That's Books and Entertainment: Successful Key Account Management

That's Books and Entertainment: Successful Key Account Management: Are you looking for an ideal and much-welcomed Christmas gift for the business to business (b2b) sales account person in your life? Or maybe...

The Hybrid Workplace. A short guide from Laduma

The Hybrid Workplace. A short guide from Laduma

 https://laduma.com/hybrid-workplace-short-guide/

Wilford Scholes Case Study: Profile XT

PM address to the nation on coronavirus: 10 May 2020

It is now almost two months since the people of this country began to put up with restrictions on their freedom – your freedom – of a kind that we have never seen before in peace or war.

And you have shown the good sense to support those rules overwhelmingly.

You have put up with all the hardships of that programme of social distancing.

Because you understand that as things stand, and as the experience of every other country has shown, it’s the only way to defeat the coronavirus - the most vicious threat this country has faced in my lifetime.

And though the death toll has been tragic, and the suffering immense.

And though we grieve for all those we have lost.

It is a fact that by adopting those measures we prevented this country from being engulfed by what could have been a catastrophe in which the reasonable worst case scenario was half a million fatalities.

And it is thanks to your effort and sacrifice in stopping the spread of this disease that the death rate is coming down and hospital admissions are coming down.

And thanks to you we have protected our NHS and saved many thousands of lives.

And so I know - you know - that it would be madness now to throw away that achievement by allowing a second spike.

We must stay alert.

We must continue to control the virus and save lives.

And yet we must also recognise that this campaign against the virus has come at colossal cost to our way of life.

We can see it all around us in the shuttered shops and abandoned businesses and darkened pubs and restaurants.

And there are millions of people who are both fearful of this terrible disease, and at the same time also fearful of what this long period of enforced inactivity will do to their livelihoods and their mental and physical wellbeing.

To their futures and the futures of their children.

So I want to provide tonight - for you - the shape of a plan to address both fears.

Both to beat the virus and provide the first sketch of a road map for reopening society.

A sense of the way ahead, and when and how and on what basis we will take the decisions to proceed.

I will be setting out more details in Parliament tomorrow and taking questions from the public in the evening.

I have consulted across the political spectrum, across all four nations of the UK.

And though different parts of the country are experiencing the pandemic at different rates.

And though it is right to be flexible in our response.

I believe that as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, there is a strong resolve to defeat this together.

And today a general consensus on what we could do.

And I stress could.

Because although we have a plan, it is a conditional plan.

And since our priority is to protect the public and save lives, we cannot move forward unless we satisfy the five tests.

We must protect our NHS.

We must see sustained falls in the death rate.

We must see sustained and considerable falls in the rate of infection.

We must sort out our challenges in getting enough PPE to the people who need it, and yes, it is a global problem but we must fix it.

And last, we must make sure that any measures we take do not force the reproduction rate of the disease - the R - back up over one, so that we have the kind of exponential growth we were facing a few weeks ago.

And to chart our progress and to avoid going back to square one, we are establishing a new Covid Alert System run by a new Joint Biosecurity Centre.

And that Covid Alert Level will be determined primarily by R and the number of coronavirus cases.

And in turn that Covid Alert Level will tell us how tough we have to be in our social distancing measures – the lower the level the fewer the measures.

The higher the level, the tougher and stricter we will have to be.

There will be five alert levels.

Level One means the disease is no longer present in the UK and Level Five is the most critical – the kind of situation we could have had if the NHS had been overwhelmed.

Over the period of the lockdown we have been in Level Four, and it is thanks to your sacrifice we are now in a position to begin to move in steps to Level Three.

And as we go everyone will have a role to play in keeping the R down.

By staying alert and following the rules.

And to keep pushing the number of infections down there are two more things we must do.

We must reverse rapidly the awful epidemics in care homes and in the NHS, and though the numbers are coming down sharply now, there is plainly much more to be done.

And if we are to control this virus, then we must have a world-beating system for testing potential victims, and for tracing their contacts.

So that – all told - we are testing literally hundreds of thousands of people every day.

We have made fast progress on testing – but there is so much more to do now, and we can.

When this began, we hadn’t seen this disease before, and we didn’t fully understand its effects.

With every day we are getting more and more data.

We are shining the light of science on this invisible killer, and we will pick it up where it strikes.

Because our new system will be able in time to detect local flare-ups – in your area – as well as giving us a national picture.

And yet when I look at where we are tonight, we have the R below one, between 0.5 and 0.9 – but potentially only just below one.

And though we have made progress in satisfying at least some of the conditions I have given.

We have by no means fulfilled all of them.

And so no, this is not the time simply to end the lockdown this week.

Instead we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures.

And the first step is a change of emphasis that we hope that people will act on this week.

We said that you should work from home if you can, and only go to work if you must.

We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to work.

And we want it to be safe for you to get to work. So you should avoid public transport if at all possible – because we must and will maintain social distancing, and capacity will therefore be limited.

So work from home if you can, but you should go to work if you can’t work from home.

And to ensure you are safe at work we have been working to establish new guidance for employers to make workplaces COVID-secure.

And when you do go to work, if possible do so by car or even better by walking or bicycle. But just as with workplaces, public transport operators will also be following COVID-secure standards.

