Soon UK workers will have the legal right to disconnect and ignore work-related calls and emails when not at work. They may also be entitled to thousands in compensation if they are contacted outside of their normal working hours.

This comes as the Labour government announced its proposal for the “right to switch off” as part of its New Deal for Working People plan to improve the lives of the UK’s employees.

But while this new plan can be beneficial for workers, others have shared concerns about flexibility and the risk of businesses relocating overseas if services become harder to deliver.

What is the “right to switch off”?

The “right to switch off” was introduced by the UK government earlier this week, allowing employees to disconnect from work outside of hours and refuse extra work during weekends.

The UK isn’t the first to propose this plan. Countries like Ireland, Australia, France and Belgium already have existing laws in place that give employees the right to disconnect after work. For example, Ireland’s Code of Practice emphasises that employees shouldn’t be expected to regularly check emails or take phone calls after work, nor can employers penalise them for ignoring work-related contact outside working hours.

There have also been reports that employees could take their bosses to a tribunal if conditions under the plan are breached, such as consistently contacting them after their agreed working hours. If successful, workers could be entitled to financial compensation.

The plan could improve employee productivity

Downing Street has stated that the right to disconnect from work is key to productivity and could boost the UK’s economic growth.

The prime minister’s deputy spokesperson commented: “This is about ensuring people have some time to rest.

“Good employers understand that for workers to stay motivated and productive they do need to be able to switch off, and a culture of presenteeism can be damaging to productivity.”

Known as the Great Detachment, the UK was reported to have one of the worst-ranked workforces for employee engagement globally. Moreover, Prime Minister Keir Starmer also blamed presenteeism culture for the country’s productivity crisis, stating that businesses must “find a balance of making the most of the flexible working practices [and] having appropriate arrangements in place to ensure that people can stay productive.”

By allowing employees to disengage from work outside hours, the government believes they can recharge more effectively, in turn leading to greater productivity when they’re back at work. It further emphasised that it isn’t intended to impose the same policy across all sectors, but to recognise the diverse needs of different businesses and roles.

Christine Caffrey, Senior Associate in the Employment Team at SA Law, stated that the increase in hybrid models and remote working has “led to the boundaries between home and work life becoming more blurred than ever”.

“If employers want to get ahead of these changes, it would be a good time to evaluate existing working practices and expectations around working out of hours,” she added. “In a positive shift, more employers than ever have taken steps to place greater emphasis on employee wellbeing, which the right to switch off is intended to support.”

But it could be risky for business flexibility

The government’s plan to impose the right to disconnect has obvious advantages for employees. However, Ross Meadows, Partner at Oury Clark Solicitors, commented that “businesses that rely on round-the-clock availability will find these laws restrictive”.

“If the new proposed law allows, it could lead to less flexibility in the workplace with businesses increasing their employee’s normal hours of work per day to ensure that all necessary tasks and communications are completed within the designated workday.”

Meadows also added that the plan could lead to an increase in employment tribunals. “Courts may need additional resources or reforms to handle the potential rise in cases effectively.”

Simon Roderick, Director at Fram Search, stated that while he isn’t against the right to switch off, the legislation will need “careful drafting”.

“About 80% of the UK economy is ‘service-based’ so if service becomes harder to deliver, firms may look to relocate their operations to more flexible regions.”

As the government only announced these plans recently, further information is yet to be released. While it claims that the plans won’t be a “one size fits all” approach and would recognise different companies and roles, the devil will be in the details. Once the plans are distributed, businesses will have a clearer picture of how it’ll work and how it can tackle the UK’s ongoing presenteeism culture and engagement crisis.

The name “BHS” feels like a distant memory for UK shoppers nowadays.

The now-defunct department store closed its doors for good in 2016 after going into administration. Its former owners were criticised for mismanaging the chain and failing to protect the company’s pension scheme.

Eight years on, two ex-BHS directors have been ordered to pay £110 million for breaching their corporate responsibilities after not placing the company under insolvency when required.

As we look back on the scandal and the wave of bad press at the time, we explore what went wrong for BHS and what small businesses and SMEs can learn from it.

Mismanagement and corporate greed

A UK parliamentary committee report released in July 2016 associated the company’s downfall with “personal greed” and “leadership failures”, stating that its fate was sealed when its former owner Philip Green sold the company to Dominic Chappell – a bankrupt former racing driver – for just £1.

The collapse of BHS cost 11,000 employees their jobs and left a pension deficit of more than £570 million. It was also reported that Green and his family had collected around £580 million in dividends, rental payments and interest on loans during their 15-year ownership of the company.

Green sold the chain to Chappell in 2015, who reportedly had no experience in retail. In May, the court found Chappell and his business partner Lennart Henningson liable for wrongful trading and misfeasance over their management of the company.

It was ruled that Chappell and Henningson had breached their corporate duties by continuing to trade despite insolvency being inevitable by the time he took over. They were ordered to pay £110 million to creditors earlier this week, just two months after Chappell was previously ordered to pay £50 million in June. Mr Justice Leech determined that Chappell, who was imprisoned for tax evasion in 2020, sought to “plunder” BHS and had no realistic plan to secure capital when he acquired the retailer.

Losing touch with customers

Even before the scandal came to light, BHS was already struggling to attract and retain its customers.

With the likes of Primark, H&M and New Look resonating with a new target market of fast fashionistas, the slow-moving chain just couldn’t compete.

Losing touch with shoppers – who described it as “old-fashioned and out-of-date” – sales began to dwindle. Moreover, its financial troubles only intensified due to mounting debts and lack of investment in adapting to the evolving market and digital age – losing around £70 million each year between 2008 and 2014.

BHS had around 13.4% of shoppers in 2000, but by 2016, this had stagnated at 8.2%.

Lack of brand clarity

Before its downfall, BHS was perceived as a discount brand, a Debenhams wannabe with no real personality. Its generic clothing and household products failed to attract customers compared to its competitors, particularly those that offered next-day delivery through online shopping, such as Amazon, Very and ASOS.

Its high rental costs for brick-and-mortar stores combined with decreased customer traffic lead to a loop of financial losses. While it largely ignored online shopping, it also failed to properly utilise experiential marketing techniques to draw customers to stores or invest in improving its in-store experience. Successful examples of this include John’s Lewis’s megastore where customers can explore and book different services or H&M’s smart mirrors that recognise products and offers shoppers personalised recommendations, or alternative sizes and colours.

