EDITION 802
27 JANUARY 2020

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. 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 get people’s attention. With people being constantly bombarded with requests, it can be tough to get your colleagues’ attention. That’s why it’s important to cut to the chase about what you need someone to do, when, and why. Whether you’re sending an email, making a presentation, or talking to your boss. READ MORE >>

2.  The price of success. In a YouGov poll of 500 business owners, board directors and senior managers with a household income of more than £100,000 per year, 69% admitted to having “significant” problems in their personal relationships. Only 20% of the general population said they did. 71% of those experiencing personal problems said these had a serious impact on their productivity. The Times

3.  UK economy to outpace EU rivals. The UK economy will outpace the struggling eurozone in the first two years after Brexit, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted for the first time. Britain also outpaced the monetary union in 2019, giving it three straight years of faster growth, according to the IMF's latest forecasts. The Telegraph

4.  UK employment breaks another record. Employment in the UK hit a record high at the end of last year, according to new data from the ONS. The majority of the employment rate's growth in the last year came from women working full-time, the stats reveal. On top of this, self-employment has been growing strongly, with the number of people working for themselves surpassing five million for the first time. Employment minister Mims Davies said business confidence is turning a corner and "paving the way for an even stronger jobs market in 2020”. BBC

5. The most hated office tasks. Data entry is the most hated office task globally, according to an Automation Anywhere survey of 10,000 workers. That's followed by managing email traffic, filing spreadsheets and PDFs into folders, and handling invoices. Workers spend almost 40% of their time facilitating digital administration, which lowers productivity. Such tasks – which are often automatable – are also behind half the employees leaving office late, the survey finds. Business Insider

6.  RBS has launched a £1bn fund to support women entrepreneurs. The bank’s first female boss Alison Rose has pledged to support the creation of 50,000 start-ups by 2023, with the fund set aside to offer loans for qualifying female-led firms. Before taking the top job at RBS, Rose led a government-backed review which found that women typically launch their company with around half as much capital as men, with less than 1% of all venture capital funding offered to female business owners. City A.M.

7.  Half a billion people lack decent work. Nearly half a billion people around the world are struggling to find adequate paid work, according to a UN report. The agency’s International Labour Organization (ILO) said that about 470 million people have insufficient paid work, in a data set which assessed not only the unemployed but also the under-employed and those lacking access to the labour market. The UN agency also said global unemployment would rise for the first time in almost a decade in 2020, as the world economy slows. The Guardian

8.  These are the jobs of the future. An in-depth study from the World Economic Forum, reveals the "jobs of tomorrow," or emerging jobs that are in urgent demand worldwide. Over the next three years, 37% of projected opportunities will be in the care economy; 17% in sales, marketing and content; 16% in data and AI; 12% in engineering and cloud computing; and 8% in people and culture. Which roles with see the fastest growth? Artificial Intelligence specialists, medical transcriptionists, data scientists, customer success specialists and full stack engineers, according to the report. Daily Mail

9.  House prices rising at record rate. UK house prices have increased over the past month at the fastest rate on record for the time of year, according to Rightmove. The average price of properties coming on to the market jumped by 2.3%, to almost £307,000 - the biggest leap for the period since the property website started its index, in 2002. The Guardian

10. The bottom line. The estimated cost so far to Britain from “untethering” its economy from the other members of the G7 ahead of Brexit is £130bn. An additional £70bn will have been added to the bill by the end of the year. Bloomberg