Office Cleaning

I decided to take a look at the fine art that is office cleaning. You might be wondering how this relates to the IT theme of the website, but seeing as the majority of IT is run from offices and in London no less I am going to base the theme of this article on that simple theory.

Keeping a clean office is good for a number of reasons. Below I take a look at some of these:

Hygiene

One of the most obvious reasons for keeping a clean work area is for health and safety reasons. Keeping things organised and tidy reduces the chances of slips and trips. Keeping it clean can reduce health problems.

Professional

Nothing looks less professional than a scruffy, disorganised office. It looks like no-one knows where anything is. Keeping your office neat is essential, especially if you tend to show clients around often.

Morale

Unsurprisingly, an orderly office is a happy office. Keep yourself and staff feeling optimistic simply by tidying up the rooms.

Protect Equipment

Another import reason for keeping things clean is to ensure the security of your equipment. IT equipment is often sensitive to dirt particles, such as dust. Hiring profession office and carpet cleaning in London and similar big cities is easy so there’s no excuse. Carpets are a key area where dust sits so keep them spick and span.

Employer inflexibility forcing women to quit IT jobs

Inflexibility on the part of employers is compelling thousands of women employees to quit their jobs, according to a report by the British Computer Society (BCS).

BCS revealed that during past 6 years to 2007, more than 37,000 female computing professionals had to leave the IT industry due to a lack of flexibility shown by the employers in granting breaks to women employees to take care of their ailing parents or for raising a family or travel abroad.

According to IT-sector Skills Council UK, the strength of female employees which was 229,440 – almost 33% of the UK’s computing professionals in 2001, fell by 6% to 192,580 in 2007.

The women employee number fell in spite of increase in strength of professionals’ strength from 989,120 to above one million in the UK’s IT industry.

According to BCS, it would take long to regain lost pool of female IT talent to overcome IT-skills crisis in the UK.

According to Dr. Jan Peters, Manager BCS Womens’ Forum, employers needed to show more flexibility, particularly for women employees, in granting career breaks to carry out their important and essential personal activities.

Very thin presence of female employees in the IT teams could hamper ability of companies in securing public-sector contracts which stipulate very strict balance of gender in employee strength.

Vodafone increasing shops and staff to improve customer service

Vodafone wants to improve its face-to-face customer service by adding 50 shops and 200 extra staff to its existing strength of 500 in the next 12 months. Vodafone already has a 350-strong retail network in the UK.

The first new shops will arrive in London, Bristol and Liverpool this autumn. The remaining shops would be opened in spring 2009.

Vodafone’s director of consumer sales UK, Tom Devine, informs that the company is trying to deliver its best services by enabling face to face dialogue between existing and prospective customers with a retail adviser, closest to their location.

Vodafone has initiated this multi-million pound expansion at a time when its revenues are dwindling due to the decline in consumer spending.

According to analyst James Barford at Enders Analysis, it is worth noting that although the rate is slow, Vodafone is still pushing for growth in the market, which is not the case with most other markets. It is offering cheaper tariffs and rolling out new outlets to remain in competition with its rivals.
Vodafone has the highest number of customers in the government and corporate sector; a push in the consumer market is the right option for its further growth.

It is less costly for a large mobile phone company to expand its network and the gains in terms of brand awareness and customer proximity are significant. According to Barford, Vodafone saves on commission if the customer goes to its shop directly, instead of purchasing through Carphone Warehouse.

Mint.com out with new design

Mint.com, the personal finance service launched last year in September, has further enhanced its feature when it unveiled its new design on August 18. There have been improvements in the budgeting tools and the addition of investment and brokerage accounts recently. Critical money management issues are being covered by the new online resources that are also highlighted by Mint. The issues include credit card debts, paying–off study loans and saving for retirement.

The new design is more efficient in correctly directing users from the first time that they arrive there, which is important since most of the features that have been added in the past year are related to personal money management.  The new design allows users to find the tools that fit their needs as quickly as possible. They have also tried to increase the appeal to users of varied age and demographics.

In regards to the new design, Mint says it has immediately helped bring forth a double-digit rise in the number of website visitors that get converted into registered members. Keeping in mind that Mint is already a Webby award winner, improvements with the look should only enhance its standing in the online world.

HP and Thames Valley University develop IT degree course to meet UK’s skill needs

A part-time Computer System Management foundation degree course is being launched at England’s colleges this autumn. Jointly developed by the computer manufacturer HP and Thames Valley University (TVU), the launch is aimed at addressing acute shortage of IT skills, which the UK industry is facing today and is likely to aggravate in the coming years with further growth of the industry.

Students passing the degree course would be awarded HP Certified Professional accreditation. The course will offer degrees in 14 disciplines including design, sales and planning. According to a HP spokesperson, the course will impart IT skills and commercial awareness, much more than what is currently being offered by the standard degree courses.

The course is specifically designed for people in full-time work. They can attend college in the evening every week or alternate Saturdays. In addition, students would be required to attend four three-day residential courses every year. The duration of the entire course would be 2 years. After completion of both years, students will have the option of continuing for a final year to secure a BSc Honours degree.

According to the dean at TVU, Professor Andy Smith, more jobs would be lost to outsourcing if necessary steps are not initiated to enhance the IT skills of the local population.