With outdated trading offers, dated-looking stores and no proper marketing investment, BHS ended up with little brand awareness or purpose, thus inevitably falling off the face of the high street.

While BHS is available as an online store – having been taken over by Litecraft Group Limited in 2019 – its tragic tale of personal greed, financial troubles and not keeping up with the times serves as a grim reminder of how easily business can go wrong if not managed or adapted properly. Additionally, with customer needs constantly changing, brands must adapt their operations while staying true to their core values.

In the end, ex-directors are paying the price and despite BHS now trading online, the dark cloud of corporate voracity and deceit still hangs over its reputation.

The UK’s productivity crisis is due to a workforce culture of “presenteeism” that improved flexible working could solve, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer declared earlier this week.

Presenteeism is a work trend where workers are physically present in the workplace, but are not operating at full capacity. It is likely a symptom of the growing employee engagement crisis, which some HR experts are dubbing ‘The Great Detachment’.

Speaking to reporters, Starmer condemned presenteeism and argued that businesses need to find a “balance of making the most of the flexible working practices [and] having appropriate arrangements in place to ensure that people can stay productive.”

Below, we explain what presenteeism is and how you can spot it within your own workforce.

The root causes of presenteeism

Presenteeism has its root in the toxic work behaviour of hustle culture and high management expectations, where busyness is seen to equate to productivity.

An employee who is engaging in presenteeism will turn up to the office and ‘coast’ through the day by looking busy but actually doing the bare minimum.

Sometimes, the employee may not be working effectively due to being ill, but feeling that they have to turn up (think of that coworker who comes in sneezing and coughing but refuses to go on sick leave).

More recently, a large number of people have been engaging in presenteeism due to rising levels of stress and burnout, which have made it harder for staff to feel motivated in their job.

This type of presenteeism helped to birth the viral HR buzzword ‘quiet quitting’ last year.

Presenteeism has been exacerbated by home working. Remote work makes it harder for employers to track employee performance, resulting in a lack of trust between workers and bosses that has seen many companies demand staff return to the office full-time this year.

How can I spot presenteeism?

Unless you’re closely monitoring one employee for signs of poor focus or low morale, it can be hard to spot, person to person. However, the impact of this workplace trend on a department-wide, or even team level is more noticeable.

You might spot that employees are not turning up to meetings, arriving to work late or leaving early, and are not volunteering for extra projects, leadership roles, or responsibilities.

If your business runs employee feedback sessions, staff members might even own up to their own presenteeism. Previously, workers may have been more discreet. But today, many staff members are openly discussing their own ambivalence towards working on TikTok.

Young staff members are more vulnerable to the practice. According to a study by CNBC, Gen Zers are now the least enthusiastic about their roles at work, as “quiet quitting” becomes ‘The Great Detachment’; where employees stay in roles they find dissatisfying.

How to tackle presenteeism

The best way to fix a culture of presenteeism is to change the culture. Easier said than done, but certainly possible. The first step is to identify the gripes your employees have.

For example, if staff say they feel undervalued, transitioning to a market culture where employees are rewarded with perks and benefits may help. If you think they feel they are not being listened to, aim for a clan culture where opinions are equally valid from every staff member. Multiple issues may require you to pull from multiple culture types.

Whitehall has also hinted that flexible working could be used to tackle presenteeism. A government spokesperson said: “The government is committed to supporting individuals and businesses to work in ways that best suit their particular circumstances”.

Flexible work arrangements have been shown to improve work-life balance by giving employees time to disconnect, which can boost productivity levels. Earlier this year, new laws were ratified that gave employees the right to request flexible work from day one.

Research from International Workplace Group has also revealed that workers with hybrid working options are less likely to ‘quiet quit’. In the study, 78% of hybrid workers reported that hybrid work had boosted their productivity levels.

Return to office remains unclear

While the government is backing flexible work protections, it has stopped short of forcing companies to drop their return to office policies and embrace home or hybrid working.

The spokesperson added that it will be up to individual employers to determine whether staff can work from home or at the workplace as “people’s roles will vary”.

Still, the prevalence of presenteeism should make employers sit up and listen. This week, the CEO of Nothing, a smartphone startup, was loudly criticised on LinkedIn after he shared an internal email declaring that remote work was “unambitious”.

These kinds of company values look increasingly outdated as the threat of presenteeism leads organisations to recognise the ill effects of equating office visibility with productivity.

Workers will now be able to order their lunchtime meal deal directly from Morrisons, as the retailer confirms it will extend its partnership with food delivery company, Deliveroo.

Through the collaboration, customers can order groceries from 500 Morrisons Daily convenience stores by ordering them from the Deliveroo app.

The move means Morrisons is the latest major supermarket to double down on quick commerce. Changing customer needs have led many businesses to prioritise investment in speedier customer purchases over in-store service.

More reasons to shop at Morrisons

Morrisons’ first partnered with Deliveroo, a tech unicorn which we named on our Startups 100 Index in 2016, back in 2020. The new partnership will be available at roughly a third of Morrisons’ 1,600 Morrisons Daily convenience stores.

Deliveroo first collaborated with Morrisons in 2021 on a delivery-only grocery store called ‘Deliveroo Hop’, after the COVID lockdowns made online shopping the norm for consumers.

While lockdown has ended, the dominance of remote working in UK workplaces has seen many food chains, such as Papa John’s, lose a prime audience as employees make lunch at home rather than buying the traditional (and increasingly expensive) office meal deal.

The extended partnership will enable Morrisons to target home workers by giving them a convenient option to order in. Typically based at forecourts and in busy urban areas across the UK, Morrisons convenience stores are usually also located nearer to office workers.

The rapid rise of on grocery delivery

The grocery partnership has been equally beneficial for Deliveroo. Last month, Deliveroo reached a major milestone by making its first profit after branching out from its original takeaway service offering into more retail deliveries.

Results published on August 1 show that the platform earned £1.3m in the first half of 2024. This is compared to the £82.9m loss it made during the same period last year.

The company’s retail delivery arm showed notable growth. While the company said it was “early days” for this service, it attributed its profit windfall to the rising number of shoppers using its platform for mid-sized shopping baskets worth between £30 and £60.

The market is increasingly crowded, however. Rival rapid delivery firms, such as Ocado and Uber Eats, are also investing in their respective partnerships with Sainsbury’s and Waitrose.

