The John Lewis advert has hit the screens, supermarket shelves are starting to fill up with Christmas goodies and probably somewhere there’s a radio station already adding Mariah Carey into their playlist.
While the festive season brings joy to many, there is a darker side which sees some people falling into debt as they join in with the ‘spend, spend, spend’ ethos that will be pushed at us over weeks ahead. Businesses are not immune to this either and can, in fact, stumble into overspending habits at any time of the year. With this in mind, our blog this week focuses on some simple ideas for avoiding overspending.
In 2020-21, 1.7 million workers suffered from a work-related illness. For 800,000 of them, this was related to stress, depression or anxiety. Before COVID, it was estimated that mental health issues like these cost UK employers up to £45 billion a year. The pandemic has undoubtedly made things worse and, with mental health issues on the rise, workplace stress is now reported as the number one reason for sick days in the UK.
In response, a new campaign called ‘Working Minds’ is calling for a culture change in Britain’s workplaces, asking them to recognise and respond to the signs of stress as routinely as they would manage workplace safety. Find out more about the campaign and what you could do to tackle work-related stress in this week’s blog.
The summer holidays – a time when, like many others, people working in construction often disappear for a while (on their holidays or for family visits). But, did you know that, in the UK and for various reasons, more than half of people don’t take their full holiday entitlement? The problem, however, is that such efforts can be counter-productive as taking a break actually offers all kinds of benefits, both to the individual and the companies they work for. This week’s blog outlines the key points.
Did you know that the average person in the UK spends 22 hours of each day indoors? That’s 90% of their day! While our on-site construction teams may be the exception to this, for office staff, the indoor life can have an enormous impact on productivity, health, wellbeing and overall happiness. What’s to be done?…