Any redundancy payment that an employer makes to an employee is part of pay and hence is an expense accounted for on the employer's profit and loss account, taken in the month in which the redundancy occurs.

Computer systems comprising hardware and software form significant elements in many people’s working lives. In any new system implementation, users are not passive, compliant beings. They have choices. They can react in one of four ways: adoption, compliant acceptance, reluctant acceptance or rejection. As a result, it is critical that users are fully involved in system specification from initial management thoughts to implementation.

Around 80% of UK managers are untrained in people-management. Just think about the improvement in your organisation's lot if it were the other way. We offer a nine-month programme covering hiring, managing and developing people in 18 webinars and 3 workshops. It's for managers who want the Level 7 knowledge and skills without the assessment from formal courses. And it's completely free of charge. Can you think of managers in your own firm who don’t have the skills and knowledge to effectively manage people?

The issue is not if a four-day week would be beneficial to the nation and to its people. That argument’s been made and there are plenty of examples of how well it works. The issue is that our firms are incapable of reducing the working week because shareholders aren’t in it for the long term. And our employees aren’t prepared to earn less or invest in themselves either. It's impasse - but here's an action plan.

We hear bad things about the NHS. We are led to believe that all staff are stressed to blazes and unable to function properly in a broken system. But far from it. My conclusions from my brief period as voyeur are that these guys know how to make a system work. I think industry can learn a lot from the way that hospital staff interact. Here's the story that illustrates how.

The Web is full of articles about what went wrong with Thomas Cook. It had debt and no cash. Ignoring the fact that Thomas Cook experienced changing markets, just how should managers work to avoid becoming an insolvency casualty? Many firms run with low reserves and high debt. This is a dangerous operating point. Here we discuss options and give examples of business strategy for safer operation.