EDITION 877
12 JULY 2021

As another week 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 would be very grateful if you did.

1. How to be grateful. Do you ever run out of things to be grateful for? One approach is to adopt the two daily gratitude practices: this morning I am grateful for; and ‘tonight I am grateful for…’. However, over time the answers to these questions can become repetitive. READ MORE

2. Pride and abuse as England lose. England manager Gareth Southgate has taken responsibility for his side’s loss to Italy in the final of the European Championships. Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho all missed penalties during a tense shoot-out. Dozens of England fans were arrested at the match and the Football Association has condemned racist abuse aimed at Rashford, Sancho and Saka on social media after the final whistle. BBC

3. Johnson said becoming PM ‘ludicrous’. Johnson said becoming PM ‘ludicrous:’ Dominic Cummings has claimed that Boris Johnson admitted privately that him becoming prime minister would be a “ludicrous” idea three years before he won the top job. In another behind-the-scenes blog post, the former No. 10 adviser writes that after the Brexit referendum in 2016, Johnson took him aside and said: “Obviously it’s ludicrous me being PM – but no more ludicrous than [David Cameron] or George [Osborne], don’t you think?” BBC

4. Former Amazon boss applies to run NHS. The former head of Amazon UK has applied to become the next chief executive of the NHS. During the tenure of Douglas Gurr the online shopping giant faced controversy over its tax practices and its access to NHS data. The successful applicant for the NHS role will become the head of Europe’s largest employer, overseeing a £150bn budget and taking responsibility for clearing a post-Covid backlog of five million patients. Daily Mail

5. Study finds Covid worsened inequality. Higher savings and rocketing house prices have made the average household £7,800 richer during the pandemic, the Resolution Foundation has found. However, the think tank said the gains overwhelmingly benefited middle and high-income households, which means a worsening of wealth inequality. A senior economist said policy makers could “no longer afford to ignore the dominant role wealth is playing in 21st-century Britain”. The Guardian

6. Shorter hours boost productivity. Working reduced hours improves workers’ productivity and overall wellbeing, concludes a new study in Iceland. The “world’s largest ever trial” with a shorter working week resulted in better health and work-life balance for a range of government employees, from office workers to hospital staff. Over 2,500 people worked 35 to 36 hours per week between 2015 and 2019 while their pay stayed the same. More organisations are exploring the concept, albeit in different forms, with Spanish telecoms firm Telefónica giving employees the option to work four days a week if they take a 15% pay cut. The Independent

7. Reskill to avoid unemployment. The world’s richest countries should invest in reskilling in the wake of the pandemic or risk a long-term rise in unemployment, the OECD has warned. Globally, around 22 million fewer people are in work in OECD nations than before the pandemic, but there is the risk of a gap opening up between those out of work and those on some form of job retention scheme. It calls on governments to provide retraining and incentives to growing sectors to help recovery.

8. App sensitivity could be tweaked to cut alerts. The NHS Covid contact-tracing app used in England and Wales could be made less sensitive to cut the number of people asked to self-isolate for 10 days. The app detects how long users are in proximity, alerting those who spend more than 15 minutes within 2m (6ft 6in) of someone who later tests positive. However, ministers are considering a change after the number of alerts rose from 16,000 to 360,000 a week during June. BBC

9. Poll of the week. The pandemic has inspired younger generations to start investing earlier for their future, with new data revealing those under 30 are looking to retire at 50. When would you like to stop working? Have your say in our poll. VOTE HERE

10. The bottom line. Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has been identified as the highest paid Instagram influencer, commanding an average of $1.6m for every post. Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson is next on the Rich List ($1.52m) and Ariana Grande third ($1.51m).