Breathe in the news

Breathe’s Jonathan Richards is quoted in this People Management article about a recent IoD poll which reveals 74 per cent of UK business directors are planning to maintain COVID-19 levels of home working in their firms. 43 per cent said they would maintain other forms of flexible working, including flexitime and compressed hours.

Home-working means that employees are accessing sensitive business data remotely and this calls for careful management. In this IT Pro Portal article, Jonathan Richards discusses cybersecurity in the time of lockdown. With reports indicating that criminals are exploiting the COVID-19 crisis and carrying out phishing attacks, data security has never been so important.

This Daily Express article explains how self-employed people can apply for recently launched Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), which will be in place until April 2021. Jonathan Richards warns that businesses, particularly those who are self-employed, will need ongoing support through the winter and spring as the coronavirus situation changes.

Jonathan Richards recently wrote this article for HR Director magazine. He talks about the findings of our own research to examine toxic cultures and how these can lead to harassment and bullying in the workplace. He explains that A strong and positive company culture guided by trust and empathy is the key to success and will strengthen relationships between team members.

On 22 October chancellor Rishi Sunak announced changes to the JSS that will aim to provide more help for businesses across the UK. In this article about the amendments, Jonathan Richards talks about the importance of staying nimble to support employees as the COVID-19 situation develops.

Many businesses have had to radically change they way they operate and with people working from home, access to paper records and documents has become restricted. As a result, more firms are moving to online document storage and documents. This article explains the benefits and includes comments from Jonathan Richards.