And from this Wednesday, we want to encourage people to take more and even unlimited amounts of outdoor exercise.

You can sit in the sun in your local park, you can drive to other destinations, you can even play sports but only with members of your own household.

You must obey the rules on social distancing and to enforce those rules we will increase the fines for the small minority who break them.

And so every day, with ever increasing data, we will be monitoring the R and the number of new infections, and the progress we are making, and if we as a nation begin to fulfil the conditions I have set out, then in the next few weeks and months we may be able to go further.

In step two – at the earliest by June 1 – after half term – we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, Year 1 and Year 6.

Our ambition is that secondary pupils facing exams next year will get at least some time with their teachers before the holidays. And we will shortly be setting out detailed guidance on how to make it work in schools and shops and on transport.

And step three - at the earliest by July - and subject to all these conditions and further scientific advice; if and only if the numbers support it, we will hope to re-open at least some of the hospitality industry and other public places, provided they are safe and enforce social distancing.

Throughout this period of the next two months we will be driven not by mere hope or economic necessity. We are going to be driven by the science, the data and public health.

And I must stress again that all of this is conditional, it all depends on a series of big Ifs. It depends on all of us – the entire country – to follow the advice, to observe social distancing, and to keep that R down.

And to prevent re-infection from abroad, I am serving notice that it will soon be the time – with transmission significantly lower – to impose quarantine on people coming into this country by air.

And it is because of your efforts to get the R down and the number of infections down here, that this measure will now be effective.

And of course we will be monitoring our progress locally, regionally, and nationally and if there are outbreaks, if there are problems, we will not hesitate to put on the brakes.

We have been through the initial peak – but it is coming down the mountain that is often more dangerous.

We have a route, and we have a plan, and everyone in government has the all-consuming pressure and challenge to save lives, restore livelihoods and gradually restore the freedoms that we need.

But in the end this is a plan that everyone must make work.

And when I look at what you have done already.

The patience and common sense you have shown.

The fortitude of the elderly whose isolation we all want to end as fast as we can.

The incredible bravery and hard work of our NHS staff, our care workers.

The devotion and self-sacrifice of all those in every walk of life who are helping us to beat this disease.

Police, bus drivers, train drivers, pharmacists, supermarket workers, road hauliers, bin collectors, cleaners, security guards, postal workers, our teachers and a thousand more.

The scientists who are working round the clock to find a vaccine.

When I think of the millions of everyday acts of kindness and thoughtfulness that are being performed across this country.

And that have helped to get us through this first phase.

I know that we can use this plan to get us through the next.

And if we can’t do it by those dates, and if the alert level won’t allow it, we will simply wait and go on until we have got it right.

We will come back from this devilish illness.

We will come back to health, and robust health.

And though the UK will be changed by this experience, I believe we can be stronger and better than ever before. More resilient, more innovative, more economically dynamic, but also more generous and more sharing.

But for now we must stay alert, control the virus and save lives.

Thank you very much.

Published 10 May 2020 by HM Government.

Fight or Flight: How to lead during a crisis.

Can local shops save the High Street, post-COVID-19?

As the Coronavirus pandemic continues to hit the already struggling high street, KIS Finance has teamed up with retail expert, James Child, to look at how some local businesses are cleverly adapting to the changing retail environment.

With many small businesses now becoming central to their local communities, offering personal service and support during these challenging times, this report looks at whether the future of the high street may lay in their hands.

It’s no secret UK high streets have been in trouble in recent years. A shift in consumer spending has challenged high street shops, as people opt for online retailers which offer them convenience, choice, and cheaper prices.

While essential businesses like supermarkets, pharmacies and banks have been able to remain open during the UK lockdown, non-essential retailers were forced to close.

This has unfortunately seen a number of retailers fall into trouble. Since February, when the coronavirus first hit the UK, a number of stores have gone into administration, including:

- Oddbins – wine and drinks off-license business (February 2020)
- Brighthouse – rent-to-own retailer (March 2020)
- Laura Ashley – fashion retailer (March 2020)
- Oasis and Warehouse – fashion retailers (April 2020)
- Kath Kidston – vintage inspired fashion and accessories (April 2020)

Other retailers are having to consider drastic measures to survive. The Arcadia Group, which owners of fashion brands like Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins have served notice to landlords that they will be walking away from over 100 stores by summer's end.

It’s almost certain many other retailers are having to review their store portfolios and we may not see some of the big names reopen when the pandemic's finally over.

Online spending, however, has been increasing rapidly since the start of the lockdown as it offers zero contact shopping and delivery. According to ONS data, 22.3% of all retail sales were done online throughout the month of March 2020. That’s a 12.5% growth since the same time last year.

But, it’s not all doom and gloom!

It’s sad to hear an already struggling high street may have to wave goodbye to some of its biggest names, along with many hard hit smaller retailers, as a result of the pandemic. But this could be a chance for some local, small and independents to take their spots, if they can cleverly adapt to the new retail environment.

In a small silver lining of the pandemic, we've seen many local businesses and retailers step up and start to offer services to customers that they didn’t before.

KIS Finance have spoken to James Child, Head of Research at Estates Gazette, on what the high street will look like after the pandemic and how consumer shopping habits have shifted.

Is this a chance for local businesses to grow?

