Take it easy on yourself

Elon Musk is a danger to us all. He says: “No one ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.” Well Elon, not everyone necessarily wants to change the world, but in case we do, he adds that to do so, you need to put in “80, sustained hours a week, peaking at about […]

How at risk is your job?

People have been replaced by checkout machines in supermarkets, telephone helplines have been manned by automatons for a decade and the robots could soon be coming for your job, whatever it is. The robotic revolution promises a world of increased productivity and convenience, but has also led to fears that it could replace many of […]

Do we have to?

Don’t you just love made-up figures. Especially when they’re stuck on the side of a bus. Well, apparently pointless meetings will cost the economy an estimated £45bn this year, according to a new report by online scheduling tool, Doodle. Huckletree’s Gabriela Hersham says: “We’ve all turned up to an external meeting only to realise that […]

An unexpected ray of light

If there is hope, it lies here, in the most deprived borough in London. Barking and Dagenham has shocking levels of unemployment, homelessness, teenage pregnancy, domestic violence and early death. Until 2010, it was the main stronghold of the British National party. Its population turns over at astonishing speed: every year, about 8% of residents […]

Mental health is not just a distraction

MPs have recently been taking a small break from the swirling plughole of Brexit to debate mental health first aid in parliament. Research reveals that companies aren’t doing enough to tackle employee stress and mental wellbeing Less than a fifth (18%) of companies are taking steps to manage employee stress and mental health issues, according […]

Get that food away from me. Now…

Work colleagues; they can’t half annoy you. Obviously it’s for the best if everyone gets on and pulls together as a team, but there are some things that some colleagues do that are unforgivable. And one of them is eating food at their desk. Not all food; the odd sandwich and an occasional packet of […]

Some more AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a big term right now. But I think it is often misunderstood, a bit like black holes or time travel. Although these probably have little impact on us currently, AI (or what is termed AI) is having a sizeable influence on most of us.   If we define AI as ‘machine […]

Hoist by their own petard?

Built-in obsolescence may have become a thing of the past and that may account for the reason that six months after Apple became the first publicly traded western company to have a market value of $1trn, it is now the first to pass that landmark in the opposite direction. Apple’s CEO, Steve Cook, recently cut […]

I like driving in my car

JLR (Jaguar Landrover) has been a rare British car manufacturing success. Their luxury cars have sold well in the US and then in China. However, both these markets are contracting (partly due to trade sanctions) and 80% of JLR’s output is diesel when the world is crying out for hybrid or electric and the company […]

Employment clinic; part 1

In the first of an occasional series, I am going to look at an important employment issue and consider the ethical and legal issues around it. This week we are considering the case of an anonymous media professional who feels unable to approach her bosses regarding what she considers to be a gross injustice. The […]