a £15 an hour minimum wage. In his resignation letter, Mr McDonald said Sir Keir’s office had “instructed” him “to go into a meeting to argue against a national minimum wage of £15 an hour and against statutory sick pay at the living wage.” This, he insisted, was “something I could not do.” Labour wants a £10 minimum wage at least, up from the existing £8.91.
TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT
Does Boris Johnson have the right plan to ‘skill up’ the UK workforce?
The FT wonders whether Boris Johnson’s plan to provide skills for workers through an overhaul of further education will succeed. He wants improvements to vocational training that experts say is badly underfunded.
RISK
The race to fight off multiple ‘Black Swan’ events
Britain's fuel and food shortage crises, alongside flooding in Germany and wildfires in places such as the US, have compelled officials to reassess risk preparation strategies, reports the Telegraph. These Black Swan events, or what disaster planners call “long-tail” risks, are not supposed to come all at once, and Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, a fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford says we are all prone to “Black Swan blindness . . . Our brains are not well suited for detecting extreme risks.” Prof Flyvbjerg and other experts say Black Swans are becoming more frequent as the world becomes more complex: “the walls are coming down between natural and human systems, with humans impacting nature at a global scale for the first time in history.” Planners are fooling themselves that they have everything covered in their risk registers, and also commonly make the mistake of “letting down one’s guard because a risk has not materialised for a while,” observes Prof Flyvbjerg.
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
Tech firm says more diversity supports innovation
A financial technology firm says recruiting "BAME trailblazers" helps to increase innovation in the sector. Bath-headquartered Seccl said it had increased its number of paid summer internships from three to seven to encourage the next generation of technology leaders. Seccl CEO Sam Handfield-Jones said without diversity you "can't turn away from" traditional approaches as easily. According to Statista, ONS and The Chartered Institute for IT, the UK tech sector had 775,000 employees in 2019 of which 268,000 were from BAME backgrounds. A Chartered Institute for IT spokeswoman said: "Clearly, it is important that the right person is picked for the right job, but there needs to be a more inclusive recruitment approach across the board."
STRATEGY
British Airways abandons new short-haul plan after pilot pushback
British Airways has scrapped a plan to create a new short-haul unit after the venture failed to win support from pilots. The airline wanted to create a new, cash-generative operation at London Gatwick Airport in time for next summer. British Airways has for years been seeking to make its operations at the airport profitable, and the new subsidiary would have allowed the company to renegotiate pilot and operating costs. The airline’s union said it was unable to reach an agreement on revised terms of conditions that were acceptable to members. “After many years of losing money on European flights from the airport, we were clear that coming out of the pandemic, we needed a plan to make Gatwick profitable and competitive,” the airline had said in a statement, adding that short-haul operations at the airport would now be suspended, with the exception of a small number of domestic services.
LEGAL
Ex-Warburg senior manager is next to face cum-ex trial in Germany
Detlef M., a former managing director of Warburg Invest, the investment arm of M.M. Warburg & Co., has appeared in a court in Germany accused of participating in a so-called cum-ex scheme that lost the country €157m ($184m). Investors in cum-ex deals use short sales to earn duplicate tax refunds on dividend payments on German shares. Germany's top criminal court in a landmark case earlier this year said that such deals were illegal and criminal, and called them a “ blatant money grab.” The practice ended in Germany in 2012 when rules were overhauled, but it is estimated that the schemes have cost German taxpayers more than €10bn. The Washington Post answers some FAQs about cum-ex trades, noting that the practice was named after the Latin terms cum/ex, meaning with/without, because the stock was sold with, but delivered without, a dividend payment.
INTERNATIONAL
Retail and restaurant workers seek refuge in cannabis industry
An estimated 321,000 Americans now work in the legal cannabis industry, as the Washington Post looks at how marijuana jobs are becoming a refuge for retail and restaurant workers. “There has been a seismic shift of workers from retail and restaurants to cannabis,” said Kara Bradford, chief executive of cannabis recruiting firm Viridian Staffing, where she has fielded as many as 500 applications for one opening. “There is a sense that this is a booming industry that’s fun and interesting, with a lot of opportunities to move up quickly.” Ms Bradford explained that hourly pay at dispensaries runs from $12 to $15, in line with most retail and warehouse jobs. But given the newness of the industry, entry-level workers can often move up in less than a year to more specialised positions, she added. Meanwhile, workers' rights groups are pressing for broader unionisation in the cannabis industry, calling it a critical time to establish well-paying jobs with proper protections. With the right policies, they say, the industry could become a pipeline to middle-class jobs, much like the manufacturing industry used to be.

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