EDITION 899
13 DECEMBER 2021

There is no escaping it: too much news is bad for you. It should come with a government health warning: “This intellectual diet is fine taken in small doses, and preferably in weekly instalments, via a well-balanced newsletter, such as 10 things from William Montgomery."

So, as another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. Please feel free to share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can also subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did.

William Montgomery
Editor and CEO of TEN

1. How to prevent depression in older adults. Doctors think they’ve found a way to break the link between insomnia and depression by teaching people to sleep instead of prescribing sleeping pills. It’s called ‘cognitive behavioural sleep training’ and this is how it works: READ MORE >>

2. Omicron ‘could kill 75,000 by April’. The Omicron variant could cause between 25,000 to 75,000 deaths by the end of April, according to a new study. Scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the UK will face a substantial wave of Omicron infections without further restrictions beyond Plan B. However, senior ministers are pledging to “resist” any attempt to usher in a “Plan C” of further Covid restrictions. The Guardian

3. Booster study “gives hope”. Booster jabs “massively” strengthen the body’s defences against Covid, according to new studies. A third dose not only increased antibody levels thirty-fold but roughly tripled levels of T-cells, raising hopes of strong protection from the Omicron variant. “This T-cell response gives us hope,” said Professor Saul Faust, chief investigator of the trial, which is published in The Lancet. Researchers found that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines give the best overall boost response. The Scotsman

4. Pay gap barely changed in 25 years. The pay gap between men’s and women’s wages has “barely changed” in 25 years when women’s rising education levels are taken into account. The IFS said the minimum wage has helped reduce the gap among lower paid workers but the same is not true of graduates. While the overall gender pay gap was lower than in the 1990s, women were less likely to have a degree than men 25 years ago. The authors said policy reforms had upheld “traditional gender norms”, highlighting that women still do the majority of unpaid work, despite working more paid hours than 25 years ago. Institute for Fiscal Studies.

5. Managers key to retaining talent. Experts predict the "great reshuffle" will last well into 2022. So what are managers to do? To hold on to talent, managers must cultivate supportive work environments that people don't want to leave. To achieve this, first understand what your employees want via surveys, one-on-ones and even small focus groups. Managers can also help foster community and a sense of belonging within their team(s), make sure employees see value in their work and offer flexibility. If you don't make an effort, your competitors will. What are you doing to retain talent? CONTACT US >>

6. Public displays of resignation. Some people who've gotten fed up with their jobs are quitting "loud and proud" and celebrating on TikTok, Instagram and Reddit. These unhappy workers are "ready to reject stale professional norms and vent" after almost two years of pandemic life coupled with social unrest. As for potentially alienating future employers, "the supply-demand curve" of the job market is working to quitters’ advantage for the time being, so fallout for these "public displays of resignation" is probably limited right now. The New York Times

7. Trust in MPs hits all time low. A YouGov poll has revealed that trust in UK politicians is at a new low: two-thirds of voters now agree that MPs are “out for themselves”, up from 48% in 2014, during the Cameron era. Only 5% believe MPs are primarily motivated by the desire to do good. In England, trust in MPs tends to fall the further you travel away from Westminster, with Burnley in Lancashire reporting the lowest levels in the country. When voters were first asked if politicians were out for themselves, in 1944, only one in three agreed. The Independent 

8. BBC drops ‘insulting’ BAME acronym. The BBC is to stop using the BAME acronym after a report found the term could “cause serious insult” by treating ethnic minorities as a single group. The corporation has followed in the footsteps of ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 by moving away from the “catch-all” term. Instead, it will refer to specific ethnic groups where possible, or use the full description of “black, Asian and minority ethnic”. BBC

9. World’s richest see wealth soar. During the pandemic, it paid to be rich. Billionaires saw their share of global wealth swell at record pace, increasing by nearly 1% for the world's richest people, according to the World Inequality Report 2022. Roughly 11% of the world's wealth is now in the hands of the top 0.01%, up from a little over 10% in 2020. Meanwhile the poorest half of the global population holds about 2% of wealth, fueling concerns around how the pandemic has exacerbated inequality. The Independent

10. The bottom line. Google has released its “Year in Search" roundup for 2021, which identifies the most popular search terms this year. In the UK, the most searched term was "Euros", with "Premier League" and "Prince Philip" cracking the top five. Lockdown and Love Island dominated the year's question searches, while "Covid vaccine" and "Matt Hancock" were the two most searched news events. In various European countries, Christian Eriksen's collapse at Euro 2020, dogecoin, Afghanistan and the vaccine rollout all topped the list of searches. The Guardian