Business News Round Up (16/04/2021)
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UK job adverts soar in April as business confidence booms
The number of new job postings is soaring as the UK tiptoes its way out of the pandemic, according to new data from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation. During the week of 5-11 April, a further 140,000 new job openings were recorded, giving a total of 1.37 million active adverts in the UK. This is on top a further 181,000 in the previous week, which was the highest weekly figure since the Covid crisis began. The three best weeks for new job postings have all come since 8 March, reflecting rising business confidence and willingness to hire new staff as the economy opens up.
Royal Bank of Scotland owner NatWest pledges to support 1,400 scale-ups with accelerator reboot
Royal Bank of Scotland owner NatWest Group has relaunched an initiative to support hundreds of scale-ups, sustainable businesses and fintechs through a network of “accelerator hubs”, including in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The bank’s enterprise programme is open to applications from all UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with businesses joining the scheme in June. Climate focused entrepreneurs are being targeted ahead of November’s expected COP-26 conference in Glasgow. Throughout its network of accelerator hubs across the UK, the bank aims to support some 1,400 businesses at different stages of growth through the programme, with a particular focus on scale-ups – defined by the bank as businesses that grow their turnover or employment by more than a fifth each year.
Improving digital capabilities is top priority for 60% of UK family businesses
The top priority for family businesses is to improve their digital capabilities, with 60 per cent ranking it in first place. The UK Family Business Outlook study, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, surveyed 2,081 key decision makers at family businesses. Over half (53%) want to introduce new products and services and 47% want to increase their use of new technologies. Research shows that only 14% of UK family businesses have a ‘fixed’ strategy where a strong capability is already in place. ‘Digital capabilities’ is the term used to describe the skills and attitudes needed by individuals and organisations for today’s digital business world.
A fifth of UK workers feel remote working has reduced recognition in the workplace
Research from Ezra, provider of digital coaching claims that a fifth of UK workers feel they get less recognition within their career as a direct result of working remotely. It remains to be seen to what extent we will return to a full working environment, as Covid restrictions see many continue to work from home for part of, if not their whole working week. There are, of course, positives to this change in the way we work and the research by Ezra claims that 44% of us feel more productive within our role as a result. 42% also feel their productivity hasn’t changed when comparing working from home to the office, with just 15% stating they get less done working remotely. 55% of workers also stated that they would be more likely to work additional hours to those required while working from home. However, while working remotely has increased productivity and the number of hours worked for many, as many as a fifth of us feel it’s going unnoticed. Ezra’s research claims that 20% of workers feel they now receive less recognition within the workplace due to the nature of remote working.