EDITION 820
1 JUNE 2020

As another week of working from home slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday at 10am. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I'd be very grateful if you did.

1. How to make one-on-one meetings more effective. One-on-one meetings with your direct reports often feel more stressful and disorganised than they need to be. A few simple steps can make them more productive and collaborative. READ MORE  >>

2. The last hurrah. Last Thursday evening saw people across the nation show their appreciation for those on the coronavirus front line, in the 10th weekly "clap for carers". After the woman who came up with the idea suggested it ought to be the last, we ask whether something that briefly lifted the spirits might have lasting effects. Some health care workers have also taken to social media to say it was not applause they needed but personal protective equipment (PPE), saying colleagues and friends died. On Thursday, I applauded but this week I will still go out and see who is out there and just want to check in because we are still in crisis. For me, it is good to know who all my neighbours are, and to know I am not alone. Editor

3. Study finds majority of those with coronavirus are asymptomatic. Seven in 10 of those who tested positive for coronavirus had no symptoms, according to the first nationally representative sample. The same study also found that only one in 15 people had antibodies, denting hopes that herd immunity would halt the epidemic without the need for a vaccine or treatments. Weekly figures from the Office for National Statistics show that just under 8,000 people a day are becoming infected with coronavirus. The Daily Mail

4. Volunteering and local support soar during the lockdown. Volunteering in community has been soaring during the coronavirus crisis, with 10 million UK adults taking part. A study found that one in five UK adults has volunteered their time for community activities since the start of the lockdown. It also discovered that Brits have spent £1bn on services and goods that they knew they would never be able to use, including payments to home cleaners and gardeners. The Daily Express

5. The perils of late night emails. Workers of the world, let's resist the urge to send emails after hours. We may think of our messages as benign, but an email is never just an email. Work messages after hours bring us back to work precisely when we need to recharge. And it can trigger the Zeigarnik effect, our brain's natural desire to wrap up unfinished business. This urge makes it that much harder to disconnect. And amid the pandemic, when the bounds between work and life are blurred for many, we need all the separation we can muster. Join me for our next "live and online" lesson in leadership, when I will be taking an in-depth look at effectiveness. Click below for more details.

6. Bank of England says recession may be less severe than feared. Britain’s economy is on course for a milder recession than previous forecasts have suggested, according to the Bank of England’s chief economist. Andy Haldane said recent data was turning out to be “a shade better” than a scenario for the economy published by the Bank earlier this month. He also played down the prospect of an emergency cut in interest rates to below zero. The Guardian

7. How furlough scheme will taper off. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced details of the tapering of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and extended the self-employment income support scheme. Employers who have furloughed staff are currently receiving 80% of each person’s pay, up to £2,500 a month. They will continue to receive this for June and July, then from August will be asked to pay national insurance and employer pension contributions, Sunak said. In September, the government will pay 70% of the furlough wage, with employers asked to pay 10%. Then in October, the final month of the scheme, the portion paid by the employer will rise to 20%. The Daily Telegraph

8. Making sense of our geopolitical terms. There has been much mis-reporting in the media lately as to what makes up the landmass many of us call home. So, here’s my attempt at a brief explanation of what all these confusing terms mean, and how to use them without offending anyone. Great Britain is England, Wales and Scotland and the United Kingdom is Great Britain and Northern Ireland. To be British is to be from the United Kingdom. The word Britain relates to the United Kingdom or Great Britain, whereas Ireland refers to the Republic of Ireland, with or without Northern Ireland. Editor

9. 60% of Brits have gone without it during lockdown. Six-in-ten Britons haven't had sex during lockdown a new study reveals today - as new guidelines come into force making the chances of a fling even less likely, with two people from different households banned from gathering in any private place. The study found that just 39.9 per cent of UK adults have been 'sexually active' during the coronavirus crisis as self-isolation and social distancing have played havoc with love lives. And the new coronavirus regulation says: 'No person may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place indoors, and consists of two or more persons.' The Daily Mail

10. The bottom line. At least one million people in Britain are estimated to have lost their jobs since March. Dominic Cummings, wingman to Boris Johnson, and Nostradamus of North London, is not one of them. That’s all you need to know about this week in British politics. Editor