Grocery reportedly now accounts for 40% of all Uber Eats orders. The platform recently added a new feature that allows users to tell couriers what items they want from the supermarket shelves in real-time. Black Mirror-ish? Maybe. But customers are eating it up.

Customers after convenience

The success of rapid delivery and grocery retail partnerships offers critical customer insights for UK businesses. For the modern consumer, convenience is everything.

Earlier this month, Waitrose owner John Lewis Partnership (JLP) confirmed it will open 100 new ‘Little Waitrose’ convenience stores as it aims to move into localised shopping.

SMEs should now be considering how they might strengthen their own business offering by creating an easier sales experience for customers. Purchasing faster payment technologies, or partnering with rapid couriers, could be a smart way to adopt a customer-centric strategy.

“Our partnership with Deliveroo has gone from strength to strength since we started working together,” said Joseph Sutton, Convenience, Online & Wholesale Director at Morrisons.

“Customers tell us how important rapid delivery services are to them,” he added. “We’re delighted to be extending the Deliveroo service and making it available from 500 stores.”

Brits who own an AirBnB or sell on Vinted have been given new guidance by HMRC on the so-called Side Hustle Tax, which came into effect this January.

The rules are designed to help HMRC spot discrepancies between platform users’ reported income, and what users have filed in their annual self-assessment tax returns. 

The guidance makes clear that certain ‘low-risk’ users will not be considered reportable. Below, we’ll explain who is eligible for the new tax law, what information you’ll be required to submit, and what it means for your side gig.

The Side Hustle Tax that isn’t a tax

Its name suggests otherwise; but the Side Hustle Tax law is not actually a tax. Instead, the rules ensure digital platforms collect information about sellers and report this to HMRC.

People who make less than £1,000 a year are not required to submit a tax return as this is under the Trading and Miscellaneous Income Allowance. But many gig workers will make more than this amount, especially as inflation has led to a hiked minimum wage this year.

As a result, when the new laws were introduced, they immediately caused confusion about the impact on gig workers, such as Deliveroo and Uber drivers. 

Those who make a quick buck selling secondhand goods on resell platforms such as Vinted, or handmade goods on marketplaces like Etsy, were also confused about whether they would suddenly receive a huge tax bill in the mail.

Side Hustle Tax: am I eligible?

The new guidance from HMRC attempts to clear up some of the confusion. It clearly states that digital platforms and apps will not need to report information from sellers who:

• Make fewer than 30 sales a year
• Earn less than €2,000 (around £1,700) per year from sales

If you are just having a spring clean and trying to empty out your summer wardrobe, or clearing out your overstuffed garage, it is unlikely that you will be reported to HMRC.

If the platform does report your details to HMRC, it also does not necessarily mean you owe tax. If you sell goods or services via an app, your profits are only likely to be taxable if you are trading (buying products to resell them).

Even if you do earn over £1,000 a year and need to register for a tax return, you also won’t pay tax if you earn less than £12,570 a year from the gig, as this is under the personal allowance for income tax brackets in the UK. 

In short, the Side Hustle Tax is not about taking away from your income, but about making it clear to HMRC who does and doesn’t need to pay tax, so it’s a positive for side hustlers.

“Stay on top of your tax affairs”

The HMRC guidance explains exactly what information platforms should collect from users. As of January 31, apps such as Vinted and AirBnB now need to ask sellers for their:

• Full name
• Address where you normally live
• Date of birth
• National Insurance number
• Income earned 
• Bank details
• Address of property rented (if selling on AirBnB)

All information that the platforms collect will be reported to HMRC by the following January (January 31 2025, for this current tax year). Providers will also be required to give users a copy of this information in case they need it to submit a tax return.

Commenting on the guidance, Seb Maley, CEO of tax insurance provider Qdos, has urged side hustlers in the UK to ensure they are disclosing their earnings and tax liabilities accurately, to ensure their tax return matches with the platform’s records.

“It’s crucial that those with side hustles make sure they’re on top of their tax affairs, and report their earnings and tax liabilities accurately”, says Maley. “Otherwise, HMRC may come calling, and they won’t have an issue launching a tax investigation if anything doesn’t stack up.”

You’ve heard of Whispering Angel, now get ready for Screaming Devil. The newest addition to Asda’s shelves might seem familiar to winos. Certainly, it’s been a hit with those on social media. But isn’t it copyright infringement?

Most of us know the dangers of being accused of trademark plagiarism. Which is why it can be confusing to stroll down the aisles of popular supermarkets and see familiar designs that seem as though they’re inviting Intellectual Property (IP) lawyers to come knocking. 

Known as dupes, these products fall under a little-known copyright loophole that many big brands have cheekily exploited to sell their own, often cheaper, versions of a product. Below, we’ll highlight some famous duping scandals, and explain what the rules are for SMEs.

Colin’s Law

Asda’s version of the hugely popular Whispering Angel has surprised and delighted customers, who have taken to social media to discuss the “violently iconic” new label.

Part of the attraction is Screaming Devil’s cheaper price point. Sold at £10 per bottle, it’s less than half the price of Whispering Angel’s £22 tag. Indeed, being able to rival a popular competitor product and sell it for less is the main attraction of a dupe for brands.

It’s a similar story for another viral dupe from Primark making waves this week. The budget retailer has caused a stir for selling a £15 tote bag that looks eerily similar to a £190 handbag sold by premium designer, Ralph Lauren. 

And of course, who could forget the OG dupe, Aldi’s Cuthbert the Caterpillar. Its white chocolate face betrays nothing. But it’s clearly a roulade relation to Marks and Spencer’s Colin the Caterpillar (and, notably, costs £5 less than the latter).

Clones, not replicas

Brands can get away with flogging rehashed versions of their competitor’s products if the dupes are legally classed as clones, not replicas.

While dupes involve copying a product’s design, they are an example of brand imitation, not brand impersonation. They won’t use logos and pretend to be another brand. But replicas (also known as “fakes”) will try to replicate the originator’s logo to trick buyers.

The difference is subtle, but it is also recognised in law. While you can’t trademark colours or fonts, you can register a logo as a trademark to protect it from copyright infringement.

In the case of Screaming Devil, for example, the bottle’s design looks similar. But it does not have any suggestion of the Whispering Angel calligraphy font and cherub-faced brand logo, so it is an example of legal copying.

Occasionally, a dupe can slip into a replica. Cuthbert the Caterpillar did lead to a lawsuit because M&S felt its packaging was too close for copyright comfort.