While a lot of small independent businesses have been forced to close during the pandemic, and unfortunately some may not reopen, others have been able to adapt and expand their services in order to keep going.

With most retailers being shut and supermarkets struggling to keep up with the demand for home deliveries, customers have been turning to local shops and suppliers instead. Some of these local businesses have set up delivery services for the first time and gained customers who didn’t use them or even know they existed before.

Many have turned to social media as an excellent way to reach out to their local market to promote their products and advertise their services. Local community pages on Facebook have seen their membership grow, as people promote and talk about local businesses that are serving their community.

James says: “There has been a swell of goodwill for both retailers and community groups which have come together during these difficult times.

Consumers will be more aware of the potential of local shopping than they perhaps were, previously.”

While e-commerce stores have been taking over from the high street in recent years, this enforced change to our shopping habits may well be a chance for small independent retailers to make a comeback.

Customers will have had the opportunity to try new products and services from local businesses that they may not have known existed before or wouldn’t have thought of using when more convenient or familiar options were open to them.

How can local retailers continue to flourish after the pandemic?

What the pandemic has taught us is just how important we all are to each other. Local businesses have tapped into the sense of community that we’re all craving amid the anxiety and concern that the pandemic has created.

This needs to carry on when ‘normal life’ resumes if we want our local retailers to survive.

Small shops and businesses can maximise their chances of maintaining their new customer base by focusing on what large retailers can’t offer; a personal, human touch. Large companies’ data bases may remember your birthday or recommend products you may be interested in based on your last order, but this is impersonal and automated. Only small, local businesses can connect with their customers in a real way and build up genuine and beneficial relationships.

When the pandemic ends, small businesses need to look at how they can continue to offer more to meet the needs of their customers.

People like a personal service, but when life gets busy, convenience often overtakes these needs. Post lockdown, these businesses need to keep offering delivery services to those who need this convenience if they want to hold onto those customers.

James says: “The relationship between local businesses and their customers is as important as it has always been. Development of those relationships at a human level can work to secure increased footfall and spend.
Customers are loyal to businesses and stores as they are to brands. Tapping into this has always been paramount to success, the current conditions have allowed these retailers to showcase their offer.

In order to maximize this during this relative window of opportunity, these retailers shouldn’t always need to replicate what larger retailers do, as its their differences that often set them apart.

Increasingly people are willing to pay a little more to support local stores. I believe this trend will continue in a post-COVID19 UK, especially for those with disposable income.”

Will people feel safer in small shops, even after social distancing measures are relaxed?

While it’s true that many of us will be eager for things to return to normal, we’re also likely to continue to feel a little nervous about gathering in large numbers again for some time. With the Government’s chief medical officer stating that the requirement for social distancing is expected to last until at least the end of the year, we’re all likely to find our concerns for our health and safety mean that we may prefer to avoid large stores and retail parks.

“Safety is important to people and it’s likely that whilst we can expect a spike in shopping trips post-lockdown, those social distancing measures we have become accustomed to will remain for some time.”

Consumers may feel safer visiting small shops where it could be easier to control numbers and maintain distance between customers in a way that large stores may struggle to do. For example, the one-way systems that many supermarkets have adopted would be difficult to replicate in a department store.

“Whilst it is true that consumers will be ready to spend, it is worth remembering the psychological impact that months of lockdown will have had on shopping and leisure habits. People may be more sceptical about spending time in busy enclosed spaces like shopping centres, but local high streets may be a more attractive proposition.”

Of course, in time people are likely to return to larger stores but by then using small local shops for many of their purchases may have become a habit that they choose to sustain.

Are people likely to adopt more sustainable shopping habits as a result of the pandemic?

With the government guidelines only allowing us to shop for essentials, and as infrequently as possible, this is seeing a reduction in consumers’ carbon footprints as a lot of people will be shopping far less regularly than they were previously and planning their purchases more carefully.

“Shopping less is more sustainable. By minimising the number of trips consumers take to the shops as well as shopping locally, they will be minimising vehicle emissions and therefore reducing their carbon footprint.”

Shopping more infrequently also means that people will be having to buy more in bulk, and more products in the dried, tinned and frozen sections where they aren’t able to pop to the shops every other day to get fresh ingredients.

“Shoppers are now heading to supermarkets less and buying more in bulk, a call back to the habits of a decade or more ago when the weekly shop was still the traditional model of food retail consumption in the UK.

What the crisis may have taught many is to think differently about waste and over consumption. In simpler terms, most people could probably live out of their cupboards for longer periods than
they suspected.”

The pandemic may have opened many people’s eyes to their previous level of unnecessary spending and the amount of waste that this has led to. It will be interesting to see if these reduced levels of consumption remain once restrictions are lifted.

If people can continue to shop in this way, going to the supermarket less regularly and shopping locally rather than opting for large out-of-town retail outlets, the positive environmental impact could also be lasting.

Will the pandemic have reshaped the future of the high street?

Our survey of UK consumers before the Coronavirus outbreak found that 61% of people believed the high street as we know it would disappear within the next 10 years, largely due to the competition of online retailers.

However, has our experience during the pandemic changed this prediction and how people feel about using the high street?

