Telecom companies seem particularly keen to adopt a flexible approach to where their staff work, perhaps because they are at the front line of the technology that is making this change viable. That is not to say that employees of non technology orientated firms, in particular those sales focused staff, can not benefit from being based away from your main company offices.

But is it right for your company and right for your employees? We look at the pros and cons of working from home.

The Act has a wide range of definitions and obligations on employers and service providers. It includes the need to make changes to commercial property to allow full access for disable people. Find out more information in our introductory guide to the DDA

One client we worked for was always late for meetings, regularly 30 to 45 minutes late, every time.

There was one notorious occasion when a large meeting involving several companies was held up for over an hour; when this particular client arrived she apologised saying “I am sorry I am late, I’ve just been to a time management seminar”.

Some seminar! So how can you deal with people like this, who are inherently late? Even with important clients it is vital to set ground rules. For meetings, state in advance:

Whilst these guidelines work best if you are the chair of the meeting, setting out your understanding of how a meeting will run in advance, can help all participants.

He starts by showing how to assess where you are now, and where you want to be, before providing tools and examples to help you to achieve a brilliant future.

This is not a book for the feint hearted – you have to be prepared to take up his challenge to be brilliant and to work through the exercises and tools. The promise of almost instant results is made early on, challenging you to see the results over a 90 day period, just three months. And the tasks are not difficult, although they do require some mental dedication and thought. The result is the potential to change the way you approach your daily activities and to truly ‘Be Brilliant’.

Interested in this book – buy it now or read more reviews at:

Get to meetings early.

The alternative is to be late (or possibly exactly on time).

When you are late, you miss things. Meetings have to be rescheduled, and you start to directly effect other peoples’ time apportionment. When you are late, you are rushed, possibly stressed and the result is you are less focused and do not perform as well.

So be on time, but have a selection of small tasks you can undertake (a report or professional magazine article you can read, for example) whilst you wait for the meeting to start.

Despite this, the annual rate of inflation is much reduced from this time in 2004, and now stands at 3%, compared with the 20.5% recorded in the third quarter of 2004.

Prices are not rising in all areas, however, with falls recorded in the south-west, falling 1.5%, and in the south-east where they were down 1.1%. East Anglia showed a reduction of 0.8% and in the east Midlands dropped by 0.4%.

Often these thoughts will come to you when you are least able to take action on them. If you keep a small notebook with you for jotting down these thoughts you need never forget them and can implement them when you have more time. Think of it as an ‘Ideas Diary’.

And you don’t need to limit this to ideas for improvements, add business ideas, inspiring quotes or interesting facts that you may use in the future. Alternatively, keep a Dictaphone or small digital recorder with you so you can make a voice memo there and then, but transcribe the thought at a later time.

If these are all written down in one place you can review them at your leisure and use them when you need to.

You can currently find definitions from Arbitrator to Zone A rents and much more in between.

1) If you can, delegate the task
2) If you can’t delegate it, but the job can be dealt with quickly, in a minute or two, do it, there and then and file the paper away
3) If it will take longer than a few minutes then add the task to your to do list, and put the paper away in a pending file until you need it.

This process can be extended to deal with emails, faxes and even voicemails, as well as traditional correspondence.

Have a productive week!