An estimated nine in ten UK adults have experienced high or extreme stress in the last year with one in five needing to take time off work due to poor mental health. While it’s common for people to feel worried or anxious, it can spiral and impact an individual’s mental health which could lead to burnout. With a record 2.8m people in the UK currently off work as a result of ill health employers must be equipped with the right policies and benefits to support their employees. Adrian Matthews, Head of Employee Benefits at MetLife UK, shares his three top…

Rockinghorse Children’s Charity is fundraising to create a new Wellbeing Service to support thousands of children and families who currently access support through the Royal Alex. This dedicated service, developed with the help of an expert steering group, will expand on many of the wellbeing projects that the charity has funded over the last few years, such as sea swimming courses, art therapy, music therapy and woodland wellbeing days. But the crucial difference is that it will bring them all in-house and be able to offer them to a much wider group of children across more paediatric departments within the…

For many busy SME owners, researching and taking out the right insurance policy can feel like a burdensome task. Insurance can be a complex area, and with many products on the market, it can be difficult to know if you are choosing the right policy and level of coverage for your business needs. Below Mark Thomas is Founder and Director of Compare My Insurance explores  some of the common mistakes SMEs make when it comes to commercial insurance, and the best practices for avoiding an insurance  mishap further down the line that could leave your business liable, and you out…

Simply Asset Finance, the specialist business lending provider, has announced FY2023 profits of £5.5 million and revenues in excess of £52 million. As the business further expanded to support its small- to medium-sized business customers across the UK, its loan origination also grew to £1.3 billion to date. Founded in 2017 by a team of asset finance specialists in response to the overly-complicated SME financing process, Simply Asset Finance is streamlining access to finance for UK SMEs. Through its market-leading technology and a dedicated team of experts, it delivers a digital path to finance for small and medium sized businesses…

The glass is definitely half-full for one Sussex mum – as she prepares to take her growing fruit infusions business to a number of large food and drink shows in the South East and beyond over the rest of 2024. Michelle Pratt, a mum of two from Horsham, will be taking her brand Fruitology to the BBC Good Food Summer Show at Birmingham NEC from 13-16 June and Goodwood Good Food Festival from 16-18 August. And, alongside a number of other markets in Sussex, Michelle will also be showcasing the brand at the Surrey Gin Fest at Loseley Park on…

Responding to Office for National Statistics figures showing that GDP rose by 0.6% in Q1 2024, and by 0.4% in the month of March, Martin McTague, National Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said: “The rise in GDP across Q1 brings the recession from the end of last year to a mercifully swift end, and comes alongside a notable rise in small business sentiment over the first three months of this year. “Our latest Small Business Index report for Q1 found that small firms’ overall confidence level rose into lightly positive territory after six straight quarters below zero,…

Dr Hugo De La Peña, one of the UK’s leading breast cancer consultants has raised £10,000 for Cancer Research UK after taking part in the London Marathon for the second time. Dr Hugo has worked as a cancer consultant for the NHS for over five years and has been actively supporting cancer charities throughout his medical and scientific career. He said: “The London Marathon is many things including a wonderful, unique victory lap from all the hard work, training runs and fundraising. The London Marathon will always be one of the best days of my life, but it is also a…

British job seekers don’t hear back from more than half (55%) of the jobs they apply for, according to new research from global matching and hiring platform Indeed.  According to ONS data, there are 916,000 job vacancies in the UK, but with frustrations around the hiring process, these aren’t set to be filled quickly or effectively. The survey of 1,000 working people and 1,000 hiring professionals in the UK shows that the hiring process is inefficient for both job seekers and businesses, delaying the right candidate being matched with the right role. Not hearing back hurts job seeker confidence  Silence is harder…

Innovative tech company, Filestream, is celebrating its fifth anniversary of working with The Portsmouth International Port – the country’s biggest municipal seaport.  The Berkshire-based company started working with the team in Portsmouth in 2019 when it was decided that their historic document management system was not fit for purpose.  Paperwork for a port which deals with cargo and passengers every single year is vital for its smooth operation – yet managing that paperwork, even online, can be a challenge.  “We had a system in place for more than a decade and increasingly it didn’t meet our needs,” says Julie Shotbolt,…

According to research by Experian, around 4% of new businesses close by the end of the first year of operations. It also found that the failure rate rises significantly to 34% by the end of the second year and to 50% within just three years of opening. While a concerning fact to face, this has not deterred budding entrepreneurs from taking the leap of faith into the business world. While I refer to ‘leap’ in the metaphorical sense, there is someone who not only leapt but pirouetted his way into building a world-renowned and well-established global business. In this interview,…

Leveraging Open Banking data and AI technology, Soldo, the spend management fintech, and cash flow financing provider TRIVER have partnered in a bid to tackle the cashflow challenge many UK SMEs are facing. TRIVER aims to fund SMEs’ faster and more easily than high street banks. Access to capital is crucial for businesses looking to survive the current economic instability, it alleviates the cashflow problems caused by unpaid invoices with a very simple, flexible, and convenient cashflow financing product. Carlo Gualandri, CEO and Founder of Soldo said: “We built Soldo because the status quo of managing business spend is broken…

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) models are having a profound impact on improving how people discover and search for products and services online. Now, consumers can seamlessly find information with ease by searching online in natural language, thanks to the integration of AI/ML into search algorithms. We have already seen this evolution play out when looking at iStock’s proprietary search performance data and analytics. Small and medium-sized businesses globally are gravitating towards more descriptive and conversational phrasing within image and video searches. Gone are the days of people solely relying on keyword-based queries and Boolean operators such as AND,…

Ethernet leased lines are a popular choice for businesses due to their reliability and high bandwidth. However, there are several myths surrounding them that may lead some to believe they cannot keep up with today’s connectivity demands. Here, Kristian Torode, Director and Co-Founder of business communication service provider Crystaline, debunks some common misconceptions. A leased line uses the same technology found in fibre broadband services, however, the key distinction is that the connection is leased exclusively to a business by the internet service provider (ISP). This ensures that the connection is unique to that location and not shared with others,…

Simon Yeoman, CEO at Fasthosts, outlines five strategies to protect businesses against online threats. Social media for business. Crucial asset or Trojan Horse for cybersecurity threats? For a growing business, it’s both. From increasing brand awareness and targeting advertisements to boosting website traffic and conversion, an online presence can reap significant rewards for a brand. However, below the surface, all is not as it seems. Weak passwords, overshared personal details and even simple usernames can expose businesses to data breaches and leaks. And the rise of sophisticated deepfakes further increases this risk, enabling impersonation attacks that can have devastating effects.…

Tom Walker, Partner at Wellers, the small business accountants, discusses how business owners can minimise their tax liability following changes to capital gains tax and dividends. This April has marked the change of several pieces of tax legislation, including a reduction in the tax-free allowance for capital gains tax (CGT) and dividends. The new legislation sees the tax-free allowance halved for both taxes, meaning impacted business owners are likely to endure increased tax liabilities. However, it’s not all doom and gloom as there are plenty of potential strategies that can be implemented to help business owners, like yourself, be more…

A well-written business contract is like an insurance policy, protecting you and your business in the event of something going wrong, and failing to have a written contract in place can be a costly mistake in the event of a contractual breach or a dispute, Yulia Barnes Founder and Managing Partner at Barnes Law provides some guidance for the readers of SMEToday. Though in English law oral contracts are legally binding, a clearly expressed written contract provides a greater degree of clarity and certainty, protecting parties by defining their obligations and the consequences of a breach, while avoiding the cost and…