The two supermarkets settled out of court. Cuthbert returned to Aldi’s shelves one month later — albeit with a slight redesign that was most likely recommended by Aldi’s legal team.

Should I do brand imitation?

It’s tempting to look at the customer attention that Asda, Aldi, and the like have received from their duping efforts and wonder if you should do the same for your small business. But there’s a reason it’s almost alway the big brands that are the copycats.

Major supermarkets and fashion chains can contend with each other because they have large legal teams to fight their corner. Small brands are much more vulnerable to lawsuits.

Fashion house Hugo Boss sent cease and desist letters to SMEs who use the word ‘BOSS’ in their brand name. Many bowed to the pressure, unable to drum up the legal fees to take on the Boss (causing comedian Joe Lycett to change his name to ‘Hugo Boss’ in protest).

Besides a lack of resources, it’s also much less satisfying to start a business using an existing idea. Far better to carve out your own niche and answer unmet consumer demand.

It’s important to know your rights, and put protections in place to prevent your own designs from being cloned, such as by registering a trademark. Ecommerce giants Shein and Temu have been accused of making dupes of small business creations in the past.

Our guide on how to protect your business from copycats has more expert tips on maintaining a competitive edge in the face of imitators.

The CEO of Nothing, a UK smartphone startup, has criticised flexible working culture as being “not compatible with a high ambition level” in an open letter he posted on LinkedIn.

Carl Pei, who founded the startup in 2020, told his 450 employees to come to the office five days a week to achieve Nothing’s objective of becoming a “generation-defining company”.

The statement echoes those shared by established businesses demanding a return to the office this year. Startups have tended to be more accepting of remote workers. 

However, by linking working practice to employee ambition, the Nothing letter suggests startups on the quest for growth could be embracing the arguably toxic ‘hustle’ work culture.

“Such a typical CEO attitude”

Pei shared the news about Nothing’s new work policy in an email to staff, which he also posted on LinkedIn. It states that the return to office (RTO) will come into effect in October.

In the email, he gives his reasoning. Remote work negatively affects collaboration, Pei argues, which limits productivity. He adds that the smartphone startup needs to surpass rivals such as Apple, which currently has a three-day a week in-office policy.

The response has been mixed. Some commenters praised the business leader for recognising the importance of in-office work for effective teamwork.

However, many responses were negative. “Such a typical CEO attitude. ‘Being in the office all the time is more productive because I say so, never mind what the team thinks’,” wrote one. “I get the rationale, but why be so adamant and rigid about the policy?” said another. 

Others opined that the move could ostracise Nothing’s existing workforce. “Your best people will leave, but I’m sure you won’t be to blame. You never are,” said one commenter. 

“We need people to go the full mile with us”

Likely, the backlash against Nothing’s RTO policy won’t be confined to social media. Many employers have caused internal outcry by implementing strict RTO mandates. For example when Dell tried to penalise remote work, its staff and management team ignored the rules.

Plenty of other workforces have done the same. In fact, the behaviour has become so common it’s even won itself a trendy moniker; hushed hybrid.

Some businesses are coming down hard on defiers. Manchester United F.C. boss, Sir Jim Ratcliffe offered remote workers a bonus to resign when he rolled out an RTO policy in May. It might be that this high-profile case has inspired Pei.

In his email to staff, the Nothing CEO suggested that employees who could not commit to five days in the office should look for more suitable employment. That’s despite the company operating remotely when it was first founded during the pandemic.

“We know it’s not the right type of setup for everybody, and that’s okay”, reads the email. “We should look for a mutual fit. You should find an environment where you thrive, and we need to find people who want to go the full mile with us in the decades ahead.”

Ironically enough, Carl Pei currently has “we’re hiring” written on his LinkedIn profile. Given the feedback the policy has received so far on the networking platform, it seems unlikely that the RTO mandate will do wonders for Nothing’s recruitment drive.

The hustle never stops

The disconnect between Pei’s positive RTO email and the negative online reaction comes back to company culture. Searching for a recruit who is a “mutual fit” with the organisation makes sense if the business is addressing new joiners. 

However, by switching its approach to flexible and inclusive working practices for the existing workforce, Nothing is trying to rapidly change its culture five years into its growth journey  — something that requires a carefully thought-out approach to get right.

Arguing that remote work makes people less ambitious is also a dangerous polemic to push. Assuming that busyness equals productivity is an example of hustle culture, a toxic attitude to work that encourages long working hours and a relentless drive for growth.

Implementing a stricter hybrid work pattern, where employees work in-office for two or three days a week, might be a better approach in the interim. This would also prevent staff from experiencing whiplash by transitioning too quickly away from flexible work. Plus, it would give Pei a chance to test out his theory that remote work equals lower productivity.

“I’m looking forward to learning, growing, and building the next stage of the company with you all”, Pei’s email concludes. If he wants to scale-up Nothing, he must be careful that the next stage isn’t a disengaged workforce and hiked staff turnover.

You’ll have seen it by now; the invasion of the AI stock image. Major stock photo suppliers are gradually introducing these uncanny-valley creations into their libraries. But while they are undoubtedly cost-effective, the customer feedback may be less positive.

In a recent report by Getty Images, people do not like being “lied to” when it comes to AI photos. 87% of respondents say it is important for an image to be authentic.

Whether they use it for marketing, website design, or creating content, most online companies rely heavily on stock imagery to sell their products and enhance their services.

For this group, the question of whether to trust AI-generated visuals is becoming critical.

The AI image conundrum

AI-generated images are a shortcut for SMEs. Small firms cannot afford expensive photoshoots with human models. AI shots are often more affordable than human stock photography, and can be created in the fraction of a second with a simple typed prompt.

Yet, as some have discovered the hard way, they are also risky. Queensland Symphony Orchestra made headlines when it used an AI-generated image described as “two people having a date at an indoor classical music romantic concert” for a Facebook advert.

Classical music lovers in north-east Australia were bemused to scroll past the image of two plasticine-looking people with six fingers, listening to an army of identical violinists that inexplicably sat behind them in the stalls.

Image credit: facebook.com/QSOrchestra/

Other famous offenders include the confectionary car crash of Glasgow’s ‘Willy Wonka’ Black Mirror-esque experience, which was advertised using AI-generated gibberish.

Getty and Shutterstock AI

The above are particularly egregious examples of bad AI stock. But the controversies may become common given the many image providers leaning on AI to pad out their offerings.

