September 22, 2014
Winners of Design Guild Mark for 2014 announced by The Furniture Makers Company
The Furniture Makers’ Company used last week’s 100% Design show to announce the Design Guild Mark award recipients for this year. The Design Guild Mark, now in its seventh year since launching in 2008, rewards excellence in the design of furniture in volume production. According to the organisers, with the award of this Guild Mark for designs which meet The Furniture Makers’ Company criteria, the designers receive due recognition and the industry is made more aware of the importance of investment in design. The Design Guild Mark aims to acknowledge the work of the finest furniture designers working in volume production and the best of British furniture designers working abroad. This year’s winners include Pearson Lloyd’s RIYA task chair for Bene and a posthumous award for the classic Supporto Chair (above), designed by the late Frederick Scott and now manufactured by Zoeftig.
August 13, 2014
Small business has no problem with flexible working – it’s just sceptical of legislation
by Justin Miller • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news
At the end of July, the UK Government introduced new legislation that allowed any employee with more than six months in a job to apply to their employer for some form of flexible working arrangements. Now, research from Sage claims that a third of small businesses are ignoring the legislation, a fact which might be interpreted as suggesting that the UK’s SMEs are not so keen on the idea. What other data suggests, however, is that they’re probably more likely to offer flexible working than larger firms. This can only mean that it’s the legislation that’s the problem, not the practice. Leaving aside the ten percent of SMEs who the Sage report claimed were unaware of the new rules, this still leaves a large number of smaller businesses open to litigation and industrial tribunals. But, as the Federation of Small Businesses warned ahead of the new law’s introduction, the right to request was always likely to lead to headaches for business owners anyway.
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