Business and Economics

After the Grenfell tower disaster that claimed at least 80 lives, shocking new details have emerged of the health and safety conditions of private rented homes in London and around the country. Now, one leading letting agent in the capital has urged landlords to improve their professional standards, saying many rental properties are just not up to standard. A total of 1.4 million rented flats and houses in Britain today — housing millions of people — pose a health and...

More than 13,000 of the UK’s lowest paid workers will get around £2 million in back pay as part of the government’s scheme to name employers who have failed to pay National Minimum Wage and Living Wage. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has today published a list of 233 businesses that underpaid workers. As well as paying back staff the money owed, employers on the list have been fined a record £1.9 million by the government. Retail,...

A British Gas employee is about to save the energy giant £3.4 million over the next five years thanks to a single brainwave. The employee submitted the idea to the company on the social network Make A Good Idea Count on Yammer which was facilitated by London tech firm Sideways 6. The brainwave is to do with the customer complaints process and is projected to reduce costs by up to £3.4 million over the next five years alone. It has made lodging a complaint easier...

GMB has called for action after new statistics show average wages have fallen once again. According to ONS figures, the value of earnings fell by 0.5 per cent in the three months to June. They previously fell 0.6 per cent in the three months prior to that. GMB calls on the Government to step in and implement a real living wage and an end to the public sector pay cap. Tim Roache, GMB General Secretary, said: “Yet again, the Government's...

Running your own business can be rewarding, liberating and even fun. You get to work at your own pace and be your own boss. However, sometimes the outgoings can eat into the profits so it is always a good idea to be as frugal as possible without cutting corners. Here are a few ideas the will help keep your bills lower and help you maximize profits. Do you need premises?  Leasing or purchasing premises can seriously damage your profit margins....

Instagram used to mean selfies, photos of brunch and too many inspirational quotes to count. Its purpose has since shifted, however, and Instagram is now one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of any size. With over 700 million active users, promoting your brand or business on Instagram is one of the most effective ways of reaching a massively diverse audience. If you'd like to know how to target a specific segment of this audience and how...

Sometimes when an organisation has been doing things a certain way for so long, it just comes to be called a system. Especially when it comes to a contact centre's workforce management. No matter how many post-it notes are involved, how often a shift supervisor knows something a team supervisor doesn’t, and how many things slip through the cracks, the system keeps on being the system because overhauling it somehow seems worse than writing down a schedule change on a...

The most prolific multinational corporations of today had to start somewhere. For example did you know Tesco and Amstrad both started in London. Years of hard work, investment and a little bit of good luck meant some of the budding startups of 100 years ago have gone on to become some of the biggest brands in the world today. But how did they do it? The government-backed Start Up Loans Company has taken a look back at where it all...

In hopes of protecting the personal information of EU citizens everywhere, the General Data Protection Regulation will come into effect on 25 May 2018, tasking London businesses with the duty of compliance. While the regulation does replace the 1995 Data Protection Directive, which was considered outdated by many in these technological times, it also leads some to believe reforms could cause for even weaker data protection according to a report by ComputerWorld. The act builds upon the original directive by looking to...