When everything is busy it is all too easy to let less exciting areas of admin slip a little. Expenses, accounting, even catching up on events and getting time for future planning can be tricky.
It has been a bit like this recently, and with travel starting again the pressure is only going to increase. It will be back to shopping whilst on the train, and completing expense forms in the airport, on the phone, I suspect.
However, towards the end of this week, there was, fortunately, a bit of respite. As such I was able able to complete a few things that needed doing, including giving the RO-AR.com website a bit of a spruce up. It is a great feeling to have tasks ticked off, prepared and ready to take on a few new things next week.
Next week, of course, could be an important week for many in England. No I am not talking about the football, although I will be watching, but the impending relaxation of pandemic restrictions in England.
With fairly lax restrictions here already and increasing case numbers it seems strange to remove the few controls we do still have. Most people I spoke with this week have echoed the same sentiment, and experts did not hold their punches.
With a new variant (the Lambda variant from Peru) and what appears to be a continued poor understanding of exponential growth, this does seem to be increasing risk to overall health and certainly does not appear to follow the precautionary principle… (if you are wondered what happened to the ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, variants btw, they do exist, they are on the WHO site).
However, with city centres and the economy struggling against multiple headwinds (including COVID & EU exit), together with the whopping cost for furlough payments I suspect (although not admitted) an economic decision has been made. Fingers crossed it does not go horribly wrong.
This makes the full and complete end of furlough and other support measures likely, all as part of this return to ‘normal’. With the economy, already riding a cresting wave, under all these support measures, their removal has every likelihood to be the trigger that causes everything to crash.
Collections volumes, which have been relatively benign for the last 9 months, as a result at likely to start seeing increasing pressures in more sectors. It is one to watch closely, the next few weeks and plan contingencies ahead of time.
This is where that extra time, doing admin tasks, and getting ready can pay dividends. Something to ponder over the weekend.
Other key stories
- 2.4m employees still furloughed after May re-opening
- IE HUB and Vulnerability Registration Service agree partnership
- AI is transforming the coding of computer programs
- Treasury wants us to ‘live with Covid’ – but what does that mean?
- Sainsbury’s warns of shortages due to Covid and recruitment issues
- Bank of England asks staff to come in once a week
- Second charge mortgage new business volumes grew by 293% in May 2021
- HMRC starts collecting tax debts again and warns customers not to ignore any communications
- Two thirds of financial services firms use alternative data for decision making
- ‘Idea of commuting fills me with dread’: workers on returning to the office
