In the UK, paid sick leave has been part of the benefits for all workers since the National Insurance Act of 1911. In the United States, on the other hand, allowing employees time off for sickness has been a much more recent development and paying absentees during sick leave is not always the norm. 

We’ve written about this before, but now it’s finally here. Employers in England and Wales are now able to refer employees to Fit for Work, the government service set up to help working people on long-term sickness absence. Fit for Work provides occupational health services to people who have been, or are likely to be, off work […]

A recent survey of over 2,600 employees by FlexJobs found that 76% think the office is not their most productive work environment. 50% of the survey respondents would choose to work from home to be most productive or on important projects. The top five reasons why flexible working was deemed more productive were:

This article on the importance of delegation; what the effects are; how to go about it; and the key questions you need to ask yourself before delegating, is part of our article series on productivity. This is one of our more detailed parts as delegation is such a key issue when it comes to increasing […]

HR systems do not drive effective absence management. FACT! Absence Management in HR systems seems to be a case of just trying to add another feature without any real focus on helping clients attain their goals. Many companies choose to use their HR system to do as much as possible. Anything from payroll through to […]

In our long running (since January 2015) article series about productivity we have been around a varied range of subjects from the strategic (goal setting) down to the downright practical (how to plan your time). Right from the outset it was envisaged that we would do articles on some of the practical topics, which are […]

Netflix has made the news this week by announcing unlimited maternity and paternity leave during the first year after a child’s birth or adoption. It’s not uncommon for employers to try to offer the entrepreneurial lifestyle within their corporate ethos and this change is just the latest in Netflix’s famous approach to HR. By allowing flexible […]

In this bi-weekly installment of our big productivity blog series for 2015, we’re once again taking a practical approach. Or at least it’s practical in the way that a personal trainer is effective when he’s shouting at you to get a move on. In other words, in this article I will be shouting at you […]

In this latest installment of the Productivity blog series we take a closer look at the planning mindset you have to get into if you want to avoid being roped into doing a lot of unimportant tasks – instead of the ones, which truly matter.

Last week I was speaking to a friend who is a keen technophile. He has an iPhone, naturally, and an Apple Watch to go with it and of course he uses the Activity app. We had just finished a bicycle ride and he was very pleased to see that all his fitness goals for the […]