Legislation changes, business advice and tips for success
The opportunities for South West England, which is a major tourist destination in its own right, and will host the sailing events for the Games, are particularly significant.
Find out all the latest information from the South West Regional Development Agency and signup to London 2012 Business E-Alert.
Running a business isn’t always easy (if ever). You need to be able to stay composed under all sorts of different pressures. It’s no surprise that stress can become a serious problem.
A healthy degree of pressure can act as a spur to improve your performance. But if pressures are allowed to mount, and a person feels they can’t cope with the demands being placed on them, the stress that follows is invariably damaging – personally and for business performance.
The key to tackling stress is to retain a clear perspective. Your health and wellbeing come first. Stress often prompts counter-productive responses in us. We skip meals and stop exercising in an effort to save time. But these are the last things we should be doing. They only make us less productive, which then leads us to feel even more stressed.
You need to learn to spot the signs of stress, both in yourself and others. After that, it’s a matter of tackling problems early on so they don’t get out of hand.
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This Q&A looks at alcohol, the national minimum wage, and statutory sick pay.
Q: The work performance of one of my employees is suffering because of the effects of drinking. What should I do?
Cases involving alcohol should be dealt with carefully. If an employee is simply letting their social life disrupt their work, then a warning that disciplinary action might follow would be appropriate. However, if you suspect an employee has a drinking problem, proceed with care and discretion. Your priority should be to offer support and help resolve the problem, perhaps by encouraging counselling or a GP visit.
Q: Can overtime payments be included in minimum wage calculations?
No. Periods of overtime are only included in minimum wage calculations at the standard hourly rate. For example, if an employee works 40 hours at £5.00 per hour, and another ten hours of overtime at £10.00 per hour, the overtime payments don’t lift the average upwards. As far as the minimum wage is concerned, the employee worked 50 hours at the standard £5.00 per hour. Note that the national minimum wage is increasing from £5.05 per hour to £5.35 per hour in October 2006.
Q: Do I have to pay an employee’s salary if they’re off work sick?
You’re not required to, but many employers do, so it might affect your ability to recruit and retain staff if you make less generous provisions. Legally, from an employee’s fourth day off work sick you’re only required to pay them statutory sick pay (SSP). The current weekly rate of SSP is £70.05. However most employers include much more generous sickness provisions in their employment contracts, commonly continuing to pay full salary.
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According to survey results from web application testing company Empirix, online consumers have high expectations when it comes to e-commerce websites, and they’re becoming increasingly intolerant of glitches that prevent them from completing web-based transactions.
Nine out of ten respondents reported that they would make no more than three attempts to complete a transaction on a website. And only one per cent said that they would then contact the company to try to complete the transaction by phone instead.
The message for businesses is clear. Rigorous and ongoing testing of your website is essential to ensure that problems are resolved before they have a chance to drive customers away. A single negative experience with a company’s website is enough to drive one in three customers away for good.
There is significant spending power at stake. 92 per cent of the people surveyed said they had shopped online before, and 30 per cent reported spending upwards of £50 online each month.
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Most businesses are needlessly throwing money down the drain by failing to monitor their energy usage properly. That’s the message from the Carbon Trust, a government-funded company that works with businesses to help reduce carbon emissions.
An average office-based business wastes £6,000 each year by leaving equipment on at weekends and bank holidays, according to the company.
The simple step of turning machines off and closing windows at the end of each day can make a big difference.
According to the Carbon Trust:
Switching off all the lights in a typical office at night can save enough energy to heat enough water for 1,000 cups of tea.
Turning off a single computer monitor overnight saves enough energy to microwave six dinners.
Closing a window overnight during winter saves enough energy to drive a small car for 35 miles.
For information about simple energy-saving steps that businesses in your sector can take, apply for a starter pack on the Carbon Trust website.