Category Archives: Work & careers

‘Never conduct any business naked’: how to work from bed without getting sacked

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From warming up your voice to avoiding spillages, here are some tips for keeping up professional appearances

I have been pretending not to be in bed while working for more than 20 years, but never got around to codifying my moves until lockdown, when they became useful to others. Before we drill down into specifics, there are some cardinal rules.

First, never let a work call be your first conversation of the day. Your voice is like your face: it takes a while to lose that distinctive, muffled squash of the pillow and oblivion. If you live with others, you can have a general “How did you sleep?” conversation, then an argument; this way you will use the full range of your voicebox, like an opera singer. If you live alone, call your mum or turn on the radio and shout at Nick Robinson – whichever you find the least draining.

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G4S migrant workers ‘forced to pay millions’ in illegal fees for jobs

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UK-based security firm faces calls to repay charges made by recruitment agents for jobs in Gulf states and conflict zones

Migrant workers working for the British security company G4S in the United Arab Emirates have collectively been forced to pay millions of pounds in illegal fees to recruitment agents to secure their jobs, the Guardian can reveal.

An investigation into G4S’s recruitment practices has found that workers from south Asia and east Africa have been made to pay up to £1,775 to recruitment agents working for the British company in order to get jobs as security guards for G4S in the UAE.

Forcing workers to pay recruitment fees is a widespread practice, but one that is illegal in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The practice allows companies to pass on the costs of recruitment to workers from some of the poorest countries in the world, leaving many deep in debt and vulnerable to modern forms of slavery, such as debt bondage.

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The Wodge: can London’s tallest new skyscraper survive the Covid era?

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Nicknamed The Wodge because of its girth, the capital’s tallest ever office has just muscled onto the skyline. But in the age of coronavirus, who wants to jostle for 60 lifts with 12,000 others?

With the City of London deserted once more, its streets only populated by the occasional Deliveroo driver or tumbleweed-seeking photographer, it seems a strange time to be completing the largest office building the capital has ever seen, not least because the very future of the workplace is now in question.

But, rising far above the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie, dwarfing the now fun-sized Gherkin and boasting the floor area of almost all three combined, 22 Bishopsgate stands as the mother of all office towers. It is the City’s menacing final boss, a glacial hulk that fills its plot to the very edges and rises directly up until it hits the flight path of passing jets. The building muscles into every panorama of London, its broad girth dominating the centre of the skyline and congealing the Square Mile’s distinctive individual silhouettes into one great, grey lump.

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Top UK bosses are paid 115 times more than average worker, analysis finds

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Vast gap in earnings described as ‘unfair’ and ‘repugnant’ by trade union leaders

Bosses of top British companies will have made more money by teatime on Wednesday than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year, according to an independent analysis of the vast gap in pay between chief executives and everyone else.

The chief executives of FTSE 100 companies are paid a median average of £3.6m a year, which works out at 115 times the £31,461 collected by full-time UK workers on average, according to research by the High Pay Centre thinktank.

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‘I’d sunk, lost all confidence’: the charity helping young people into work

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Georgina George and Jamil Mungul credit UK Youth-supported programmes with helping them find a new direction

  • Please donate to our appeal here

Georgina George had a tough time at school and struggled for years afterwards to work out what she wanted to do with her life.

Then just before the pandemic hit, it all came together: she discovered a passion for aviation engineering and found a job in the sector that she loved. Shaking off the problems from her past, the 23-year-old began to forge ahead.

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‘My parents told people I had been in a car crash’: readers’ office Christmas party disasters

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Most workplace festivities will be virtual this year – but, on the evidence of this lot, maybe that’s not such a bad thing

We were a party of about 15 in All Bar One, which was filled with other office parties. It was a sit-down Christmas dinner and, after the main course and cracker pulling, I wiped my mouth with a large cloth napkin and accidentally put it down on a lit tealight. It caught on fire immediately – there were flames and smoke and the waiter was hitting it with a cloth and throwing jugs of water as people gasped in terror. I was absolutely mortified – I scurried off to the toilets during the pandemonium and never returned. June, hair stylist, Brighton

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Hangovers, heartaches, horrible meetings: why we all need ‘work wives’

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If you started a new job in 2020, or began working from home, you’re missing out on more than the Christmas party. Here’s why office friendships matter

You never forget your first. I met Abi in early 2009 when we were assistants on a fashion magazine. We sized each other up like a pair of cats on a suburban lawn, then quickly became inseparable. She: Mancunian, funny and forthright. Me: in her words, “Quite posh, aren’t you?”