Large online retailers, like Amazon, still remain the biggest threat to the high street with convenience and price being the key factors of their success. But many local retailers have shown UK consumers just how important personal service and community really is.

“Often time and money are cited as a reason for shopping online, but we may see the goalposts move if there are wider societal ramifications from the effects of COVID-19.”

Local businesses have been there for us when we needed them, we need to be there for them when they need us if they’re going to continue to survive and flourish after the coronavirus has gone.

EDITOR: I have a personal case in point. A well known nationwide optician's chain (Vision Express) closed all of their branches with no warning, leaving panicking patients with no way to pick up glasses or contact lenses and no way to have broken or damaged glasses repaired or adjusted.

They eventually opened several 'emergency' branches, but as visiting the nearest would involve a 100 mile round trip by public transport, I declined to take such a risk.

Another chain optician Specsavers (a franchise, operated by a local optician, which might be where the difference lay) reached out to me and was able to repair my glasses. The frame was faulty, it transpired. (They employed sensible measures to make sure their staff and patients were protected from possible viral contamination.)

Which optician will I be getting my next pair of glasses from? My local Specsavers, of course.

That's Books and Entertainment: How to Protect Yourself From Coronavirus Scams

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APSCo responds to Chancellor statement on support for businesses and IR35 delay

In response to the announcement that the off-payroll implementation will be delayed for 12 months, Sam Hurley, Operations Director at APSCo, and co-chair of HMRC’s IR35 Forum said: “After five years of lobbying Government for a proper review of IR35, we are very pleased and relieved on behalf of our members that the Government has taken this action to remove extra burdens from the recruitment sector. Even so, we are disappointed that it has taken a crisis of this magnitude for the Government to take action.

“Although many of our members have spent an enormous amount of time, effort and resources getting ready for this change, we believe this delay will be welcomed by all our members and the entire sector.

"Now is not the right time to increase the cost of make flexible labour, or the hiring of contingent labour harder, when our sector is facing unprecedented times. This delay may also have the added benefit of kick starting the hiring of remote workers who operate via a PSC from end clients who have so far, as a response to off-payroll legislation, put a blanket ban on contractors working through this model.”

Commenting on the other measures announced yesterday by Rishi Sunak, Tania Bowers, Legal Counsel at APSCo said: “We are obviously pleased the Chancellor has moved so quickly with a £330B stimulus package including expansion of the business interruption scheme introduced in the budget, cash grants to smaller businesses and a commitment to consult with both business and trade unions to determine what else may be needed. APSCo is already consulting with policy advisers at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to ensure that they have the information and data they need about the impact of this crisis on the professional recruitment sector to help them make decisions quickly.”

“As ever with these measures the devil will be in the detail. We have seen a massive increase in enquiries to our legal helpdesk from our members - in the space of a week we have had numerous enquiries about SSP and contractor rights on top of the usual high number of queries around the implementation of IR35. While some of our larger members may well have the financial resilience to ride the storm, we have to remember that the majority of recruitment firms in the UK are SMEs. This is a sector that will be hit extremely hard given that hiring intentions in many industries are likely to be put on hold or reduced for the foreseeable future.”

“What we also need from Government is further clarity. We need clarification on how it will define SMEs in terms of the proposed SSP refund in the emergency legislation. If it is the Companies Act definition, then agency workers will not count in the assessment of 250 employees. However, if it is the Equality Act definition then agency workers will count, meaning that small recruitment businesses with large numbers of agency workers won't be entitled to SSP refund which could potentially put them out of business.”

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Job figures latest: Massive Spike in Demand

- Permanent vacancies up 87% month-on-month
- Contract vacancies up 84% month-on-month
- Permanent placements up 11.4% year-on-year
- Contract placements up 5.3% year-on-year
- Salaries for permanent rolls dip 2.6% year-on-year
- Huge uptick in demand for talent

January 2020 saw an absolutely huge spike in demand for talent with permanent vacancies up 87% month-on-month while contract vacancies also rose by 84%.

This is according to the latest monthly Recruitment Trends Snapshot report from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) in conjunction with growth analytics platform cube19.

While this represents a massive uptick it must be viewed in the context of the previous month, December, which saw not only the normal seasonal downturn but also uncertainty around the late General Election which put the brakes on all but crucial hiring.

Year-on-year the picture is more stable with permanent vacancies remaining stable and an increase of 4.6% in contract vacancies suggesting that last year employers took a business as usual approach to hiring despite the ever evolving economic climate.

Ongoing skill shortages

Permanent and contract placements were also up year-on-year by 11.4% and 5.3% respectively with recruitment forms reporting a tight candidate market and ongoing skill shortages across all professionals sectors

This aligns with reports from the British Chambers of Commerce which state that more than seven in ten companies reported hiring difficulties in the final three months of 2019. However, month on month placements jump to an increase of 35% and almost 5% respectively, reflecting the usual seasonal delay in start dates for new roles.

Salaries soften, revenue rises

Salaries for permanent roles fell 2.6% year-on-year and 5% month-on-month as businesses watch their purse strings amid Brexit uncertainty. Despite this, the recruitment sector remained resilient, as recruiters reported 40% increased revenue from permanent placements year-on-year, indicating a marked increase in sales volumes.

