THE HUB RETAIL RECRUITMENT’S WEEKLY NEWS SNIPPETS

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THE HUB RETAIL RECRUITMENT’S WEEKLY NEWS SNIPPETS

  • Date: 11 January 2017
  • Posted By: admin

Welcome to our second blog of 2017. Our pick of this week’s news stories are: Supermarkets ups and downs; Snapchat to base itself in London; and Fancy a shorter working day?

Supermarkets ups and downs: Morrison’s had its best Christmas for 7 years, with sales up by 2.9% for the 9 weeks running up to Christmas. For the other supermarkets, fortunes were mixed. Tesco continue its resurgence, increasing its market share by 1.6%, but it was the discounters, Aldi and Lidl that were streets ahead of everyone, whilst Asda’s results were lagging. It’s interesting that Tesco, despite its month on month climb back up the tables, announced that it was losing 1000 jobs by closing 2 of its distribution centres and rationalising its management structure. This will partly be offset by 500 new jobs in the remaining centres. So that’s the headline Christmas results from the supermarkets – no doubt by the time we post next week’s blog, we’ll have some of the High Street retailers’ results to tell you about.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38567144

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2017/01/discounters-sieze-market-share-from-big-4-over-christmas

http://www.itv.com/news/2017-01-09/tesco-announces-1-000-jobs-to-go/

Snapchat to base itself in London: This post-Brexit period is proving very confusing: on the one hand the FTSE is booming, whilst sterling has fallen back again. So the future seems somewhat uncertain. Yet, Snapchat clearly thinks that the UK has much to offer, so much so it’s putting its international base here because of our ‘strong creative industries’.  And let’s not forget that Google is expanding considerably its headquarters in Kings Cross. So we know manufacturing is flourishing, and Snapchat and Google shows that we’re highly regarded for technological ability. A mixed picture, then – but these are definitely green shoots.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/snapchat-snap-inc-international-hub-uk

Fancy a shorter working day?: The world of work keeps evolving, with lots of different and flexible ways of working. But how about working 6 hours a day instead of 8? Sweden started introducing this approach some time ago – Toyota for instance changed to a 6-hour-day 13 years ago and says its staff are happier, turnover is down, profits are up. Here, Agent Marketing, a company based in Liverpool, is trialling a 9-4 working day, with a compulsory 1 hour lunch break away from desks. Apparently, at the start of this experiment, it was hard for people to make the change, but now staff are ‘energised’ and ‘refreshed’. The point of reducing the working day is to improve productivity. And it seems to be showing some success. There’s no doubt that the stresses of commuting, long working days, and connectivity, are taking their toll. So initiatives like this are worth looking at. And don’t forget how important sleep is, as we’ve been reporting recently. There’s a further article here about some recent research which shows that 25% of workers who have financial difficulties – and particularly relevant at this time of year – feel it affects their productivity. So there’s a whole tranche of well-being at work making its way through. What are your thoughts on these initiatives? We’ll be keeping a watch on these over the coming year, and keeping you up to date on what’s happening and how effective – or not – they are.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-introduces-six-hour-work-day-a6674646.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/07/six-hour-working-day-sweden-uk_n_8928280.html

25% believe money worries affect their ability to do their job

Well, that’s it for another week. We’ll be back here next week, Wednesday 18th January. We look forward to ‘seeing’ you then.