Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur - All Comments

Virgin Media Pioneers Blog — Blog — The Round-up: Inventions, Perfect Presentations and Better Ideas

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:20:53 GMT

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Virgin Media Pioneers Blog — Blog — The Round-up: Be efficient, be cheerful than keep calm and carry on

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:41:03 GMT

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re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Bursting my bubble

Pamela Edmond — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:22:24 GMT

Emotional Intelligence is often found in hindsight, but having said that I've been in similar situations and never spoke up. I should have told somone like you (in my career), exactly what I want. So maybe there needs to be a it more EQ on either side.....and if you don't ask, you don't get.

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: I blame Gen Y

Secret Diary — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:00:42 GMT

Hi Andrea, thanks for the great advice! I'm sure you're right, that must happen a lot. To be honest I don't think that's the case in this instance, but I've no intention of dismissing the idea entirely - I fully intend to keep my beady eye on him in the coming weeks and months, and make sure I keep trying to improve his management skills (if he was as good as manager as he was a salesperson, he really would be great!)

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: I blame Gen Y

Andrea Moss — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:52:36 GMT

Don't be so sure. Sometimes, a manager's best skill is fooling the people above him, which is how he got the job in the first place. A junior colleague of a new, reasonably respected senior manager at our organisation complained. We didn't take it seriously and she left. The output of the department started to suffer. Then another of her colleagues complained. We investigated and discovered that all work was done by his junior colleagues, and he wasn't even giving any direction. We got rid of him and promoted a member of his team and since then, the whole team's performance has improved dramatically.

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Holidays are over-rated

Marge Brown — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:41:36 GMT

I am sure your staff will love to hear that. With the passion for your business obvious in the way you talk, entrepreneurs don't see work like ordinary folk. Entrepreneurs don't have weekends, they are not living for Friday evening to turn up or that holiday you booked 6 months ago and have been dying to go on. You are in the fortunate position of loving what you do, others that work for unfortunately might not have the same enthusiasm.

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Tax is too taxing

Mike Benson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:10:01 GMT

Are they trying to bring the UK economy to its knees, the more complicated the tax system becomes the longer us entrepreneurs spend time and money finding loop holes tying up vital time to grow our businesses, no wonder many are looking further afield to start up.

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Tax is too taxing

James White — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:05:06 GMT

I completely agree. I think it comes down to how much tax you want to try to avoid relative to how much time you have to do it. Your time might be better spend working on your business. If you were really that bothered about tax why not just register the company overseas?

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: A pain to train

James White — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:03:35 GMT

If the course isn't needed then it isn't needed. There is also the risk that she'll be off somewhere else after its done (and you've paid for it).

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Not a flexible friend

James White — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:24:30 GMT

This is a really interesting debate. I think people do slack when they work from home but this may a result it being a novelty. They know they need to work in the office for 90% of their time so when they do get the chance to work from home its abused. On the other hand, the Semco model promotes home working as an option and it has worked very well. As long as targets are set well there shouldn't really be a problem with home working in my view.

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: A pain to train

Gerard Burke — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:13:20 GMT

it's great that every member of staff has a training budget. So how about telling her how proud you are of that and that it's also important that you're seen to be fair and consistent to everyone. I'm sure she'll see that that is good HR practice. So, if you always agree to members of staf requests up to their budget, then you should agree to fund and provide time for her to do her CIPD course up to her budget. If it costs more than her budget, then she needs to make up the difference. And if it takes more time than the budget, then the difference needs to come from her own time.

Any other way and you're not being fair and consistent. I'm sure she'll see that.

Besides which it will allow her to demonstrate her own commitment to it.

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Interview trial and error

Secret Diary — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:30:22 GMT

Hi Hannah - I don't like the idea of not hiring someone in case they went on maternity leave. And to be honest I'm not sure I'd reject someone on this basis, if they were perfect in every other way. I think your idea to find and train a replacement is a great one - it's going through this whole process twice that horrifies me.

That said, if you've been there for eight years i think it's a very different story - I think you've earned a bit more slack than this. So don't be shy about taking it further.

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Interview trial and error

Hannah Watson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:55:04 GMT

The attitude of not hiring women because they 'might' go on maternity leave is nothing new and I imagine, very common among small business owners.

I work for a smaller firm and told my boss last week I was expecting my first child. I've been with the company for eight years and I had fully intended to return, however, his reaction has made me question whether or not this will be possible for me.

I fully believe I could successfully take him to a tribunal and I would, if it wasn't for the fact that in a year's time I will now have to look for a new job and I'm worried about a potential new employers reaction to this.

I have offered to find cover for my leave - interview, recruit and train - on top of my usual responsibilities. As a smaller business, my employer will also be given compensation from the Government while I'm off, so I fail to see how the attitude of 'don't hire women who might get pregnant' can truly be justified.

I would say at least you've been honest and admitted you wouldn't hire someone who may go on maternity leave, but as you say, this blog is anonymous.

Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: Interview trial and error

Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:24:55 GMT

Sometimes you need to start interviewing people to work out who you want. Though girls are tricky… I

re: Secret Diary of an Entrepreneur: 'Rgds', or The death of good manners

Kris Hogg — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:17:31 GMT

Totally agree, but is seems too formal to use the Yours sincerely etc. at the foot of an e-mail. The Danish have a standardised phrase, med venlig hilsen, which means "with best regards".

Mind you, the best one I have ever had from a supplier was "With passion" which is odd from a stranger trying to sell us IT hardware.

Personally I always use Best or Kind regards, but it would be interesting to poll ideas from the readership on this, what does everyone else think is the best way to sign an email?