Ann Swain, CEO of APSCo said: “After a slow December which was heavily impacted by political uncertainty, we’ve seen a welcome rebound in hiring activity. Skills shortages are rife, which can only mean increased opportunities for recruiters and while the government has introduced a National Skills Fund as a way of growing our own talent to mitigate talent gaps in the future, access to skilled professionals from Europe and beyond must be maintained

Jo McGuire, Global Sales Director at cube19 added: “Thankfully, it looks like the clouds are beginning to clear as we move away from Brexit. After years of political stalling there appears, at last, to be a purpose and direction back in the economy. With that in mind, after the December blip, 2020 could well be a bumper year for the recruitment sector with a return to financial consistency as businesses take the blinkers off with regards to spending and re-engage with hiring.”

Full line-up announced for exchange – the employee experience event

HR’s most insightful event releases its impressive speaker list for 7th May 2020.

ExChange,  the employee experience event, has today just revealed its full roster of presenters, with speakers from all areas of HR, workplace culture, workplace diversity and employee experience leading the way in the day’s discussions.

The event,jointly hosted by the Employee Engagement Alliance and world-leading HR technology provider, Benefex, will gather together the industry’s leading lights to discuss the best ways to create, manage, and develop employee experiences in the 2020s.

Attendees will be able to listen to the latest insights and practical advice for tackling today’s workplace culture issues, and learn how to develop strategies for taking their organisation’s employee experience even further.

The event will take place on the Ohana floor of the Salesforce Tower (formerly Heron Tower) in London, offering sweeping views of the city in the tranquil, comfortable setting of a business with a market-leading employee experience.

Ruth Dance, host of ExChange and Managing Director of the Employee Engagement Alliance said, “The best way to improve your workplace culture is holistically, by creating employee experiences that meet and exceed your people’s needs from their first day. For our second ExChange, we’re bringing together some of the biggest names in the industry, and they’ll be showing us all how to transform employee experiences for the coming decade.”

ExChange speaker, and Founder & CEO of Benefex, Matt Macri-Waller remarked, “This is going to be a fascinating event. I'm delighted to take part alongside like-minded business leaders and HR professionals who can see change in the world of work and want to take their organisations into the future. But we won’t just focus on what’s coming in the distant future; there’s plenty of take-home advice that we can all start using right away, and that’s really exciting, too.”

Leaders and innovators from the world of employee experience will spend the day sharing critical insights with CEOs, HR Directors, Chief People Officers, and Communication and Employee Engagement specialists.

Full speaker line-up is:-
Mike Adams OBE – CEO, Purple
Linda Aiello – SVP International Employee Success, Salesforce
Emma Bridger – Managing Director, PeopleLab
Rachel Clacher – Co-Founder & Director, Moneypenny, Founder & Trustee at WeMindTheGap
Emma Codd – Global Special Advisor on Inclusion, Deloitte
Cynthia Davis – CEO & Founder, BAME Recruitment, Chair of the Board of Directors, Pop Up Projects
Anoushka Dossa – Director – Talent, Creative Access
Tricia Driver – Founder and CEO, A New Normal
Simon Fanshawe OBE – Partner, Diversity by Design
David Littlechild – Global Head of Culture, Engagement & Wellbeing, LSEG
Matt Macri-Waller – Founder & CEO, Benefex
Sarah Meurer – Head of Internal Communications, Nestlé UK&I
Linda Moir – Owner, Putneyred
Kate Nash OBE – CEO, PurpleSpace, Creator, #PurpleLightUp Movement
Tim Oldman – Founder & CEO, Leesman
Emma O’Toole – Facebook
Jane Roques-Shaw – Global Executive Director, Culture and Engagement, WarnerMedia
Anna Whitehouse – Founder, Mother Pukka
Keith Williams – Founder, KMW3

More details on the speakers can be found at: www.exchange.events/speakers

Key facts:-
Event date – May 7th, 2020
Location – Ohana Floor, Salesforce Tower, London
Tickets – www.exchange.events

Eight scam calls per second into the UK

Overseas call centre scams have been a massive problem in the UK for a number of years, and it’s still ongoing, with an average of 21 million scam calls per month in the UK. A horrifying eight every second.

 BBC’s ‘Panorama – Spying on the Scammers’ last night showed a huge amount of insight into one call centre in India which focuses solely on scamming victims in the UK, Australia and the USA.

The scams they’re committing are sometimes known as ‘impersonation fraud’ (where a scammer pretends to be someone they’re not) and it is one of the UK’s most common types of scam. 

In the year between April 2018 and April 2019, 23,500 complaints of this type of fraud were made to the City of London Police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.

Financial losses to impersonation fraud are in excess of £9m per year, but it is believed by the Bureau that up to 60% of cases never get reported.

Has the UK trained scammers to commit fraud against us?

Since 1998, major UK companies have been outsourcing to foreign-based call centres to handle their customer service processes. Many banks, utility companies, communication providers and financial services have moved their call centres abroad, predominantly to India, in an effort to save money on more expensive UK premises and staff wages.

Where call centre scams mainly started with a few rogue employees working in genuine call centres making some extra money on the side by stealing customers’ data from their workplace, there are numerous call centres in India where their entire business is cold-calling and scamming people.

By working in large, genuine call centres previously, these people gained the experience required to enable them to effectively plan and undertake scams.

