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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 manage up, even from home. While the work-from-home marathon continues for many, it's easy to feel cocooned in the home office bubble. But you should not forget about your boss and fostering your relationship with him or her. Managing up should be part of your daily routine. READ MORE 3. One dose ‘gives 90% protection’. A single vaccine shot reduces the risk of being hospitalised by Covid-19 by more than 90 per cent. Public health officials have told the government that the statistic applies for both the Pfizer and Oxford-AastraZeneca vaccine. The UK rollout has now achieved nearly 20 million first injections. Mail on Sunday 4. UK unemployment and recruitment. Unemployment in the UK has reached its highest level in almost five years with younger workers worst affected. The Office for National Statistics [ONS] revealed the UK jobless rate rose to 5.1% in the three months to December, up 0.4% versus the previous quarter. Almost three-fifths of these were younger than 25 years. But there were also signs of improvement, with some 56% of employers in the UK intending to recruit staff in the next three months. The sectors with the strongest intentions of hiring include healthcare, insurance and education. The ONS found that the number of firms planning to make redundancies dropped from 30% to 20%. The Guardian 5. Women on boards up 50%. Women now make up more than a third of top 350 UK company boards thanks to a dramatic shift in appointments. The government-backed Hampton-Alexander Review said the number of women on boards rose by 50% from 682 to 1,026 in five years. The news was welcomed by campaigners but they warned that progress in female representation at the highest levels remained fragile and slow. Metro 6. Work those powers of persuasion. Many consider late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs to be one of the most influential business leaders in history. But, many of the tech giant's products wouldn't exist were it not for Jobs being swayed one way or the other. So how do you persuade someone who may be stubborn, narcissistic or disagreeable? Asking a “know-it-all” to explain how things work is often a good way for them to "recognise the gaps in their own understanding. In addition, posing questions like, What if? and Could we? could help engage curiosity and ideas. The art of persuasion is covered during the communications module of 10/10. LEARN MORE 7. A call to help you concentrate. Remote workers missing the office - from the camaraderie to the ability to concentrate - have found ways to recreate it, whether using background sounds or working video calls. Many have turned to apps that facilitate such calls with several seeing rapid user growth during the pandemic. Caveday is a bit like remote co-working, connecting multiple people and arranging group activities, while FocusMate connects individuals who work alongside each other, with the idea being that you keep each other on track and get to chat to someone new. BBC 8. How to take stock of your skills. People should take stock of their skills if they’re looking for work or hoping to grow in their careers. Yet, many people struggle to accurately take inventory of their skills. Here’s some sound advice for any job seeker: [1] Reflect on your accomplishments and identify the skills used to reach that achievement. [2] Ask peers and people you’ve worked with for a list of the skills they most identify with you or what you do exceptionally well. [3] Take assessments or online tests that can help identify your skills. Editor 9. Britain’s 'healthiest place' revealed. Wokingham is the healthiest place in the country, according to the first official national health index. The study also found that Blackpool is the unhealthiest and Brent, in northwest London, is the happiest. Meanwhile, Bath residents are the most physically active, and the healthiest eaters live in Richmond upon Thames. The findings of the study appear to reveal a stark north-south divide. The Sunday Times 10. The bottom line. Rishi Sunak is readying a new tax on online deliveries and a raid on the self-employed. In his budget this week, the chancellor will unveil a series of measures to pay for the £300bn cost of dealing with the pandemic. The chancellor will freeze for at least three years the point at which people start paying the basic rate of income tax; currently £12,500. The Sunday Telegraph |