Ebusiness Source

But aside from any of the other potential problems, how can employers deal with travel delays and the subsequent absenteeism from work while ensuring that they are not left under-staffed over the summer period?

Over 600,000 people are thought to have been effected by the volcanic ash disruptions in April. But aside from the individual nightmares, many businesses were facing serious problems of their own.

As the alert grounded many flights both in the UK and abroad, employees who were due to take only a week or two of annual leave were forced to stay for longer, and those who were expecting to take holidays had them cancelled at the last minute. Not great news for passengers or for businesses trying to plan holiday time into a busy schedule.

So what should firms do about the situation?

According to a survey commissioned by recruiters, Badenoch & Clark, nearly 43 per cent of UK employees have seen their pay docked or annual leave diminish as a result of the disruptions. But penalising your staff isn’t the greatest welcome home gift. <

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Mayor Rahm Emanuel has started to set up a ‘micro-lending’ program. Emanuel is working to form the ‘Chicago Microlending Institute’ that will administer $1 million fund for distributing to micro-businesses.

This institute will be operated by ACCION Chicago that has a reputation of being an established lender. It offers $15,000 to start-ups and $25,000 to established businesses. What ACCION Chicago is going to do is it will train two lenders every year who are going to receive money from $1 million fund and then the amount shall be distributed to small businesses. In the first year of the program, ‘ACCION Chicago’ along with two micro-lenders are expecting to grant 100 small business loans.

As ‘Chicago Microlending Institute’ will be administered by ACCION Chicago, every year two additional lenders will be prepared after proper training. The training program will cost $245,000 and it will be funded by third party grants. Once the new mi

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NEW YORK – On top of euro zone debt troubles, Wall Street now has to worry about sagging sales from Europe as a recession in the region seems more likely.

Warnings from companies such as chemical maker DuPont and chip maker Texas Instruments suggest the crisis may already be taking its toll on corporate America.

While holiday shopping has started on an upbeat note, the corporate warnings could sour the cheer for some investors.

“We are now beginning to see the collateral damage of the events in Europe with the earnings guidance cuts,” wrote Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak Additional reporting by Ernest Scheyder and Nicola Leske; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

With a thunderstorm of different economic problems raining down on any small business owner, it can be tougher than ever for your business to survive. The question I get most often is “How can I better my circumstance?” To be short and sweet, you have to take things one step at a time, be brutally honest, know your limits, keep a positive attitude, and simplify the business equation.

Before you can start doing anything you have to be able to make a plan and understand how to implement it. Create a schedule, set expectations for yourself and take things one step at a time. By breaking things down into daily goals rather than worrying constantly about the future will ensure that you are accomplishing something positive, however small, to turn things around. This can sometimes be one of the hardest things to do, especially if you are one who is easily steered off track and pulled in several directions. Prioritize with one goal each day, remember, the turtle always wins.

Being able to remain truthful, as well as realistic, is the best thing for your employees.

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Thousands of workers for one of the countrys largest solar panel businesses have been put on notice of redundancy on the back of the Governments decision to cut the subsidy for solar PV under the Feed-in Tariff scheme.

Carillion Energy Services which is part of the Wolverhampton-based Carillion group has confirmed 4,500 jobs are under threat.

The announcement came as a survey found that twothirds of companies in the sector were looking at reducing their workforces on the back of 50 per cent subsidy cut which comes into effect later this month.

Last year Carillion Energy Services enjoyed revenues of almost 800 million and was the major player in providing solar panels for social housing and was was the sole installer for the UKs largest rent-a-roof scheme, HomeSun.

The company was formally known as Eaga plc but was rebranded after being acquired by Carillion for 306 million earlier this year.

The company is based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne but has operatives throughout the UK.

Eaga was founded in 1990 as the Energy Action Grants Agency (EAGA) Partnership to administer the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme in the local area and was listed in 2007 but had to shed 700 jobs across the country due to Government cutbacks in the Warm Front grant.

A spokesman for the Carillion Energy Services confirmed it had launched a 90-day consultation process to determine the number of job losses.

According to a new survey by MEBC, 66 per cent of businesses expect to be forced to reduce current staff numbers because of subsidy cuts.

Many of the businesses questioned had expected a reduction in subsidy to bring the scheme down to a realistic level and stop the market overheating and to curb the excessive profits being made by some.

However, a 50 per cent cut imposed by December 12 was described as a business killer and a Draconian approach that will only serve to kill off demand.

One response read: Since the bombshell dropped things are getting hot.

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