Some call centres even employ ‘Culture Trainers’ who teach workers how to sound British by teaching them conversational skills, popular culture, British colloquialisms and how to neutralise their accents.

Companies are now moving call centres back to the UK, so what will the workers do now?

Due to the lack of data security in foreign call centres, which caused major data breaches and fines in the past, some UK companies have, or are intending to  planning to, move all operations back to the UK. 

For example, banking giant Santander moved all of their call centres back to the UK in 2011, with insurance company Aviva choosing to do the same. 

In 2003, BT outsourced their call centre operations to India, Bangladesh and the Philippines but have now pledged to have all operations moved back to the UK by the year 2020.

With several large companies pulling operations away from foreign countries and call centres closing down, this means that many workers will be left with no income but will still have the communication skills they have learnt. 

With unemployment doubling in India in the last few years and the resulting competition for jobs being so high, it’s no wonder a lot of workers are turning to scammer gangs of when so much money can be earned by those with the necessary skills.

These gangs are almost impossible for UK police to trace, the scammers can change their phone numbers and IP addresses to make it appear as if they are in an entirely different country. So, unlike in the UK, there are few consequences of committing these crimes so there is no real deterrent to prevent them from happening.

For further fraud resources, do take a look at the online fraud guides of https://www.kisbridgingloans.co.uk/guide-to-fraud-prevention/

(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay )

New leadership simulation transforms business education

The ‘Kerovka’ simulation, created by Prendo Simulations in collaboration with Professors at Kellogg School of Management and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is revolutionising business and management education by enabling students to learn by actually doing something.

Currently employed by a number of top business schools in the world, including Kellogg, Wharton, HEC Paris, and Saïd Business School at University of Oxford, the Kerovka simulation is the latest in Prendo’s educational simulations.

Covering key topics like crisis management, managing trust and reputation, stakeholder management and responsible leadership, the Kerovka simulation gives business students the opportunity to actively participate during classes, significantly changing the way in which business students learn.

At Saïd Business School, the Kervoka simulation is used in its MSc in Major Programme Management for a module on corporate diplomacy.

The cohort is broken down into teams who, over a two-hour period, experience the challenges and dynamics of working with multiple internal and external stakeholders in a complex scenario.

This is followed by a classroom debrief in which the outcomes are uncovered and explained. The process gives participants an engaging, emotional and therefore memorable experience.

Alastair Giffin, Director of Prendo Simulations, says:  The Kerovka simulation challenges participants to manage a crisis under time pressure, by engaging stakeholders, building trust and managing reputation.

"With radical innovations happening in many other industries, Prendo’s mission is to provide real innovations, like the Kerovka simulation, to the leadership education industry, an industry that is still primarily using centuries old teaching methods.”

To learn more visit https://www.prendo.com/

Women in Recruitment launches equality study

In order to try and understand and correct gender disparity in the recruitment profession, Women in Recruitment is launching a comprehensive examination of the sector and its approaches to female talent, allowing them to benchmark their strategies against the overall market.

The initiative, founded by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) and supported by sector-wide stakeholders is reportedly the first of its kind to conduct such a study.

With recent APSCo research showing just 23% of firms offer flexible working and only 9% provide enhanced maternity benefits, the survey will enable firms to challenge and rethink long-standing assumptions, practices, re-align out-of-date strategies and identify opportunities for change.

Ann Swain, Director at Women in Recruitment, CEO of APSCo, said: "While research shows females account for 41% of the recruitment workforce at recruiter level, this falls to just 25% board level. However, despite this, just 31% of companies have initiatives in place to retain women."

He went on to say: "With this disparity, we hope our benchmarking survey can work as a catalyst for change. For firms working to improve equality, measuring progress is crucial and benchmarking your success against contemporaries can play a large role in driving change."

She ended: "I’m proud to announce the launch of this project, and hope that together we can build an accurate picture of what our workforces look like today, and track progress within our own organisations and across the entire sector."

Take part in the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Women-in-Recruitment-Benchmarking-Project

(Image courtesy  Robin Higgins at Pixabay)

Puzzel delivers new chat bot solution to insurance company If

The Nordic region's biggest insurance company, If, has adopted innovative AI in combination with its existing solution from contact centre supplier Puzzel. The new agreement covers If's contact centres in four countries.

Puzzel, an acknowledged leading provider of cloud-based contact centre solutions, offers, among other things, artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver complete, cost-effective solutions. One such solution is the chat bot, Ruby.

What is a chat bot? It's software that simulates human dialogue using AI. Chat bots have been shown to positively strengthen customer contact.

The bot answers questions around the clock and is fast because it can handle multiple chat cases simultaneously.

The use of chat bots allows employees to free up time to handle more complex cases where personal contact is vital.

AI is proving to be a clear success factor when it comes to customer experience and is an important ingredient in the mix of contact channels.

In the summer of 2017, If switched to a cloud contact centre in the Nordic countries with the assistance of Puzzel. It became Europe's largest cloud-based contact centre with a total of 3,400 customer service employees and the state-of-the-art contact centre became the hub of the insurance company's services.

Kjell Rune Tveita, CIO and Head of Group Services at If, said: “We chose Puzzel because the chat bot solution from Boost.ai offers the ability to build advanced automated services.

