Cat know-how

With the ever-changing legal landscape it’s not surprising that employers face the same common employment issues. Mark Stevens has the top five.

Mike Owen emphasises the importance of only fitting the best quality parts and explains the downfalls of working with poor base materials.
If the base material is flawed, it is impossible to produce a quality product or put slightly less politely: you can’t polish a turd

What do you do if the bank won’t lend to you? Adam Bernstein investigates alternative funding sources to keep the cash flowing. Bob Hope, the late actor and comedian, summed up quite accurately what most believe about bank lending practices: “A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.” While that may not be true in every instance, since the start of the 2008 financial crisis it certainly has been much harder to gain bank funding; it’s also the reason why the government has used devices such as quantitative easing and Funding for Lending to get cheap money out to the banks to, in turn, pass on as loans

Mike Owen describes how persevering with obsolete IT equipment can blunt your USP and suggests an upgrade can be worth the hassle.

The brave new world in which we do business allows no room for Luddites and any weakness in you as a staff member, as a business owner or as a user of another business will be exploited by your competition.

Mark Stevens looks at how the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s decision will affect your business and what to do to minimise its impact.

Following the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s (EAT) decision in the holiday pay case of Bear Scotland Ltd v Fulton & another, there were very few media outlets that did not include emotive words such as ‘timebomb’, ‘floodgates’ and ‘ruin of small businesses’ somewhere within their reports of the decision. But what will be the real impact of the decision for firms, and to what extent should they change their existing arrangements?

Mike Owen tells a spooky tale of not dealing with old inventory and the bad impact this can have on return on investment

How much discretion do employers have with policies regarding their staff’s appearance? Nick Jones and Matthew Hobbs look at the law

Mike Owen thinks you may know more about your customers than you realise and has some useful tips on how to make databases work for you

John Genge gives some advice on phone manner and how it can improve your customers’ attitude to and confidence in your business

Rebecca Watkins clarifies the legal jargon surrounding the break clause in commercial property leasing contracts and how to use it safely