We were on the bottom rung of a monthly publication that specialised in celebrities and style. It would be fair to say we were not great experts in either field. One aspect of the job involved going to parties to get quotes from famous people. At one, we attempted to interview a pop star, only for our confused interviewee to tell us she was in fact a makeup artist.

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Drawing, running or a podcast in the bath: our readers’ tips for switching off after work

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How best to resist the temptation to send one more email? Try these healthy hacks to put the home back into WFH

Even though it happens in the same space as my Zoom counselling sessions, making music helps me to switch off immediately. I close the camera, switch on my synthesiser and load up the software. That simple process transports me into a sonic fantasy world. I take my voice and the sounds of many of the instruments I play, and I sculpt them.

Every week or two, I upload a tune to streaming sites. Making music used to be my profession rather than a hobby, but that distinction now gives me a feeling of immense freedom. I can create my music in any way I like. I no longer need approval or affirmation from the outside world. John Walter, counsellor, Cornwall

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Life after Covid: will our world ever be the same?

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From cities, to science, to politics, six Observer writers assess how a post-pandemic world will emerge into a new normal

Here are some things that the pandemic changed. It accustomed some people – those whose jobs allowed it – to remote working. It highlighted the importance of adequate living space and access to the outdoors. It renewed, through their absence, an appreciation of social contact and large gatherings. It showed up mass daily commuting for the dehumanising drain on energy and resources that it is.

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Government scraps ballet dancer reskilling ad criticised as ‘crass’

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Culture secretary distanced himself from widely mocked poster amid job losses in arts

A government-backed advert that encouraged people working in the arts to reskill by turning to a career in cybersecurity has been scrapped after the culture secretary described it as “crass”.

On Monday morning Oliver Dowden distanced himself from the Cyber First campaign, which resurfaced on the same day his department was celebrating awarding £257m in funding to struggling venues and organisations.

Dowden tweeted that the ad campaign, which is backed by the government and promotes retraining in tech, did not come from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), while reiterating that he wanted to “save jobs in the arts”.

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Blue sky thinking: is it time to stop work taking over our lives?

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Anthropologist James Suzman says now is the perfect time to rein in our unsustainable work habits. But is it possible?

Three encounters loom large in the anthropologist James Suzman’s memory of his brief but informative stint in the corporate world. The first was early on, when he told a colleague that he didn’t need to spend the half-million pounds allocated for a task because he could do it for free. His colleague was horrified. “If you don’t spend your budget,” he said, “they won’t think we’re doing anything!”

Soon afterwards, Suzman was chatting with a board director about what they’d do if they won the lottery. Suzman thought of the director’s massive townhouse and annual bonus. He was surprised when the man told him that, even with a colossal windfall, he’d continue working.

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Should men-only private members’ clubs still exist?

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The Garrick Club was founded in 1831 – a place where ‘actors and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms’. Women were not allowed to be members and, almost 200 years on, that is still the case. Emily Bendell on why she is taking legal action against the Garrick and Amy Milne-Smith on the history of London’s clubland

Last year, businesswoman Emily Bendell was looking for a private members’ club where she could meet people after work and was surprised to discover that a number of clubs in central London still exclude women. She tells Mythili Rao why she has launched legal action against one of London’s last remaining gentlemen’s clubs, the Garrick, arguing that its men-only membership rules are a breach of equality legislation.

Mythili also talks to historian Amy Milne-Smith, author of London Clubland: A Cultural History of Gender and Class in late-Victorian Britain, about how these clubs first came into existence. She looks at the type of men who wanted to be members and why there has been a resurgence in popularity of these clubs. Is it escapism and nostalgia that is driving this?

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Another day not at the office: will working from home be 2020’s most radical change?

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During lockdown millions started WFH – and most of us don’t want to go back. In just a few months the landscape of work, family and city life has altered dramatically - but are all the changes positive?

There’s a man sitting at the first-floor window of the house that lies on the other side of my back fence. It’s early August, the weather is sweltering, and his window is wide open. He’s talking on a hands-free phone, laughing in that ingratiating manner that suggests a large payday is at stake. He speaks in a fashionable sales patter that sounds similar to real conversation, but crucially isn’t, and he’s practically broadcasting his pitch to the neighbourhood. WTF? I want to shout, but I already know the answer: WFH.

