“The working-from-home illusion fades”

Jul 18, 2023 | In the news

An independent (financial adviser’s) view

Are workers working from home more or less productive than those catching the 7.02am to London Bridge every day? ‘Probably sitting at home in their bleedin’ jim-jams’, said someone recently of a less-than-helpful call centre employee, the assumption being that, were they surrounded by colleagues and with a manager cracking the whip, he or she would have sorted his energy bill more efficiently. Dream on!  Yet many of the many post-pandemic academic studies into the subject now say that bringing back the commute to the office is both good and necessary. I beg to differ, my non-academic view being that those that skive will skive (and so need sorting) wherever they are, and that giving motivated and appropriately skilled staff options and freedom has the be the modern way. The days of office fodder are and should be over and a bit of both has surely to be the sensible answer.

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“Record year for annuity sales driven by advisers”

“Record year for annuity sales driven by advisers”

I was asked this week whether annuities are now ‘a good investment’. They’ve been recommended very rarely in recent years, since ‘pension freedoms’ allowed pretty much unlimited drawdown on pension funds and anything left to be passed on to beneficiaries free of Inheritance Tax.