.

Pulling a sickie is part of workplace culture. Who hasn’t psyched themself up for the 9am phone call to the boss and explained in your best deathbed croak that you won’t be in today because you’ve suddenly come down with a ‘nasty bug’, which miraculously clears up the following day? Currently, sick notes, or fit notes, to give them their official...

In today’s high-velocity corporate world, the silent spectre of imposter syndrome looms large, particularly over women who ascend the precarious rungs of the corporate ladder only to find themselves shadowed by self-doubt. This pervasive issue, where capable individuals teeter on the brink of feeling like frauds despite towering achievements, demands more than a cursory nod from leaders. It calls for a...

A new idea from Laughology! Laughology has developed a new AI-powered app that uses facial recognition and data from your emails and texts to determine how happy you are and provide a personally curated joke to cheer you up if you’re sad. H-app-y links to other apps and utilities on your mobile phone and uses an algorithm to determine your mood....

Are leather-style trousers appropriate workwear? I ask because the other week I was at an event delivering a keynote and chatting to the client before I went on stage. I was wearing a pair of leather-style leggings. As I was chatting, the head of HR interrupted to ask a question and looked me up and down in that trying-not-to-be-obvious but blatantly...

After years of working away from the office, many of us may prefer to continue working from home in our yoga pants with our dog or cat by our side. Hybrid working is now the norm, but there’s a strong desire among business decision-makers (BDMs) to get people back into the office. Data from the Microsoft Work Trend Index research shows...

Getting up early to work on a paper before the dreaded Teams back-to-back calls start and working late once they finish is a common groan I hear. I do it myself. ‘If I could just find some time to do my actual work’ is something I often hear and empathise with. However, I work for myself, so my workload is something...

2023 was not just another year in the corporate world; it was a theatrical production branding workplace behaviour. There was the overt "lazy girl” job trend - a cheeky nod to roles offering a ‘supposed’ better work-life balance, a stark contrast to the hustle culture of yesteryears. It's a trend that celebrates the notion of doing a job you love and...

Christmas is a minefield. The list of pitfalls includes optimistic expectations of extended leave, complaints about the quality of the food at the Christmas do and Ian from accounts and his proclivity to photoshop his genitals onto the firm’s Xmas card. But by far, the most incendiary work bomb in the festive problem arsenal must be the end-of-year bonus. If you're...

Are we creating unhelpful links to phrases like ‘workplace stress’ and ‘anxiety’ and, in doing so, amplifying normal levels of human experiences to the point where people start to associate them with mental illness? How do we know when worry and anxiety are serious enough to stop us from working? Research suggests it’s younger people in particular who are most likely...