THE HUB RETAIL’S MONTHLY NEWSROUND
- Date: 30 June 2016
- Posted By: admin
On this last day of June, The Hub Retail Recruitment brings you a varied roundup of news. And what a month it’s been. Dreadful weather – nothing new in that. Majority voted to leave the EU – now that is new. The two main parties in disarray – that’s happened from time to time. England football team nosedives – definitely nothing new there! Not a great month then! But certainly very very newsworthy. So this month we’ll be commenting on: The referendum fallout; The highs and lows of the High Street; and Employment developments.
The referendum fallout: Well, what to say really?! We live in turbulent times. Yep, that’s for sure. Here at The Hub Retail Recruitment, we think what’s needed is some very strong political leadership, for the media to be more balanced, and for calm to be reinstated. The markets are fluctuating – firstly falling through the floor, then recovering, then another wobble, and now a bit better. So we have to hold tight and wait for things to settle down. Time is what’s needed. And new leaders. And with that, today the race is on for the new Prime Minister – and it’s quite a field. The Labour leadership also seems in doubt. The sooner both these positions are decided, the better, so that the job of building strong foundations on which to take our country into a different phase can be happen – and done well. Here’s some good articles from today’s papers – on leadership competitions, on the financial markets, one that tells you what a fall in currency means to you, and one that asks whether the Brexit fear was a hoax:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36671336
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36641174
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/29/was-brexit-fear-a-giant-hoax-or-is-this-the-calm-before-the-next/
The highs and lows of the High Street: We’ve written much over the past weeks about the ups and downs of the fortunes of various retailers – such as how well Paul Smith is doing; what a shame it is that My Local has gone into administration. And of course much about BHS and the Philip Green debacle. Below is two articles about that – one on the Green’s being accused of ‘nicking’ from BHS; and another on how Goldman Sacs played a pretty shameful part in the sale. Also on the retail horizon, Asda is being taken to the Employment Tribunal over an equal pay claim: it’s based on people working in their stores – who are mainly women – being paid less than those working in its depots – who are mostly men. So the claim is that the work is of equal worth, and therefore should be paid the same. We’ll keep an eye on that one as it will have far reaching consequences. A final one in this section is to say well done to Mars who has won best multinational workplace in Europe 2016 – the article is a nice one about the culture and underpinning ethics at Mars that has resulted in it receiving this accolade.
http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/june-online-2016/mars-named-best-multinational-workplace-europe/?cmpid=ebnews_2408009
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/29/philip-green-family-bhs-mp-frank-field
http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/june-online-2016/asda-equal-pay-claim-proceeds-employment-tribunal/?cmpid=ebnews_2391800
Employment developments: Here’s an interesting article about the need for organisations to really think about bringing together what’s being referred to a the ‘three-tiered workforce’. Which consists of Generation X, Y, and Z! Generation Z is people born between 1994 and 2000, which is likely to be the most diverse of generations and the most ‘tricky’ according to this research. Have a read and see what you think if you’re responsible for forging together workforces for your organisation. And going back to the EU/Brexit situation, here’s an article about thousands of migrants planning to stage ‘workplace action’ on 4 July. The purpose is to try and secure ‘legally guaranteed protection’ in the wake of Brexit. The final article is about some research done in the US about the benefits of taking your dog to work. And as you’ll know from previous blogs of ours, we’re great supporters of dogs at work – as we have our beautiful office dog Jack. This further research shows the very clear benefits dogs seem to have on productivity and alleviating stress at work.
http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/june-online-2016/43-believe-dogs-workplace-make-employees-productive/?cmpid=ebupdate_2392344
So that’s a lot to get your teeth into this month. We hope you like The Hub Retail Recruitment’s Monthly Newsround. Next week we’ll be back to the Weekly News Snippets. And let’s hope by then there’s better news all round.