They include Getty Images, which has partnered with Picsart to build its own custom model. Using stock photos from Getty’s archives, the collaboration is aimed at giving SMEs affordable access to promotional and supportive materials for their online content.

It’s not just Getty. Shutterstock last year unveiled AI tools that will allow businesses to generate alternate versions of real photos, as well as expand the background of a picture.

Crucially, the images used are licensed with coverage provided by the platform. That means they are free for commercial use and users cannot be in breach of copyright laws.

However, firms may not be safe from audience backlash. Queensland Orchestra received huge backlash for its use of the image, which was sourced from Shutterstock, which many saw as out of tune with the organisation’s mission statement to support the arts.

“Next time pay photographers,” one comment read, while another said “terrible – literally an arts organisation not using artists.”

Time to take stock of AI

Almost 90% of consumers globally want to know whether an image has been created using AI, according to the Getty Images survey.

Firms that want to take advantage of cost-effective AI must be cautious about how a rapid rollout might impact customer needs and expectations.

The images may be fake, but the struggle is real for today’s businesses. The question of whether to adopt AI, or wait and see if the bubble will burst, haunts many leaders.

It’s not just imagery. HMRC recently found itself in hot water after it tried to terminate its support helpline earlier this year and replace it with an automated service.

As the digital world becomes saturated with AI content and services, businesses must tread carefully. The question of whether to adopt AI is no longer a matter of if, but how. Misguided use of AI could prove as costly as it is embarrassing.

Ultimately, the customer must come first. By putting audiences at the heart of their strategy, companies can harness the technology’s potential while safeguarding their reputation.

Whisper it, but the UK economy could be showing signs of recovery. 2024 is set to be one of the best years for starting a business in the past half decade with 468,000 new firms having started up in the first half of the year, according to the New Startup Index by Beauhurst.

The UK’s business birth rate has been struggling in recent years. Over 105,000 UK businesses closed in the first quarter of 2023 while just 79,000 new businesses were created, representing the largest net decrease on record.

However, the Beauhurst data, supported by Natwest, could signal the start of a new trend. 248,000 businesses started in the first quarter of 2024 alone; a 43.4% increase since 2020.

Commenting on the data, the new Business and Trade Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds said: “Our mission is to bring economic growth and make the UK the best place to start-up and scale-up business. These figures show signs of optimism for our start-up sector.”

New dawn for UK business

The Beauhurst findings, compiled using data from Companies House, suggest that the UK may be entering a period of recovery after months of financial difficulty. More entrepreneurship can be a catalyst for economic growth and employment.

Official figures show that the UK has recorded the strongest growth in the G7 group of advanced economies since March, largely due to London’s local economy pulling ahead.

There is some regional disparity when it comes to this success. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its reputation as a hotbed for new business talent, the capital leads the way in 2024 with 161,000 new business incorporations. This is the highest of all regions.

Certain regional startup scenes are also thriving. According to the index, the number of new firms starting up in the West Midlands and Yorkshire grew by 10.1% and 8.15%, respectively.

Crossroads for startups

The rise in the number of new companies being set up comes despite growing costs for UK organisations due to high inflation and energy bills, triggered in part by the pandemic.

While startup growth has surged, government data suggests the total business population has fallen year-on-year. In 2023, there were estimated to be 5.6 million UK private sector businesses. The Beauhurst index suggests this has fallen to 5.47 million in 2024.

Still, the data suggests the UK is at a pivotal moment. Although the overall business population has declined year-on-year, the new cohort of entrepreneurs have the potential to drive economic recovery and job creation across the country.

Paul Thwaite, NatWest Group CEO, said: “Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy, accounting for three-fifths of employment. If these new businesses are given the right conditions to succeed, they could significantly boost the UK economy.”

Know an exciting new business that was founded in the past five years? Apply for the 2025 Startups 100 Index, next year’s list of the top 100 new businesses in the UK.

From Hollywood to South East England. Paul Hollywood has defended his wife, Melissa Hollywood after she was forced to close a historical pub that she owns with her family in Smarden, Kent, in a row that lays bare the hospitality pay crisis.

Locals have opposed the Hollywoods’ plans to turn the 600-year-old Chequers Inn into a home. They claimed that closing it would hurt the local economy. But Hollywood said that his wife’s family had sunk thousands into the business and simply could not afford to continue.

The story will be familiar to UK towns and villages (minus the famous name), as a crippling economy makes running a pub unviable for landlords and publicans.

Research suggests the average pint price will rise to over a fiver this year, as hospitality firms grapple with a cocktail of decreasing spending, a pay crisis, and labour shortages.

“It is a business that is losing money”

According to a report by The Guardian, Melissa Hollywood’s family has owned the Chequers Inn for 16 years. The pub is one of three taprooms in Smarden.

The family had originally planned to sell the business but were unable to find a buyer. Despite being up for sale for four years, and being listed by four estate agents, just one offer was made on the property valued at under £1m in 2020.

This was despite the owners spending “thousands of pounds” on a renovation, including a cash injection from the celebrity chef and Bake Off presenter himself.

Paul Hollywood hit out at locals who had objected to the conversion plans, describing them as “vindictive”. “It is a beautiful pub, but it is a business that is losing money”, he added.

In the last year, records show that Wetherspoons, the UK’s most successful pub chain, has sold or surrendered the lease on 26 of its pubs. Another 10 locations are currently for sale.

Talent drought

Pubs, bars, and restaurants across the country are dealing with much depleted revenue as the cost of living crisis combines with increasing rent and business rates bills.

The biggest issue for many businesses is hiring. Small profit margins mean the sector is typically low pay and struggles to offer a competitive wage to new starters. Post-Brexit, and due to tightened immigration laws, hiring cheaper foreign labour is also no longer an option.

At the same time, a hike in minimum wage rates earlier this year saw the National Living Wage rise to £11.44 per hour, pushing staffing bills to breaking point.

At the start of this year, a Startups survey found that 19% of hospitality firms felt unable to meet staff pay expectations in 2024; the most negative sentiment of any sector.

Speaking at the Smarden planning meeting, Melissa Hollywood alluded to these issues in a plea for empathy towards her elderly father, who works in the pub.

“Ask yourself – would you work a 12- to 16-hour shift every day just to make a loss, and would you do it if you were 80 years old with a life-threatening heart condition?” she said.

Save Our Pubs

It’s not just towns that are suffering. In London, the city with the strongest local economy in the UK, around 3,000 pubs and bars have closed since 2020 due to lack of funds.