With the exception of Covid-19 itself, working from home has been the big story of 2020. I’ve been home-based for more than 20 years and for most of that time, before my neighbour began advertising his WFH status, I was a local exception, left to my own devices in tranquil isolation. No one was much interested in the emotional dynamics of my daily work regime. But since the lockdown emptied the nation’s offices, it’s become a national topic of conversation.

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Unholy row as leading London church axes musicians, ‘using Covid as a cover’

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St Martin-in-the-Fields jettisons ensembles to focus on in-house provision at a time when freelance performers ‘on their knees’

Ten London musical ensembles claim they have been “summarily dismissed” by one of the capital’s most prestigious churches in an “act of callous and unchristian behaviour”.

The orchestras and choirs have put on concerts regularly at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square for 30 years, paying a hire fee for the venue and commission on ticket sales.

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Foreign offices: the Britons who work from home – abroad

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Covid has forced many people out of workplaces. Some have saved money by moving overseas

When the coronavirus lockdown forced Mason Palmer, 26, to start working from home, the digital content creator had a rethink about where that home was and in July he moved from Bristol to Milan. “I’ve always loved travelling to Italy,” he says. “I was always going over there; it was like an expensive hobby.”

He did not expect his boss to necessarily be on board with his plans and suggested that he move to working for the company, Working Word, on a freelance basis. But the firm was open to the idea and his boss kept him on staff. “Now I’m like the unofficial Milan branch,” he laughs.

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Oliver Burkeman’s last column: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life

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After more than a decade of writing life-changing advice, I know when to move on. Here’s what else I learned

In the very first instalment of my column for the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, a dizzying number of years ago now, I wrote that it would continue until I had discovered the secret of human happiness, whereupon it would cease. Typically for me, back then, this was a case of facetiousness disguising earnestness. Obviously, I never expected to find the secret, but on some level I must have known there were questions I needed to confront – about anxiety, commitment-phobia in relationships, control-freakery and building a meaningful life. Writing a column provided the perfect cover for such otherwise embarrassing fare.

I hoped I’d help others too, of course, but I was totally unprepared for how companionable the journey would feel: while I’ve occasionally received requests for help with people’s personal problems, my inbox has mainly been filled with ideas, life stories, quotations and book recommendations from readers often far wiser than me. (Some of you would have been within your rights to charge a standard therapist’s fee.) For all that: thank you.

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Prevent ‘tsunami’ of job losses when furlough ends, TUC urges Sunak

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UK should adopt German-style wage support for short-time working, unions say

Rishi Sunak has been urged by union leaders to launch a wage subsidy scheme to prevent a “tsunami” of unemployment when furlough comes to an end this autumn.

Demanding the chancellor follows the examples of other leading European countries to avert a looming jobs crisis, the Trades Union Congress said a continental-style system of “short-time working” wage support could be used in Britain to save millions of jobs from redundancy.

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‘Trickle not a torrent’: workers in Canary Wharf and Manchester return to the office

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Suits and takeaway coffees were back out in London’s financial district - but numbers are still lower than normal

The morning flow of commuters arriving at Canary Wharf, London’s financial district, was a trickle on Tuesday rather than the torrent traditionally associated with the end of summer return to work.

Sparse numbers of suited and smartly dressed workers emerged from the underground station, clutching their morning takeaway coffees, destined for the corporate headquarters of banks, financial services companies and law firms.

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Protesters march for fair pay for nurses and other NHS staff

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More than 30 marches due on Saturday in recognition of work during coronavirus pandemic

Thousands of NHS workers have protested across the UK calling for fair pay for NHS staff and true recognition of their work during the pandemic.

More than 30 marches were planned on Saturday as anger grows about an absence of action to match gestures such as weekly applause for healthcare workers.

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Only 13% of UK working parents want to go back to ‘the old normal’

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Survey shows people want to continue with more fulfilling and family-friendly work environments

Whatever the new normal is post Covid-19, we don’t want it to be anything like the old one. At least, when it comes to earning a living.

Lockdown has given people a chance to sample new ways of balancing their jobs and family lives and they have concluded that something must change. Just 13% want to go back to pre-pandemic ways of working, with most people saying they would prefer to spend a maximum of three days in the office.

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