Whitepaper: The Legal Risks of Data Loss - How safe is your business data when your employess work from home | 28 Apr 2009 | ComputerWeekly.com

Whitepaper: The Legal Risks of Data Loss - How safe is your business data when your employess work from home 28 Apr 2009 ComputerWeekly.com

How will the Budget affect your business?

From Business Link
The Chancellor gave his Budget Report on 22 April 2009
Read the report and further information on the HM Treasury website - Opens in a new window.

The Business Payment Support Service which helps businesses that are having difficulty meeting payments due to the existing economic conditions, has now been extended to support businesses currently making losses. The extension applies to corporation and income tax.

The Three Line Account Limit is being increased from the current amount of £30,000 for trading or self employment income and £15,000 for property income to permanently align it with the VAT registration threshold to £68,000 from the tax year 2009/10.

This is relevant to small businesses who can restrict the information they provide in their tax return to just their turnover, total allowable business expenses, and net profit or loss, rather than having to provide a detailed breakdown of their expenses.

There is a new temporary rate of 40 per cent for capital allowances - first year allowance for expenditure on general plant and machinery.

Corporation Tax rates for the financial year 2010-11 will remain unchanged with the main rate at 28 per cent and for the financial year 2009-10 the small companies rate will be 21 per cent.

For more information go to Business Link

MEPs back EU maternity leave increase

EU Politics News - theParliament.com

Plans to increase maternity leave and introduce paternity leave provisions will help women achieve a better work-life balance and "indirectly" increase female participation in higher positions, according to Edite Estrela.

The Socialist MEP's report, proposing to increase minimum maternity leave to 20 weeks with six weeks at full pay, was adopted by parliament's women's rights and gender equality committee on Thursday.

The report also called on member states to provide for a minimum of two weeks paternity leave, a central measure for Estrela, who is the vice chair of the women's rights committee.

Beating the downturn by staying at home to work - Watching the Web, Opinion - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Beating the downturn by staying at home to work - Watching the Web, Opinion - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk: The web offers a low-risk way of starting up in business.
So you won’t be surprised to learn that these entrepreneurs are not alone in their quest for online riches.
Let me introduce the “mousewives”, as they’ve become known — women who work from home using their computers to boost the family income during the recession.
According to one piece of research, almost half of stay-at-home mothers use the internet to make money.
The survey, by the European Inkjet Systems division of Kodak (www.kodak.com), found that one in 20 made at least £200 a month, with many earning much more.
The work ranges from selling CDs and books on eBay to doing accounts for other businesses.
It also encompasses market research work, secretarial services, party planning, mystery online shopping and web site design.
The main motivating factor is that money can be made with a relatively small investment. In many cases, the additional investment is nil, because the budding entrepreneurs already have a PC and internet connection.
There’s a web site dedicated to “mousewives” at www.mouse wives.com, as well as an online magazine at www.wahm.com (the initials stand for “work at home moms”, so you’ll gather that the site is American). Incidentally, the reason I keep putting “mousewives” in inverted commas is that some of the women engaged in running their own business from home object to the term.
They prefer the word “momtrepreneur”. Whatever the preference, there’s no shortage of clever shorthand for the practice!
Some stay at home mothers have branched into online franchises for everything ranging from toys to jewellery. See www.wahm. co.uk. In fact, the web is packed with sites dedicated to this new breed of businesswoman.

Work Wise Week 2009

Work Wise Week this year will run from Tuesday, May 12, until Monday, May 18.
This will be the fourth year that Work Wise Week has been run by Work Wise UK, an initiative led by the TUC, CBI and British Chambers of Commerce which promotes smarter working practices, such as flexible, remote and mobile working, and working from home.

It aims to give half the working population, some 14 million people, the opportunity to work smarter by 2011.
"This year, smarter working is more relevant than ever," said Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK. "With the recession biting hard, businesses have to find ways of improving productivity, and smarter working practices are an integral part of the solution."

The themed days will take a different approach this year. The week will consist of the following:

Mobile Office Day (Tuesday, May 12) - the first day will encourage people to work while on the move, instead of travelling to a central office.

Remote Office Day (Wednesday, May 13) - this day will encourage people to use remote offices instead of travelling to a central office. These would include serviced office space, touch down centres or even hot spots such as coffee shops.

Virtual Meeting Day (Thursday, May 14) - this day will encourage people to conduct meetings by audio or video conferencing or go online instead of travelling to meetings.

National Work from Home Day (Friday, May 15) - this will be the fourth time this popular day has been run. It will encourage people to work from home on that day, instead of commuting to their usual place of work.

Smarter Travel Day (Monday, May 18) - the concluding day of the week will encourage people to travel outside peak times. Coming into work an hour early, and then leaving an hour early at the end of the day, or going an hour later, and leaving an hour later. This will reduce the peak rush hour, and make the commuting experience far more bearable for many.

European Parliament: How should we help balance family and career?

(EP Press release)

Equal opportunities for men and women, equal pay for equal work, freedom from unfair discrimination: these are fundamental European values. But how far should we go to achieve them?

How far should we go to ensure that people don't have to choose between career and family? How much do we invest in making these things happen? There are practical choices to be made, laws to be enacted and action to be taken. The choices are yours, when you cast your vote in the June 2009 elections.

Times have changed. Many may recall times when women were expected to bring men their...slippers and a woman's role in life was to have and raise children and obey their husbands. Maybe times haven't changed as much as we think.

More women than ever are managers or involved in politics. In 2006, the number of female managers in the EU was 32.6% and the number of women MEPs rose from 16.3% in 1979 to 31% in 2009.

But women in Europe still earn on average 17% less than their male counterparts and one person in 10 has suffered at one point in his/her life from some form of bullying, harassment or violence at work.

According to the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, a woman working full-time works 40 hours a week, while men work on average 43 hours. But can we say that men work more than women, given the unpaid hours that many women put in caring for children, sick or elderly relatives and doing household chores?

And in a world where people live longer and have fewer children, is work-life balance really an option or more like an obligation for the legislator? And are men being given the choices they deserve?

In any case, the MEPs you choose will be the ones to decide on what more (if anything) needs to done in Europe on many issues that could affect your work-life balance, such as job sharing, teleworking, flexitime and compressed working (where full-time is compressed into fewer days), maternity leave as well as part-time and temporary work. What else would you like them to do? Make your choice clear with your vote on 4-7 June!

Remote worker awards

Remote Employment has announced the Remote Worker Awards! They are currently working with prominent sponsors to highlight how remote and home working benefits the environment, business productivity and employees' quality of work life.
Everyone who works remotely or works from home and employers who have remote workers are able to enter. And anybody who wants to work from home can also enter to win a £15k home based franchise of their very own as well as other great prizes, one of them being a Garden Home Office worth £10k!
There are consumer awards for working professionals and anybody who wants a career change, as well as business categories for Home Businesses and Employers of Choice who allow their staff to work remotely or work from home. This is one of the UK's highest prize awards.
If you work remotely or work from home, have a home-based business or employ remote and home workers, the Remote Worker Awards is waiting to hear from you!
See more about judges, supporters, categories, terms and conditions, and how to enter at: Remote Employment