Anywhere Working Week - Are you taking part?

By: Appetite27 Feb 12, 05:21 PM

February 27th marks the start of Work Anywhere week.

Anywhere Working is a group initiative to show you how much time and money you can save by remote working. As well as ways to look out for the environment, they give you tips on how to work smarter, healthier and to be more productive. This is the week to reconsider the way we work and take on the challenge of working a little more flexibly.

It is asking individuals and businesses to try out mobile working - from homeworking to working in a cafe or a hub. The site has an Anywhere Working Savings Calculator where you can track the effect you have on the environment, as well as the impact on your own time and personal finances. The site also contains a host studies and tips. The online portal is the first step by the consortium in delivering tools and advice that will help British organisations understand the benefits of flexible working.

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Happy Pancake Day, what will you be putting on yours?

By: Appetite21 Feb 12, 09:42 AM

Pancakes are so famous they even have their own day!

Pancake Day also known as Shrove Tuesday in Britain. Pancake Day is the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. 'Shrove' - as in Shrove Tuesday - stems from old English word 'shrive', meaning 'confess all sins'. It is called Pancake Day because it is the day traditionally for using up any stocks of milk, butter and eggs in the storeroom cupboard which were forbidden during the abstinence of Lent. 

Here at Appetite we are incredibly generous people. Not only can we help feed your brain but we can also help you fuel your body with a simple pancake recipe.  So get your eggs, milk and flour at the ready, stock up on the lemon, sugar and Nutella and get your frying pan or griddle out!

Basic Pancake Recipe

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Achieve a winning workforce during Olympic fever

By: Appetite20 Feb 12, 03:23 PM

It's been seven years since it was first announced that the Olympics was coming to the UK. After all the hype, excitement and planning on the Olympics will finally roll into London town on the 27th July.

Yet alongside the fun and games, the prestige of the UK holding court to this global event, comes the disruption the games are going to cause.  Every day the media brings new reports not only of the transport and road chaos, but of the impact the games could have on business and the effect on workplace productivity.

For businesses this brings additional pressures over what can, for many, be an already stretched summer period. Increased journey times for employees, additional requests for leave for those lucky enough to have secured tickets; and a predicted dramatic increase in the number of absentees and late- comers. 

Over the last few weeks there has been an increase in the media of organisations' trialing remote working.  On the 8^th Feb 02'’s 12,000 workforce trailed remote working to assess the impact of how the company would cope if staff were unable to reach the office.

As a training consultancy we always advocate & embrace the use of technologies that are available to help organisations’ to work smarter and stay connected with those team members who are working remotely from the main office base.  Here at Appetite we enable our own employees to ensure they can work remotely as and when required.

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Roses are Red Violets are Blue

By: Appetite13 Feb 12, 01:48 PM

Training shouldn't be a one off event, but all year through

It’s that time of year, when the shops are full of chocolates packaged as red heart, balloons shaped like hearts and stuffed animals holding hearts. Yes tomorrow is February the 14^thand Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day receives mixed reviews. Many people love (he he) Valentine’s Day while the same amount of people see it as a way for Hallmark to make lots of money and a day of disappointment.  I remember working in an office where there was a constant stream of floral arrangements arriving, from the single red rose to the full works, with teddy bears, chocolates, and roses galore. 

It appeared from the response of the women receiving the gift and the position it had on their desk, pride of place or shoved off to the side, that the size of the arrangement was an indicator of how much their partners had spent and therefore, thought of them.  It raises the question:

If you really love someone, should you wait until Valentine’s Day to show them that you love them?

The same is true of the people you employ.  Training shouldn’t be to mark one specific event but continuously shown to demonstrate commitment and belief in your teams and how much you think of them.  Individuals need ongoing training to help them become more effective and take on bigger and more significant challenges.  More than this they need help learning new skills as the nature of their work – and of your organisation – changes. Too often, companies limit training and development to new hires and to people moving into new roles. This is a mistake, because ongoing training helps people adjust to changing job requirements. It also creates a pool of qualified and available people, who are ready to step into new roles as your organization needs them. This process helps you develop a more effective, efficient, productive, and motivated workforce. Done properly, this will ensure that you achieve your objectives and improve your competitive position.

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Brave New Work - The Office of the Future

By: Appetite11 Feb 12, 03:43 PM

We love technology and how it can make the workplace work smarter and not harder.

Check out this fab article from CNN on their vision of the workplace of the Future and the emerging technologies that may shape our future and the way some of us will do business.  Office windows that turn into media screens, don't you just want it now! The best thing, thing, this technology is literally only less than 10 years away.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/technology/1201/gallery.office-future.fortune/