Guest blog: I was fed up with having to pay extra to travel to work, just because I work part time - By Jo Rossi, Founder of the Get Us to Work Campaign.

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Guest blog: I was fed up with having to pay extra to travel to work, just because I work part time - By Jo Rossi, Founder of the Get Us to Work Campaign.

 I moved back to Kent after 20 years in London, to get a decent step on the housing ladder. Considering my options as I returned to work post baby, I was struck by the lack of flexible season tickets. Commuting from Ashford, and forced on to the high speed train due to unfavourable timetabling, I was faced with two choices. I could buy peak time returns, which cost around 50 per cent extra for each journey, or I could shell out over £6000 for an annual season ticket which I would only use three times a week.

I was lucky enough that my employer and I came to an agreement where I mainly work from home to get around the ridiculous costs of commuting part-time. I very much appreciated no longer having to pay such high travel costs, but I missed seeing my colleagues and being a part of office life.

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Guest blog: How I beat procrastination in one day - By Andrew Boswell, who is a Programme Director with more than 40 years experience in IT and Telecoms.→

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Guest blog: How I beat procrastination in one day - By Andrew Boswell, who is a Programme Director with more than 40 years experience in IT and Telecoms.

Today I’m going to show you how I finally beat procrastination. I stopped putting off those important tasks, the ones I delayed even when I knew bad things would happen if I didn’t do them. Before, I shied away from the most important tasks. To be honest, I was a bit of a ditherer.

How did I do it? The Staircase Technique. And in this case study I’m going to show exactly how I did it, step by step.

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

How the Staircase Technique Kick-Started My Career

I was a programme manager in an international company. One of their key software developments was in deep trouble. All the releases were hopelessly late, and reliability was appalling. Things came to a head, and I was asked to take over.

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Guest blog: How can a reduction in travelling impact pollution levels in the UK? - By Stella Amoateng Asante - GreenMatch→

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Guest blog: How can a reduction in travelling impact pollution levels in the UK? - By Stella Amoateng Asante - GreenMatch

According to the Autumn Budget 2016, the chancellor of the Exchequer in the United Kingdom announced plans to invest £390 million into road and transport infrastructure by 2020-21. The funds are expected to ease road congestion's and reduce vehicle emissions under what the government term as ‘strategic road network’. This will also support the increase of ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs), renewable fuels, connected and autonomous infrastructure.

Among other benefits, it is hoped that this will foster new ways of travel and commuting that will in turn address the ongoing air pollution problem that the UK is battling. The investment comprises the following: £80 million towards ULEVs charging infrastructure; £150 million to supporting low emission buses and taxis; £20 million for innovation of alternative aviation and heavy goods vehicle fuels; and, £100 million for a new UK CAV testing infrastructure.

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Chairman's blog: Work Wise UK Sets the Standard: A new collaboration with the University of the West of England, Bristol Business School - By David Lennan, Chairman, Work Wise Uk

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Chairman's blog: Work Wise UK Sets the Standard: A new collaboration with the University of the West of England, Bristol Business School - By David Lennan, Chairman, Work Wise Uk

Last year on 23rd June the UK made a big decision to leave the EU and we are now in full flow towards Brexit. The impact for most of us will probably  be felt in the Workplace, whetherthis is because of changes to the Law or because our Terms of Trade are affected.

This is our Twelfth year of promoting workplace efficiency by Smarter Working throughout the UK and helping Organisations to introduce modern working practices. Yet we still find that many Orgnaisations, small and large in the Public, Private and Not for Profit Sectors are still not embracing all that technology and modern people practices can offer. This has led us down the path of declining productivity. Declining productivity and reversing the trend will become an increasingly big issue for the UK as Brexit impacts and the Labour market becomes even more competitive.

We need our Industries to be fully prepared and able to attract the very best people and employ the very best working practices and processes.  Productivity is the key to success and to creating successful and growing businesses. Improving workplace productivity can produce enormous gains for any organisation and radically improve the bottom line.

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Guest blog: Cake in the Office - health hazard or edible symbols of collegiality and teamwork? - By Dr Harriet Shortt, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Bristol Business School

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Guest blog: Cake in the Office - health hazard or edible symbols of collegiality and teamwork? - By Dr Harriet Shortt, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Bristol Business School

I am sure many of us are familiar with cake in the office – cakes to celebrate a colleague’s birthday, cake sales for fundraisers in the office canteen, exotic sweet treats brought back by co-workers returning from holiday, and office bake-offs between competitive teams.

The BBC reported last year that this ‘office cake culture was a danger to health’ and the Royal College of Surgeons argue ‘workplace cake culture’ is impacting the health of workers in the UK, citing obesity and dental problems as key issues caused by such activities. The latest report from the Royal Society for Public Health (published in August 2016 and featured here on the Work Wise UK guest blog by Shirley Cramer CBE in November 2016) discusses the impact of rush hour commuting on our health and well-being and notes that unhealthy food and drinks that are made available by outlets in train stations during our commute is potentially adding ‘an average of 767 calories’ to our diets each week. And only in January of this year, The Telegraph reported that civil servants had been warned that ‘office cake culture could be a public health hazard’ by a blog post written by a member of the Treasury’s ‘Wellbeing Workstream’.

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