"The solution is smooth and easy to implement, which is a good example of Puzzel’s flexible and innovative solutions. That is why we decided to collaborate with Puzzel from the beginning when we transferred our entire contact center to the cloud a couple of years ago."

He added: "We could see that automated services are becoming increasingly popular with customers and our ambition is always to meet the customers where the customers want to be, no matter what channel they choose to communicate with us. The chat bot will be a great addition to our contact centers throughout the Nordic region, and thanks to the flexibility of Puzzel we can grow in the future and gain more customer and business value.”

Gunnar Aasen, CCO, Puzzel AS pointed out: “Puzzel’s business strategy has always been to offer contact centre solutions to customers by building partnerships with those who can offer the most innovative components. For the new solution with If, Puzzel is working with Boost.ai. From our previous experience we know the insurance company is very innovative. Together we saw the potential for AI is huge and it is exciting that Puzzel has now started one of our largest chat bot rollouts in the Nordic countries.”

Gunnar Aasen concluded: “Meeting the customer on the customer's terms may sound like a cliché, but it has never been more true than now. When you are interested in a service or product, you do not want to wait. It should be easy to order and easy to understand. Virtual agents are quickly gaining in importance. Within about four weeks, a contact center can train its company-specific virtual agents so that they can answer the most frequent questions and explain even more complex things. The fact that the Nordic region's largest insurance company is now building its service with Boost.ai as part of a Puzzel solution shows that AI has become an important success factor in keeping customers satisfied."

Imprivata further expands Identity and Access Management capabilities for the UK healthcare market

Imprivata®, the digital identity company for healthcare, has today announced the extension to its Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions with Imprivata Identity Governance™, which is now available in the UK.

 A proven solution, that has been designed specifically for healthcare and is already widely implemented at some of the largest public health systems in the US, Imprivata Identity Governance™ enables organisations to easily manage user accounts, controlling access to sensitive patient records throughout the employee lifecycle. User entitlement policies and controls can be enforced so that compliance obligations including GDPR requirements are met.

“With Imprivata Identity Governance, we can easily provision users when they first join the hospital,” says Leah Dorman, Information Systems Security Analyst at Northern Light Health, a 1,176-bed integrated health delivery system that serves the state of Maine, USA. “When employees are added to our HR system, they’re assigned a role through Imprivata Identity Governance where each role has been mapped to their job code. The solution enables us to automatically grant users access to applications and systems associated with each role. In fact, we continue to add more applications for automating user provisioning.”

Imprivata Identity Governance™ enables NHS Trusts and other organisations to:

• Introduce precise role-based data access for all staff;
• Increase productivity of clinical staff by removing barriers to technology;
• Strengthen data security with faster threat evaluation and remediation;
• Better manage compliance with analysis of usage data via dashboards; and
• Reduce IT costs by automating identity management and self-service portal for users.

Same-day access rights to clinical systems
With Imprivata Identity Governance™, care providers can access key clinical systems immediately. When staff leave or move to a new role, their user accounts are automatically adjusted or closed, ensuring that access to data is tightly managed.

Self Service Portal
Users are able to update or reset their passwords and request access to additional applications quickly, without IT intervention, saving significant time for IT support departments.

Access and entitlement enforcement
Imprivata Identity Governance™ enables IT and department heads to manage identity roles and entitlements over the entire lifecycle of a user. Workflows allow for certification and remediation of access rights, making the process easy and fast.

Governance, risk management and compliance dashboard
Compliance teams and security officers can view complete user behaviour and entitlements in reports and dashboards that combine rights and usage data.

Imprivata Identity Governance™ is part of the fully integrated Imprivata platform for Identity and Access Management which includes Imprivata OneSign® Single Sign On, Imprivata Confirm ID for Clinical Workflows, and Imprivata OneSign Spine Combined Workflow.

Wes Wright, CTO, Imprivata said: “Managing access to sensitive patient information is critical for healthcare organisations. Clumsy security and slow to provision IT systems lead to frustration for frontline staff. When Imprivata Identity Governance™ is combined with Imprivata OneSign Single Sign On, users have immediate access to all the data they need to do their job with the simple tap of a badge or a token. Streamlined login times save up to an hour per shift, giving back significant time to care, which has proven popular with clinicians and aids adoption.”

“Precise role-based user accounts ensure care providerswill be able to deliver high-quality care with immediate access to the correct systems and patient information, and the audit trails to prove it.

"This timely access to the right systems at the right time removes barriers to technology, enabling clinicians to be more productive, confident they are complying with data regulations.”

Imprivata Identity Governance™ automated and controlled user access strengthens data security across the organisation, and provides compliance teams with rights and usage data in a single comprehensive report.

Imprivata Identity Governance can be seen at Digital Health Rewired, Olympia, London, Stand No: B31, 4 March 2020.

To book an appointment with them email marketinguk@imprivata.com.

Post-Brexit immigration system welcomed by staffing specialist

Following the publication of the Home Office’s new policy statement on the post-Brexit points-based immigration system, a top engineering recruiter has expressed a welcome that access to talent from overseas won’t be severed after Britain leaves the EU,  but warned that more needs to be done to address ongoing skills shortages in the UK.