The crisis is frustrating for patrons, as the Smarden debacle shows. Pubs are a British institution, and local residents clearly care strongly about its survival. In a report filed against the application, Smarden parish council said the pub had “historical significance” to the town.

However, according to Hollywood, the disappointment has bubbled over into bitterness. “The vindictiveness from the locals towards the family who have been here 18 years is unforgivable,” Paul Hollywood told BBC South East last week.

That Chequers Inn was a loss-making business suggests that its customers might have taken its place on the high street for granted. Small brands need support to avoid going into administration. Especially those without a well-known TV presenter to help them out.

The government has said it plans to aid brick-and-mortar firms by reforming business rates. Until then, the Chequers Inn is a reminder that SMEs cannot be rescued after the fact. Customers must buy from small businesses, or risk losing them altogether.

Which do you prefer: chicken salad and a smoothie, or a ham sandwich and a packet of Monster Munch? Whatever your order, the humble meal deal has fed the UK workforce for the past decade. But with food inflation on the up, that convenience now comes at a cost.

Last month, Sainsbury’s drew the ire of hangry Brits when it raised the price of its sandwich-crisps-drink combo to £3.79. But even that isn’t as expensive as the OG meal deal, Tesco, which has risen from £3 to £3.90 since its inception in 2013.

Once the best friend of budget-conscious city workers, this sarnie saver option is becoming rotten. We decided to find out just how much staff are spending on their daily supermarket trips, and ask how employers could help to line their workers’ stomachs and wallets.

Office lunch costs almost £1,000 a year

Most of us would probably rather not know how much we spend on an office lunch. Like paying your taxes, it can feel like an everyday living cost that cannot be avoided.

Still, the total amount adds up. We compared the price of four major supermarket meal deals. We then used this to calculate how much an employee would spend in total if they bought a meal deal everyday of the 48 working weeks in the year.

The results may be tough to swallow. On average, meal deal enthusiasts will spend £909 per working year on their lunch breaks, averaging out to nearly £19 per workweek.

The Co-operative, costing £4 per purchase, is the cheapest of the Big Four supermarket meal deals. Visiting the Co-op for lunch will set you back by £960 per year. That’s almost £120 more than at Morrisons, where the meal deal costs 50p less.

Going homemade could save nearly half a grand

Short of skipping meals, there aren’t many ways office workers can keep their lunchtime costs down. But buying the ingredients to make a meal deal is one way to save the pennies.

We totted up the estimated cost of ingredients to consume a ham and cheese sandwich, a packet of branded crisps, and a glass of Diet Coke, five days per week. In total, this weekly shopping basket came to £9.33, based on Aldi prices in August 2024.

That means those who eat lunch from home, or those who work in a fully remote role, could save £472.32 per year by switching to a meal deal from the kitchen fridge. That’s worth more than the average Brit’s three month food bill (estimated to be £35 per week).

Hybrid lunching?

Even limiting your meal deal munchies to just three times a week could save a substantial amount of money. The cost of making a homemade meal deal twice a week, and buying lunch out three days a week, would total £730.81 in one working year.

That means savvy savers, or those who work a hybrid shift pattern, could save £178.19 per year compared to eating out every working day.

The office lunch has been on the decline anyway this year. Food trends suggest consumers are turning away from the meal deal due to the poor options available from retailers.

UK workers are instead packing trendy adult lunch boxes with viral “office lunch” TikTok recipes, and spending the money saved (roughly £7.50 per week) at a street food market.

The return to office will not be catered for

Rising lunch prices are one of many factors that have made home working more appealing to employees this year. With the cost of living crisis continuing to bite employees, many are using flexible working perks to hibernate at home and lower their daily spend.

Another influencer is commute fares. In a survey by Ringover, 83% of respondents said that they would visit the office more if their company funded their commute to work.

The study raises an interesting question over whether a free lunch might be a cheaper employee benefit to improve office attendance. Many companies have caused controversy this year over poorly planned return to office (RTO) mandates.

With homemade lunches still costing UK staff £463.63 per year, according to our estimates, employer-subsidised meal deals could tip the scales in favour of in-office working this year.

This week, brave residents in East London banded together to prevent an outside force from entering their struggling local high street: Gail’s Bakery. Lesser-known to those outside of London, the coffee and croissant chain has become an inside joke to those in the capital.

Viewed as a middle-class haunt, a Gail’s on your street is now a tell-tale sign that the area has undergone gentrification; wherein wealthy people and businesses move into a trendy new area, making it unaffordable for locals to inhabit.

Using extensive scientific research (we asked some people in the office what they thought) we’ve outlined five other gentrification giveaways below. Can’t see your flat white through the flat caps? Let’s see where your neighbourhood sits on the gentrification scale.

1. There’s a Leon

Itsu, Paul; you name it, there’s a special group of single-name dineries that signal the time is up for your precious local kebab shop. But the appearance of a Leon, the healthy fast food chain that’s essentially a posher step-sibling to Maccies, is the real writing on the wall.

As one Brixton resident jokingly wrote on X/Twitter in 2022, the area reached its “final level of gentrification” when Leon brought its waffle fries to the birthplace of David Bowie.

x.com/audreythefinest

Known for its trendy food and drink fusions (the Korean Chicken Burger is a bestseller), Leon was purchased by the Issa brothers last year. It currently has 51 locations in London, and the Asda owners had planned to bring Leon into supermarkets.

Ironically, customers haven’t fallen for the marriage of the premium Leon and the budget Asda. The brand has struggled to do a reverse-gentrification and win over in-store shoppers.

“[Leon] has been caught between a rock and a hard place of trying to be made mainstream and acceptable to an Asda customer and forecourts but at the same time retain its place as a London City lunch concept,” Simon Stenning, a hospitality industry expert, told The Times.

2. You can’t move for BABYZEN pushchairs

One of the biggest indicators that your area has been gentrified is the arrival of the parents. Middle-class professionals who have had their first child will move to a cheaper area to afford the cost of childcare and bring with them the team mascot; the BABYZEN pushchair.

At nearly £300, the BABYZEN pushchair is a masterpiece of high-tech engineering. It’s also beloved by yummy mums and dads across the country. And, like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, they can arrive overnight; a gentrifying fleet complete with tell-tale white wheels.

The effect on the local area is subtle. You might find that the local greasy spoon is suddenly replaced by a kid-friendly cafe. That’s what happened in Balham, South London, which previously had a reputation for being rough, but is now known as ‘nappy valley’.

