As the UK is now in its third national lockdown, consumers and businesses are turning once more to remotely delivered services and digital experiences to survive in the coming month. As the world adapted to the impact of COVID-19, 2020 saw a rapid increase in digitisation, including from age groups that traditionally had been slower to adapt.

Over the past few years, we have seen considerable progress on gender equality within the workplace, with logistics providers outlining their commitments to building a more diverse pipeline of talent across all levels.

Every year, one in four of us will have a mental health problem according to Mind, with the COVID-19 pandemic placing further strain on our mental wellbeing. This means it is more than likely that a member of your team could be living with mental health issues.

2020 was a major challenge for small business owners and leaders, but despite the tough environment, the UK’s largest CEO peer network organisation Vistage’s CEO Confidence Index has revealed that there is resilience in the UK SME sector. As we enter the new year, the UK SME landscape is expected to pick up steam as the economy improves post COVID-19.

Few business leaders at the start of the pandemic would have thought that video conferencing would be anything more than a temporary solution to a temporary problem. Now, nine months down the line, we are still Zooming in order to hold business meetings. What was at first a safe and novel alternative, is now an exhausting chore.

The Global Talent visa is an immigration route to the UK launched in February 2020 to replace the Exceptional Talent visa. It is one of many immigration routes that businesses looking to employ foreign nationals could use but it often appeals to startups and SMEs because Global Talent visa holders do not require sponsorship from their prospective employers.

We’ve all seen such a huge upheaval for many organisations in the way they work, that it’s tempting to think that everyone was operating in traditional environments – think nine to five, fixed office, company-issued IT – right up until March 2020.

Choosing the right content management system (CMS) is one of the first decisions that needs to be made to build your website. We spoke to Bhavesh Nayi, Vice President at Django CMS Association who here explains the four main pillars to help you understand the best route to take!

Advances in technology have transformed the nature of consumption in almost every sector: it isn’t just the products we buy that are different, it is the way we buy them. But there is one sector which remains relatively untouched by the tech revolution, a sector responsible for over a billion trees falling every year, alongside 670 thousand tonnes of landfill in the UK and 10 million tonnes in the US: furniture.

As we prepare to enter a new year, businesses must take a moment to reflect on the last 12 months as they put plans in place for 2021. For most businesses, the events of 2020 will have been completely unprecedented and how each company has reacted to this crisis will be unique.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many already-present trends in almost every aspect of our lives. For businesses, this has meant an accelerated reliance on technology. Of course, companies of all kinds have had to rely on technology for decades. But 2020 has forced organisations to entirely shift processes from the physical world to the digital one.

The recruitment landscape has changed dramatically. Just before the nation’s lockdown at the end of March, the industry was already feeling a slowdown which was driven by several things, including the looming uncertainty of Brexit. However, when COVID-19 hit, recruitment froze, and the industry became a ghost town; it was an anxiety-fuelled time for firms, their clients and their candidates.

As a writer, of course I think words matter to your business. But they really do. They are how you communicate to customers, stakeholder and employees. They are how customers experience your product. They are what sell you. They rouse people to action.

Preparing a new office environment is often an exciting time for everyone involved. In every room, you see opportunities, productivity, and progress. And yet, some leaders tend to get too carried away in the aesthetics and other meaningless factors, and don’t put enough effort into setting things up in a way that’s actually conductive to all that productivity they envision. If you want to keep things running smoothly, there are some modern approaches to certain aspects of office environment setup that you should pay close attention to.

Many industries have had to quickly adapt to new operational guidelines due to the coronavirus outbreak completely changing the economy and the way we live our lives. Many professions that the public took for granted were prevented from operating under their normal circumstances.

The past year has been make-or-break, not just for individual businesses but entire sectors.  Digitisation and market disruption are hardly new trends, but amidst a global pandemic, they have transformed the way we work, shop and live. Many of the businesses that stepped into the gap of legacy businesses have been scale-ups: fast-growth businesses on an upwards trajectory. Think of the likes of Deliveroo, Monzo and Cazoo. The question remains: will these businesses continue to grow once the pandemic has passed?

It’s been a tale of two halves for the startup scene this year. The pandemic has created both challenges and new opportunities - and for many, it’s been a mixed bag of muddling through and innovating out of a crisis. 

In the United States, almost half of adults (46.4%) will experience a mental illness during their lifetime. From 2005 to 2017, the number of reported mental health symptoms has increased by 52% in adolescents, and by 63% in young adults.

Business statistics show that 1.3 million business trips are taken in the United States every day. Amidst globalisation, more persons are embarking on business trips and this is because businesses extend beyond the border of their country. Before going on such a trip, adequate preparations must be made for it, as this will guarantee the success of the trip.

As we approach 2021, Michael Niddam, Managing Partner at Kamet Ventures shares his predictions about telemedicine, mental health, healthtech, and insurtech.