Business Energy Costs, North v South Wage Gaps & Reclaiming Training Costs | Issue #22
The latest news and views from the Leadership Bulletin.
Welcome to the latest Leadership Bulletin.
In this edition, we don’t have an “in focus” section, but a medley of topics I hope are of interest to leaders and managers right now, from energy costs to regional wage gaps to how we learn best.
As ever, I welcome your feedback on the content of the Bulletin. You can always email me with your thoughts and comments on lee@edfolio.co.uk.
SMALL BUSINESSES WORRY ABOUT THE RISING COST OF ENERGY.
The ongoing news about energy prices got me thinking this week. Understandably, much of the focus on the cost of energy has been on individuals and households. But more and more people are asking: what about small businesses? The energy price cap only covers domestic energy and many businesses - especially those that use a lot of energy, like restaurants, pubs, certain kinds of shops - are beginning to wonder whether their businesses will be viable this winter. Some people might say if businesses can't afford the costs of operating, then the consequences are inevitable. But if these energy costs are a short-term problem, caused by issues like the war in Ukraine, then this isn't about bailing out dysfunctional businesses, but helping businesses survive until things return to normal. I hope the government, energy firms, banks and others can find a solution - otherwise, when we come out on the other side of this price spike, we could find it has decimated much of our high street.
EDFOLIO LAUNCHES TIME MANAGEMENT E-BOOK.
“I wish I had more hours in a day.” “If only we had the time…” These are some of the most common things I hear from business leaders. Often, we discover that it isn’t really time they’re lacking- the real problem is how they’re using the time that they’ve got. That’s why at Edfolio we have written The Time Management Handbook, featuring our unique four-step framework to help people get more done with their time at work. We’re making this available, including worksheets to apply the lessons of the framework, as an e-book. Click here for your copy.
NORTH VS SOUTH WAGE GAP PERSISTS.
Last year, the median full time salary for people living in the North was £8,400 less than for people living in London (£29,096 vs £37,500). When I graduated 9 years ago, I didn't follow most of my friends to London. I came back home to the North West and have lived here ever since. It's a great region to live in: brilliant people, stunning countryside and the world's greatest sports teams (Liverpool Football Club and Lancashire cricket - obviously). But when it comes to productivity and earnings, we still lag behind London and the South East. This is one of many reasons why I hope the next Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister doesn't just re-commit to 'Levelling Up' but puts rocket boosters on the policy, because no matter where you live in the UK it's essential you can access a great jobs market. Read more on the North vs South pay gap via the Northern Powerhouse Partnership here.
(NB: This is not to say people living in London or the South East have it easy - of course, they have their own problems, especially the cost of housing. But that's why boosting productivity and creating more great jobs outside of London is actually good for everyone, e.g. relieving pressure on London's housing market from those who would happily live elsewhere but feel they can only get a decent job by moving to the capital).
DEPARTING EMPLOYEES AND TRAINING COSTS.
One of the trends of the past few years has been people leaving their jobs, sometimes called “the great resignation.” Let’s imagine you recently funded some training for a member of staff and now they’re leaving. Should you as the employer try and reclaim all or some of the training costs? For me, the key questions are usually:
Was there a pre-agreed and reasonable timeframe for repayments before the training began? If not, the answer must be that you do not seek to reclaim money.
Even if there was an agreement in place, is the employee leaving because of something the company has done or because they have found a better opportunity? If the company is the cause - e.g. redundancy or an unexpected change in job role - I personally think it’s unreasonable to ask for money back.
Last week Peter Done of Peninsula UK wrote on this very topic in The Times. (You can read that piece in full here.) Perhaps the key line in Peter’s advice is this:
“You can minimise the problem in a positive way by making your company a great place to work with a clear career path that promotes the most able and capable employees. They should share in the company’s success. That way, you will be less likely to lose your best people. It’s always better to invest in talent.”
He’s absolutely right. Investing in people should help you retain your talented staff and minimise the number of cases when someone completes employee-sponsored training and then quickly moves on to another job. So don’t spend your time worrying about whether staff will leave shortly after you sponsor training for them - if you’re a good employer, they very likely won’t, and the skills the training brings into your business could be invaluable.
HOW DO YOU LEARN BEST - ON SCREEN OR ON PAPER?
"When reading texts of several hundred words or more, learning is generally more successful when it’s on paper than onscreen... people approach digital texts with a mindset suited to casual social media, and devote less mental effort than when they are reading print."
That’s the conclusion of an article by Professor Naomi Baron of American University. This is certainly something I find. I often feel like a bit of a crank for printing out documents before reading them, but I always find I retain the information better when I do. So, should we pause the move towards on-screen learning and encourage more people to learn from books and/or printed resources? For the most part, I think it's a question of what sort of learning you're undertaking. If you’re trying to learn about big, weighty topics with lots of nuance, then it does seem that they would be better off learning with physical pages, at least as one component of their learning. Click here to read the article.