The change can cause tensions between younger incomers and older, often poorer, long-term residents who feel literally squeezed out. One cafe owner in Crystal Palace caused outrage in 2016 when he banned buggies, saying they took up too much space.

3. It’s drained of colour

The beige reckoning is here. Everywhere you look, there are beige toys, beige clothes, and even beige diets of oats and wholemeal bread. Beige fans will argue that their bland new colour scheme actually has a warm tint of nutmeg and cinnamon. Let’s be real. It’s beige.

Beige has also become the unofficial uniform of the middle-class in recent years. So much so that one interior designer dubbed its arrival ‘beigification’, in a nod to the signifier of wealth that these understated tones offer. And it’s starting to invade the high street.

Visit a bougie district of South Manchester or an up-and-coming road in Little Sheffield, and you’ll likely be overpowered by a palette of grey, brown, and cream. Inoffensive and neutral, the beige agenda has wiped out the displays that make independent shops so unique.

It’s not just brick-and-mortar brands. Companies such as X/Twitter and Uber are also becoming dull, switching their logos to sophisticated and ‘clean’ black-and-white designs. Could businesses stand out more if they injected a pop of colour into their shopfront?

4. Everyone’s queuing up for one café

Gentrification doesn’t happen in one push. It’s a slow process that usually results in one or two new businesses attracting a lot of attention from a very specific type of TikTok audience.

Believe it or not, these viral sensations have been scientifically studied. Academics call them specialty coffee bars (SCBs). You can usually spot them by their ‘instagrammable’ photo walls and thick glacial cocktails (the quality of the drinks being served is less of a concern).

Some are successful because they offer tasty menus and top-level customer experience. But SCBs can further gentrification by encouraging an identical row of ‘aesthetic’ shop fronts, geotagged for an affluent group of outsiders to gatekeep.

On my own street, there’s a newly-opened pub with a forest of cheese plants that’s full every evening. It’s great for the owners. Yet I can’t help but feel sorry for its excellent neighbouring taprooms that sit empty each night, while 20 people queue next door for an £8 pint.

5. You’re carrying a dog

In a viral TikTok post last November, Londoner and business owner @theplainshopuk listed the signs of gentrification that he had spotted in his local community. One, he described, was “the only cool one”; the arrival of the dogs.

Mini dachshunds and french bulldogs are common breeds in city areas. @theplainshopuk also described “those little greyhounds with the puffer jackets, those are the hardest.”

This trend is almost the millennial and Gen Z version of the BABYZEN. As more yuppy younger couples with dual incomes choose not to have kids, it seems they are instead gravitating towards urban pets that don’t need lots of space to run around in.

As a result, businesses in the UK are becoming increasingly animal-friendly. Cumbria, Romford, Edinburgh have all opened their first dog cafes this year.

The double-edged sword of gentrification

Critics say it is ironic that Walthamstow, itself a gentrified area, is protesting the arrival of a Gail’s. Still, the move must be commended as a loyal customer base supporting its local businesses. The heart of the issue lies in the complex dynamics of high street evolution.

While the allure of regeneration is undeniable, it often comes at a cost. As business rates and rent prices go up, smaller independents are forced to close. Most commonly, it is large chains looking for a cheaper lease that swoop in and homogenise the high street.

“[Walthamstow] is treasured for its local, independent, and family-run businesses”, the petition reads. “Gail’s, although respected for their quality, bring a risk of overshadowing our much-loved local stores due to their massive scale and advertising reach.

“This could lead to decreased visibility towards independently run businesses, threatening their existence and dismantling the character and diversity crucial to Walthamstow’s charm.”

The narrative isn’t entirely bleak. Offering cheaper rental options, such as pop-up shops, could allow SMEs to occupy the vacated space. Meanwhile, the government’s pledge to reform business rates offers a glimmer of hope.

To support the UK’s high street recovery, striking a balance between preserving local charm and fostering new economic growth will be the ultimate challenge for councils.

As one of the world’s largest employers, Amazon has a suitably supersized recruitment process. In 2022, it hired 4,000 new UK workers, or just under 11 new starters per day. And this year, a new Amazon “fulfilment” centre in Leeds is set to create another 2,000.

These roles range from delivery drivers, to warehouse operatives, to software developers. And Amazon’s recruitment team has created a carefully customised profile for each career path, tailoring its questions to reflect the unique demands of the job and needs of the team.

Below, we break down the top questions Amazon asks its candidates according to Glassdoor data, and what they teach small employers about how to structure job interviews.

Amazon interview questions for Warehouse Associate

• What is your availability for this position?
• Are you comfortable operating machinery?
• What are your goals for the future?

Ex-interviewees for the Warehouse Associate role at Amazon report being given a very simple online assessment to get the position. Forget your ‘biggest strengths’, it seems the real test for candidates at this level is whether they have done the job before.

The thinking behind this is likely that Warehouse Associates are more likely to be doing physical labour. For this group, the probation period is the real test, when managers can observe the employee’s ability to perform tasks in the real work environment.

Similar to how John Lewis shared its interview questions for transparency, this approach keeps Amazon’s recruitment drive ticking. If an employee feels the post is not for them, they can be quickly replaced. CEO Jeff Bezos is rumoured to have encouraged a high turnover at Amazon for this reason, a revelation that can’t have gone down well with striking employees.

Aligning hiring strategy to company goals is smart. That said, the target must also be SMART. Deliberately ballooning turnover rate is not a good long-term strategy for Amazon. Two years ago, an internal memo warned Amazon could run out of hirers in the US by 2024.

Amazon interview questions for Software Engineers

1. Online coding test
2. Screening call
3. On-site coding test

The interview process for a Software Engineer at Amazon looks very different from the Warehouse Associate career path. Candidates on Glassdoor report being asked very few questions. Instead, they were asked to complete two practical coding tests.

Skills tests are a smart assessment method if you’re hiring for technical roles. This way, employers can tailor the application process to their would-be To Do list. Plus, assessors will have a clear metric with how to judge candidates, reducing the risk of bias.

Amazon recruiters also commonly ask interviewees for writing samples. This is because the company “doesn’t do” traditional slide presentations. Instead, admin teams and managers write memos covering project goals or next steps, which are then read out at each meeting.

Finding people who are comfortable conveying complex information in note form is another nice example of how Amazon customises its interviews to match its own business process.

