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There is no escaping it: too much news is bad for you. It should come with a government health warning: “This intellectual diet is fine taken in small doses, and preferably in weekly instalments, via a well-balanced newsletter, such as 10 things from William Montgomery." So, as another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. Please feel free to share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can also subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did. William Montgomery 1. How to regain your enthusiasm. Feeling exhausted, apathetic or dispirited and have rapidly waning passion for your work? You may be suffering from burnout, or perhaps the onset of this debilitating condition. This condition can affect all types of employees – those who are new to a role, seasoned professionals, as well as managers and leaders. Typical symptoms include feeling exhausted, apathetic or dispirited. However, the good news is there are ways to combat this and reinvigorate your enthusiasm for your career. READ MORE >> 2. GDPR’s days may be numbered. GDPR may be rolled back in the UK just three years after first being implemented under EU law. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak told a conference of tech leaders that “[the UK is] in charge of our data protection rules now”, pointing to countries such as Japan, Switzerland and Canada that operate outside of GDPR’s scope. Last month, Oliver Dowden – who until last week’s Cabinet reshuffle served as the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport - said the UK must “[reform its] data laws so that they’re based on common sense, not box-ticking”. The Times 3. The oil must stay in the ground. To hold global warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the level set by the Paris Agreement, 60% of the world’s oil and fossil gas reserves, and 90% of its coal, will have to stay in the ground, climate modellers at University College London have found. That would require 97% of the coal in the US and Russia to go unextracted, along with two-thirds of the oil in the Middle East. However, the paper, published in Nature, warns that its figures may well be an underestimate, partly because the model relies on the large-scale deployment of technologies for removing CO2 that are as yet unproven. The Guardian 4. Life expectancy lowest for a decade. Life expectancy in England has fallen to its lowest level since 2011. Public Health England (PHE) said excess deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic caused life expectancy to fall by 1.3 years for men, to 78.7, and 0.9 years for women to 82.7. As well as pointing to the pandemic, PHE said there had been an “unprecedented” rise in deaths caused by alcohol use, up 20% last year compared to 2019. The Independent 5. UK job vacancies hit record high. Job vacancies soared in August, reaching over 1m – the highest rise since official records began, according to the ONS. The largest increase was in accommodation and food services. The ONS also reported that the number of payroll employees has returned to pre-pandemic levels. It rose by 241,000 in August, bringing the total number to 29.1m, around the same level as February 2020. Total employment, however, remains 1.3 percentage points below pre-Covid levels. ITV 6. Workers ‘won’t return to offices full-time. A survey for the BBC has found that most people do not believe workers will return to the office full-time after the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the 1,684 people polled, 70% predicted that workers would “never return to offices at the same rate”, while the majority of workers also said that they would prefer to work from home either full-time or part-time. Bosses, meanwhile, said that workers staying at home would adversely affect both creativity and collaboration. BBC 7. Students must have say over online learning. England's universities must take student views into account when deciding how much to teach online, says regulator the Office for Students. With Covid restrictions lifted, the majority of teaching is expected to be face-to-face this year, but larger group teaching sessions, such as lectures, are likely to be online in many institutions. Numerous universities have confirmed that they are using a mixed approach. In a snapshot survey of 47 universities, just 13 said they would be offering mostly face-to-face tuition. The others say they are adopting a more blended approach. BBC 8. Enough perks, employees want purpose. For years, companies have splashed out on ping pong tables, free lunch, beer on tap and other wild perks to lure workers and keep them at the office. But it turns out engagement - not perks or pay - is the main reason swaths of people are leaving their jobs amid the pandemic. A Gallup study found that "self-identified disengaged workers" are quitting at record pace, challenging companies to find new ways to boost engagement amid widespread work from home. The Observer 9. Demoralised NHS rejects pay rise. Britain’s biggest health union has said that thousands of workers are “fed up of being taken for granted” after 80% of NHS staff voted to oppose the government’s 3% pay rise. Unison added that thousands of “exhausted” NHS staff, including nurses, healthcare assistants, ambulance workers and hospital porters, were on the brink of leaving their jobs. The government is “now under growing pressure to reconsider its pay award”. The Guardian 10. The bottom line. Kelly Almond is my niece and will be climbing Ben Nevis on 2 October in support of Mental Health UK and in advance of World Mental Health Day on 10 October. The number of children who go to A&E with serious mental health issues has risen by more than 50% since the Covid pandemic began. More than 2,243 children in England were referred for specialist mental health care from emergency departments in May this year, compared with just 1,428 in May 2019. If you could consider supporting Kelly and her friends by donating using the following link, I will be most grateful. READ MORE >> |