Contracting Matters

Welcome to the latest edition of Switched On, included in this edition are some great offers for all Parasol Flexible Employees. There are some excellent discount offers on products and services that you have told us you want…

There is also a reminder about the May bank holidays. If you’re new to the UK, we get two days off in May and as a result this has an impact on bank processing timescales. For example, a Friday payment that would normally credit your account on the following Tuesday, will credit your account a day later due to the holiday. Switched On gives details of the specific dates plus deadlines for requesting an immediate payment.

The intrepid staff at Parasol are also undertaking a very challenging charity endeavour! We are aiming to raise £10,000 for ChildLine by completing the three peaks challenge. We would love your support.

I hope you will agree that Switched On is worth a read and of course we welcome your comments and contributions.

Should I feel guilty that I had forgotten that today is St. Georges Day? It seems to have past me by all the hype and run up to the big day. I might suggest that it is an opportunity missed for some businesses; I can’t see much promotion of English products or services. Parasol looks after thousands of people from different nations and each having special days in the calendar. That also means that in 2008 you do have to be careful not to offend, imagine if we missed promoting St. Blaise day, the patron saint of throat infections could be very upset.

My flippancy aside (and I apologise if I have offended anyone) it does raise the issue of nationhood and the flip side in relation to the concept of the global economy. Here at Parasol we are represented in many countries by many nationalities of workers. We do have some multi-lingual staff, have worldwide insurance coverage and by continuing to work on our online solutions, are beginning to have more of a “global” presence. Increasingly work in the corporate environment is global and a career in Contracting could potentially see you travel the globe. Just remember that Parasol can support you but also remember to look up the various national days that exist. I’m a proud Yorkshire man, Englishman, happy to be part of the EU (most of the time unless we start talking about the Agency Directive) and don’t mind opening the Fiji Parasol office if we need it.

Quite a while since I last wrote and in that time I have been out of the UK on business, we have opened up the Ingenuity Bank, Contractor’s Daily goes from strength to strength and we have pledged to raise £10,000 for ChildLine by doing the 3 Peaks Challenge!

Whilst the media continue to report doom and gloom I can report that we are still seeing sensible growth and activity. We have seen on our own news service that IT has taken a downturn in terms of jobs advertised but other sectors (Engineering and Oil & Gas for example) are growing still.

I think it is also important to point out that we are planning to increase our headcount and continue investment in services and solutions. So whilst government and the media continue to battle over the reality, we remain sensibly confident that investment is the correct thing to do.