Craving inspiration and leadership

Britain’s female workforce is craving inspiration in the workplace to empower them to break away from traditional expectations, according to new a new study on flexible working released by O2.

As the role of women in the workplace becomes increasingly more prominent, the research reveals differences in the way that men and women like to work and the things that motivate them when it comes to job satisfaction and well-being.

Women want to be inspired by their environment and leaders, rating an inspiring working environment and clear leadership as more important than traditional benefits, such as healthcare or a pension — compared to men, who place more importance on these.

Women also want their bosses to do more to empower them in new ways of working. More than half say that their boss should make it clear that working flexibly won’t have a detrimental effect on their career (56%) and make them feel more trusted to work from home (52%), compared to less than half of men who say the same.

“The digital world offers huge opportunity to suit the demands of different people in the workforce — whether through flexible working policies that empower staff to shape their own working day, to creating an inspiring workplace that breaks down barriers across teams. To create a truly flexible working culture, actions speak louder than words — and employers must lead by example to ensure that every member of staff feels empowered to shape their own definition of the 9 to 5,” Ben Dowd, O2 Business Director, commented.

APA supports the call for employers to liberate their workforce to maximise their own work effectiveness. An inspiring environment and great leadership are at the heart of the APA Diploma in Personal Assistance (DipPA) and support a PA role in that culture.

APA

APA welcomes increase to the national minimum wage

APA welcomes the planned increases to the national minimum wage, set out recently by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. Gareth Osborne said: "The announcement to increase the minimum wage for adults by 1.9% and to increase the youth and apprenticeship rate by 1% is a welcome one. APA believes that most employers support the concept of the minimum wage and support increasing it to boost the living standards of lower paid workers*. This is particularly important given the Government's efforts to reform the benefit system and incentivise work, especially for the long-term unemployed.

"We also welcome the announcement that there will be a stronger set of measures put in place to enforce the minimum wage. Many employers already pay more than the minimum wage but it is good to see that more will be done to ensure that the small minority of rogue businesses, who are exploiting their workers by not acting within the law, will be brought to book."

APA

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

On the day of the funeral of The Right Honourable The Baroness Thatcher LG OM PC FRS it seems only right that we pay tribute to this indomitable woman; the first female Prime Minister, who led in a male-dominated world.

Upon moving into 10 Downing Street in1979, Mrs. Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives intended to reverse high unemployment and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an on-going recession. [Sounds a little like today]. Combined with her mission to tame the Unions she set a tough agenda and stuck to it – even though it led to her ultimate rejection.

Gareth Osborne (himself non-political) worked closely with her in her first 3 years in office said: “She had a way of talking down to everyone but once you got to know her I found her warm, engaging and amazingly inspiring. She strived to support business; especially the entrepreneurial spirit in Britain, for that passion I thank her. To me she was a great leader. Mrs. Thatcher should have and could have done wore for women but alas she missed that opportunity – it may have been a strategy that could have saved her political career; we’ll never know.”

She was always a topic for graffiti from the whit who wrote: “Get Maggie Thatcher, before she gets you” to the recent addition that “Iron Lady: Rust in Peace.” All hail a legend.

APA

We're back!

The APA website is live again. Not fully, and it is not the full re-launch, but the technology is up and finally under operational testing as we speak. Members can’t yet get in as we will be sending them all new entry details but it’ll happen in the next 10 days. It’s time to draw breath, recover posture, regain our composure and start again. It feels like one of those unbelievable American disaster movies where the heroes XXXX wide-eyed into the brave new world after the nuclear/alien/viral attack (choose any one). Excuse the melodrama but I’ts been quite a ride!

I would of course like to thank each and every APA Member for being so tolerant. We have had nothing but message of support, massive understanding and sympathy and warmest wishes from you all. To Sarah from Norwich who sent flowers on our lowest day, thank you , you saved us all..

In truth, we did have a few who mumbles and grumbles but we apologised (which we do to everyone) and hoped they will stick with us.

 To vent my spleen I have to share with you all my feelings:

“In my time I’ve been cast adrift in the treacherous and icy-cold Atlantic (and I can’t swim), I’ve had two engines fail on a two engine aeroplane and had a brain tumour but none was as gut-wrenchingly scary and beyond my control as the hacking of our system was. It amounted to total violation of our business – it must pale against personal violation but it makes me even more sympathetic. I have nothing but rage and violent imaginings for the perpetrator of this heinous commercial sabotage.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon are for the rest of their lives we will work to find out who did it (or commissioned it).”

To all those new members who still chose to join when we told them the website was down and all those wonderful people who found a route to booked training and qualification courses, well done. Now we take no prisoners.

 

APA