Under the new rules, the general salary threshold for ‘skilled workers’ will be lowered from £30,000 to £25,600 in line with Migration Advisory Committee recommendations. In addition, if an applicant earns less than the threshold, but no less than £20,480, they may still come to the UK if they are offered a job on the government’s shortage occupation list (SOL).

Roles on the current list include civil engineers, electrical engineers and mechanical engineers amongst other careers.

Commenting on the new rules, Lewis Richards, Director of WR Engineering, said: “While there were concerns the end of free movement of labour would severely exacerbate talent shortages which are already prevalent across the engineering sector, news that the salary threshold will be significantly lower for SOL occupations will offer welcome relief for the clients we work with.

“However, with a recent study from EngineeringUK suggesting the sector will need an extra 186,000 skilled recruits each year until 2024 in order to ease talent shortages, relying on immigration alone would not solve the impending skills crisis.

“The new points-based immigration system may keep the wolves from the door for now. But, long-term, individual businesses must explore how they can best attract the next generation of professionals to the sector, and retain and upskill their existing employees, to ensure their talent pipelines are resilient to future demand.”

Options, a new pension brand, has launched

Options, a new pensions brand, promises to bring an innovative, solutions-based approach to the UK market.

Options, the new name for Carey Pensions, is an independent pension administrator and professional trustee company providing specialist pension services and products.

It's backed by a business with a 20 year heritage in pension provision and currently administers in excess of £1.7billion across a range of corporate and personal pension schemes. Options Pensions is the UK focused pension solutions arm of STM Group Plc, the cross border financial services provider.

Options is led by a strong, knowledgeable, highly-qualified and experienced senior team and its Managing Director Christine Hallett (PICTURED) has over 30 years’ industry experience with expertise in both SIPP and corporate pensions. She commented: “Options is a robust, honest, and trusted service driven business with a team who all passionately believe in pensions solutions as being the right way to plan for a secure financial future.

"With our wealth of experience, and the strength which is derived from being part of the STM Group Plc, Options has a firm foundation from which we can offer a wide range of solutions, and more options and therefore more choice when compared to most other providers.”

Options bases its solutions on SIPPs, SSAS, commercial property, syndicates, workplace pensions, auto-enrolment and third party administration. It also provides specialist commercial property services for individual SIPP, SSAS and syndicates.

Options’ brand imagery is inspired by the growth rings of a tree and reflects the strength and confidence the business has gained over the last 20 years, and the foundation which that provides to enable the business to craft solutions from products.

Hallett adds: “For most providers, talking about SIPP, SSAS, workplace pensions and other products is where the conversation ends. For us, as a solutions provider aiming to offer more choice, it’s where the conversation begins. Planning for tomorrow needs options – so our new brand is all about providing the best solution, not just a particular product.”

Options is investing heavily in systems and technology so that advisers and their clients can access their pensions information with ease and to enable Options to respond quickly and effectively to their needs. It is also committed to providing advisers with the knowledge and support they need to offer the best advice and service to clients. This commitment includes Options’ partnership programme which gives advisors access to resources and training in a range of areas including technical, marketing, presentations, webinars, client meetings, business planning, education and training.

Alan Kentish, CEO of STM Group Plc, said: “This is a really exciting next step for both STM Group and Options. Strategically, as a group, we have stated that we are keen to do more in the UK pensions market, and with the Options team we have all the right ingredients to do so. The rebrand to Options is the final piece of the jigsaw in being able to offer advisers and their clients a true, solutions-driven service that is capable of delivering Workplace Pensions via its authorised Master Trust through to highly complex bespoke SIPPs (including syndicated commercial property ownership) for the high net worth market. I am looking forward to seeing the success of the team’s hard work.”

Find out more at https://www.optionspensions.co.uk/

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Could a business fail over too much self-belief?

Being too optimistic about one’s ability and future prospects could be one reason businesses are failing, according to research by the University of Cologne.

The study, conducted by Professor Fabian Sting and a team of interdisciplinary co-authors, learned that businesses could be failing as managers might see their own innovation abilities and future more optimistically than they actually are, affecting how they view their ideas.

Failing to grasp the true value of an idea could cause a business to be run on poor selection decisions, miss out on great opportunities or to make costly investments, which could threaten their survival.

“There is an optimistic illusion rooted in the human need to maintain, defend and promote a positive self-view, which explains why so many entrepreneurs and CEOs take overly big and risky strategic shifts that could potentially harm their business,” says Professor Sting.

A person’s self-belief can be affected by the environment they are in, such as an organisation, as it can manipulate identities through cues contained in job role definitions.

For this reason, employees that are higher up in the organisation may become overconfident in an instinctive attempt to conform to their role expectations.

“As employees move up the career ladder, they usually acquire a stronger belief in their own abilities to accomplish tasks, particularly when this belief is reinforced in their daily work. For example, having a separate office, wearing more formal clothing and taking part in leadership meetings,” says Professor Sting.

However, having optimism is not all bad as the authors say that entrepreneurs and CEOs need to be sufficiently optimistic about their abilities to set up a business, otherwise they would not take such action.

The study was conducted on a large corporate process innovation dataset, validated on 9,000 people in an online experiment, and published in the Academy of Management Journal.