Amazon interview questions for Head Office

• You have accidentally overcharged one customer and undercharged another. What do you do?
• Describe a time you committed to a solution you didn’t propose yourself.
• What excel formulas do you like to use?

Now to the corporate side of Amazon. Those involved in core business activities, such as account managers, report being asked behavioural-based questions. The applicant is asked to provide specific examples of how they behaved in previous roles or scenarios.

Behavioural questions are a step above more generic inquiries such as “What are your strengths and weaknesses?”, which tend to also encourage generic answers. Amazon recruiters aim to gauge a person’s skills, and how they act in a professional environment.

The ecommerce giant has also helped candidates along by encouraging them to use the STAR (Scenario, Task, Action, Result) technique to organise their response. Not only does this encourage stronger answers; it also helps hirers to compare and contrast the talent pool.

And, because the hypothetical scenarios reflect the everyday duties for the advertised position, recruiters can more accurately predict who the most successful hire would be.

The one interview question Amazon asks every candidate

One question Amazon pulls out in every interview is the deceptively simple: ‘Why Amazon?’ It may seem like a chance for the applicant to say how much they loved watching Rings of Power. But this query is really asking about a person’s strengths, interests, and career plans.

“We [ask this question because] we want to know that you’re a person who’s thinking about how to give back to the organisation with what you bring, but we’re also looking at what you want to learn while working here,” writes Rasheeda Liberty, who is Head of DEI at Amazon.

Enquiring about why a job hunter has put themselves forward for a job at your business is an important, forward-thinking question. It tells hiring managers whether the candidate would fit in with the department’s long-term objectives, as well as the firm’s future succession plans.

If the applicant sounds as though they haven’t thought about the employer behind the job description, it could also be a red flag that they aren’t interested in sticking around long-term.

What can SMEs learn from Amazon’s interview questions?

Given it onboards thousands of new people each year, Amazon has plenty to teach SMEs when it comes to hiring. Chiefly, customising interviews to match jobs roles and company culture will ensure you’re not just ticking boxes, but finding people who genuinely fit.

Remember, the goal is not to replicate Amazon’s entire hiring process, but to adopt elements that align with your company’s unique needs and resources (there are enough controversies over Amazon’s people strategy to tell you that it’s not doing everything right).

But there is one thing that Bezos has got right: cohesion. By compiling questions that match the role’s competencies, the department’s goals, and the company’s cultural fit, SMEs can significantly improve their hiring outcomes to deliver your next hire, next-day.

Two years ago, workers held all the cards. Staff turnover was at an all time high as staff switched jobs sometimes multiple times a year, in a trend termed ‘The Great Resignation’.

With the economy still wobbly, and many firms having paused hiring, that golden era is over. Employers might cheer at what they view as a return to the normalcy of reduced resignations.

But it’s not all good news. Staff may be staying put, but UK offices, experts say, are now entering a period of ‘Great Detachment,’ as employee engagement plummets. Below, we explain the causes and definition of this new, unwelcome workplace trend.

What is The Great Detachment and what’s causing it?

Staff feeling disengaged from their jobs is not a new phenomenon. Post-COVID, many workers began to reassess their career priorities and searched for meaningful work opportunities. As a result, the UK had one of the worst-ranked workforces for engagement.

At that time, however, job market traffic was free flowing. Employers were hiring in droves, optimistic about a speedy economic recovery. Workers who left could quickly be replaced.

In a cooler jobs market, the resignation-recruitment cycle is much more one-sided. Indeed’s mid-year hiring report, released last month, showed that job postings have fallen by 20%.

Workers who didn’t take the plunge two years ago are today living with deepening career regret; they feel unhappy in their roles and yet also unable to leave them.

HR leaders have seen the signs of this change. Micro-trends such as quiet quitting and quiet vacationing were early indications that staff were feeling demotivated and checking out.

The result, experts are saying, is The Great Detachment; where employees are suffering from low morale but do not feel able to search for new jobs.

Young employees most detached

Gallup’s 2024 Employee Engagement survey found that younger Gen Z employees have seen the greatest decline in engagement since March 2020. Gallup reports that sentiment for younger staff has dropped by 5-9% across seven engagement areas:

• Feeling cared about by someone at work
• Having opportunities to learn and grow
• Feeling connected to their employer’s mission
• Having progress discussions with managers
• Being given opportunities to develop
• Feeling that their opinions count

This could be due to the business landscape they have entered, which has been marred by mass layoffs. Roles at major tech companies such as Meta and X, professions that young people were told offered the best career chances, have perhaps been hardest hit. Big businesses such as IBM have made plans to replace many human roles with AI.

Some say pay is an issue. Official data shows that while UK salaries have largely kept pace with inflation, entry-level wages have stagnated, resulting in a generation of employees who feel undervalued and unmotivated.

Virtual College, a training provider, analysed 5,000 work-related search terms for 2024. It found that ‘how to ask for a pay rise’ was the highest searched-for term this year.

Are bosses contributing to the problem?

Analysis of the Great Detachment theory has largely focused on its prevalence in the lower rungs of the workforce. However, the issue could go all the way to the top.

68% of UK managers today say that bosses are failing to acknowledge rising stress levels. The data suggests that employees perceive an increasing indifference from department heads and directors towards their people, in favour of pursuing business growth.

With job security and wages dwindling, the disconnect between leaders trying to exercise strategies, and employees setting work boundaries, is doubtless causing workplace conflict.

Relations will not have been helped by a report into CEO salaries published mid-August. C-Suite pay has risen consistently in the past few years. According to the High Pay Centre, the average FTSE 100 CEO out-earned the median UK worker in just three days this year.

Can The Great Detachment be fixed?

With most employers striving for growth this year, businesses must not neglect their people strategy when planning. A disengaged workforce can have a devastating impact on output.

Thankfully, years of ‘bare minimum Mondays’ have helped global HR teams to diagnose the issue. As the Gallup survey shows, staff feel undervalued and potentially dehumanised, creating an organisational culture of dispassion and ill-feeling.

Bosses may be tempted to throw money at the issue. But even if it were possible in a stark trading landscape, the answer to The Great Detachment does not lie in a one-off bonus.

Properly changing your culture means addressing specific issues that might be contributing negatively. Review your employee benefits to judge if they are competitive enough. Use feedback from employees to shape your ideal culture and company values.

As the saying goes, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. While profitability might feel like the right end goal, no business will succeed if it allows The Great Detachment to fester.