EDITION 910
14 MARCH 2022

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 make flexible work a success. We now know for certain - giving your team control over when and where they work is the secret sauce to productive, collaborative employees (and key to recruiting top talent). But how do you build that perfect mixed-work model? READ MORE >>

2. Firms offer jobs to refugees. Marks & Spencer, Asos and Lush are three of the major businesses lining up to offer jobs to Ukrainian refugees when they arrive in the UK. In an initiative led by British entrepreneur Emma Sinclair, a group of more than 45 large businesses is pressing the government to make it easier for those driven out by Russia’s invasion to come to the UK. Sinclair said the consortium was “purely altruistic” and not acting to promote any particular corporate agenda. “We [businesses] want people, we need people, and we want to help,” she said. BBC

3. Female-led firms outperform others. Companies with female leaders outperform those led by men, according to a House of Commons study. Researchers found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the bottom, while companies with more than 30% female executives were more likely to outperform companies without as many women at the top. Meanwhile, the Office for National Statistics reported that women make up 50.6% of the UK population, 54% of the civil service, 49% of the BBC, 35% of MPs, 34% of judges, 32% of police officers, 27% of the Cabinet, and 11% of the Armed Forces. The Independent

4. Data shows ‘persistent’ school absences. Almost 1.8 million children missed at least 10% of school in the autumn term in England, according to data gathered from 145 councils. As many as 122,000 children missed at least half of the term – even greater than the number initially thought. The latest estimates suggest that persistent absence from school (defined as missing more than 10% of lessons) is at a rate almost twice as high as before the pandemic. The Children’s Commissioner said she was “extremely concerned” and “surprised” at the scale of the absences. BBC

5. Boom time for remote work questions. With the pandemic receding and many employees pushing for fully remote or hybrid schedules, companies are desperate for expert guidance on how to adopt to this strange new world. We are now getting calls and emails daily from clients, schools, and other institutions seeking advice. That's a big change from two years ago, when this area was considered as a bit of a backwater. Some of the questions being asked: Should employees get to choose which days they come to the office? How do you coordinate schedules, so the right people are in the same room at the same time? How do you ensure that managers don’t play favourites when scheduling or discriminate against remote workers when it comes to promotions and pay raises? CONTACT US >>

6. When do you do your best work? What time of day do you do your best work? For me, the morning is when I choose to make difficult decisions or have difficult conversations. The outcome is always better if I do it in the early part of the day. I also believe that my energy levels are higher at the start of the day, and I haven’t chance to get distracted by all sorts of other things. However, sleep researchers have suggested that our internal body clocks are mostly genetic, meaning some people have more energy – and are therefore more productive – later in the day. Some suggest that flexible working hours could take advantage of this, allowing people to work at the time that best suits them. When do you do your best work? Let us know in our latest poll. VOTE HERE >>

7. More of us are now living alone. The number of Britons living on their own has increased by nearly ten per cent in a decade. Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that the trend is most prevalent in the north of England and Scotland. Overall, the proportion of those living alone across the UK surged 8.3 per cent in the decade up to 2021. More than three in ten [36 per cent] of Scots live alone, while London has the lowest proportion of one-person households, at 25.8 per cent, probably due to the expensive property market. Daily Mail

8. Cost of living crisis to deepen. A think tank has warned that UK household incomes are on course to collapse by the most since the mid-1970s due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Resolution Foundation said surges in global oil and gas prices are expected to push UK inflation above 8% this spring, causing average incomes across Britain to fall by 4% in the coming financial year. This hit will be worth £1,000 per household, making it the biggest annual decline since 1975. The think tank told the government that urgent steps are needed to help Britain’s poorest families cope with soaring living costs. The Times

9. Covid may shrink the brain. A Covid infection may shrink the brain, with degeneration happening three times faster than normal for middle-aged people, according to a new study. The University of Oxford selected 401 people who caught the virus and compared scans of their brains before and after infection. They found shrinkage and tissue damage in regions linked to smell and mental capacities months after the subjects tested positive. The study’s authors said that “significantly greater cognitive decline… was seen in the Covid-19 positive group”. Daily Telegraph

10.  The bottom line. Most voters still want to see Boris Johnson resign, according to the latest Opinium poll. Although there has been a drop in the proportion of voters who want the prime minister to stand aside, the new poll showed that 53% still wanted to see him go – down 10 points since January. Johnson has a net approval rating of -27, a 6-point improvement on the last poll a fortnight ago. The Observer