The Grumpy Old Blog

With the impending publication of the Sunday Times annual "Rich List", it will be interesting to see the mix of people who achieve a listing. No doubt it will be all the usual suspects - the retailers "gone large", the entertainers, the inheritors, the lottery winners, the surviving dot com entrepreneurs and those who gain their millions at tax-payers expense while attracting the interest of the researchers at Private Eye! It is fair to say that most deserve the accolade. Yes, there may have been an element of some being in the right place at the right time, but most have maintained their position through hard work, with the added bonus of employing hundreds of thousands of British workers between them. People like Sir James Dyson with his wonderful, great British inventions, Sir Philip Green, maybe not at times the most popular guy in the UK, but nevertheless one of those whose empire employs thousands, Emma Watson the Harry Potter actress who has brought joy...

There was a time when WYSIWYG wasn't just about idiot-proof computer programmes. Long, long ago, in a little place called Reasonable Land, if you wanted a £20 ticket for the Rolling Stones at the Venue, a month or two before the event, when the tickets went on sale, you either phoned up to reserve one (in fairness being told that if you didn't collect they'd be sold), sent in a letter with a £20 cheque, or queued up for one yourself. You paid your £20 and walked off with your ticket. Now, the process is all automated, but you do have to be quick off the 'enter' key before the website crashes. You rarely can collect in person, you can phone a £30 a minute premium rip-off number and give your card details over the phone, you certainly can't reserve one without paying, and occasionally you can 'win' one using the 'enter' key. However, unlike the 'olden days' , added will be a booking fee, a handling fee, a postage fee, a packing fee, ...

"You get what you pay for". A statement guaranteed to strike fear into any financial-conscious parent queuing with their son outside a depressingly dark and noisy Hollister shop. They have to be dark and noisy to reflect the far eastern sweatshops in which most of the product is manufactured. Yes, you get what you pay for in terms of pretty good quality, but the poor souls working flat-out under conditions that would have UNISON bringing the entire West of Europe out on strike, might not agree. Plus the fact the £80 sweatshirt that you are quite unhappy to pay a fortune for comes with an advertisement for the company name on the front (surely Hollister should be paying you?) and leaves the far eastern factory at only a few dollars. Yes, you get what you pay for. My eyes were well and truly opened to brand manipulation several years ago when I undertook a little freelance work for a delightful local Leeds company called Standtondown, based in the Holbeck area of the city....

I had a rather nasty confrontation in my local supermarket this morning, just at a time when I didn't need one. It was a full-blown argument over a packet of paracetamol. Being middle-aged, I was convinced that I had the right to purchase. But the checkout assistant thought otherwise, and everything came to a grinding halt. I sought help. But in true supermarket tradition, their out-of-normal working hours trading habits - 24 hours a day opening or not - do not transcend to having help freely available before 8.30am or after 7pm. The assistant kept infuriatingly telling me "I needed authorisation". With only a decade to my old aged pension, I felt I did not “need authorisation”. Sadly, these self-service check-out machines don't listen. They're the things that supermarkets seem to insist replace the grumpy teenagers otherwise subsidising their huge student loans and who normally sit at the end of the conveyor belt and have perfected that stance so bel...

It has always been said that to get a job you need experience, yet to gain experience you need a job. However, thanks to the vagaries of recruitment and the almost universal dysfunctionality and haplessness of HR, this is only half the story. Some companies are Degree-mad, their policy being that if you haven’t a University education, they won’t consider you for a job. Now, the thinking here is that if you can make it through college, you then equally have the nous to make it through their company ranks. To some of these companies, it make no difference that while, yes, you have a degree, your abilities in literacy and numeracy not only leave a lot to be desired, but, for the actual purposes of the job, are virtually non-existent. Yes, you may have a degree in metallurgy and a degree in animal husbandry, thereby giving you legal right to weld cats, but the fact you have a degree that has nothing to do with either the business itself or the department within that business you ar...

Although there are emerging signs that employers are changing their attitudes toward older workers as a result of increased awareness of age discrimination legislation, some say there is still some way to go to help employers appreciate the full extent of new laws introduced over the past few years. It would seem that one particular area employers still seem to struggle with is that of recruitment advertising. Looking at some recruitment advertisements in the press, simple and sometimes obvious mistakes are still being made. The language being used is proving a reliable indicator as to the level of understanding on the part of both employers and, where used, third party recruitment firms. Recruitment advertising can be expensive in terms of money and time, and employers are urged to get their advertisements right first time. This will pay dividends in terms of cost effectiveness, attracting the right applicants for the job, and at the same time coping with the demands of legislat...

CRISIS PUBLIC RELATIONS A crisis within an organisation: - threatens high priorities - presents minimum time for response - is unexpected or unanticipated (although there may be an awareness of the possibility prior to it happening) A crisis can be caused - internally - by a change in the environment When facing a crisis, management often reacts in a restrictive manner which may not prove to be in the best interests of the organisation. Appreciation of any situation is paramount and response issued in a calm and rational way. Over-reacting can do more damage than leaving it alone, which in itself is not the best method. DEFINING THE CRISIS It must be asked - whether it was unexpected or unanticipated - how was it brought to the organisation's attention - if it was the result of a calculated risk (it must be noted that a risk is a risk, from which an outcome can never be calculated) HOW MUCH INFORMATION SHOULD BE GIVEN IN A CRISIS - authoritati...

“In a recession, do you spend more or cut back on your advertising budget?” That’s the question that is spat out every time the economy dives, and not just by vested-interest parties whose billings are down. In analysing recessionary periods, it is a fact that companies cutting their advertising budgets have performed far worse than those who maintained or increased theirs. And yes, there is the element of negativity in the media inhibiting demand and causing doubt in business confidence. But that hasn’t worried some brands – they keep over-hyping their often over-priced and ‘wanted rather than needed’ goods, habitually to the extent of having people queuing six-deep on the High Street to purchase something that is 40% more expensive in the United States. It may sound unlikely, but according to city analysts James Capel, companies which had maintained or increased their advertising budgets during the 1974/75 recession enjoyed higher levels of sales - 27 per cent over two years ...