Business Diary: August 9

Its shares had plunged more than 20 per cent in early trading on Friday, and were even momentarily suspended.

Sitting in a conference room on the 11th floor of the bank’s London office, chairman Sir Philip Hampton apologised for a delay in starting the press conference. “We are minus the chief financial officer (Bruce Van Saun) at the moment but none of the windows are open,” he said. Fortunately, Mr Van Saun emerged moments later.

When a shoe size matters...

It’s all change at Leeds Building Society today as it is Ian Ward’s last as chief executive...and the remaining directors are all moving offices at their Albion Street headquarters. Although today is Ian’s last as the society’s sixth chief executive, the current Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business award winner will remain with the society until the end of September.

It is, however, rumoured that the resultant office shuffle has been prompted by sales and marketing director Kim Rebecchi simply running out of room to keep her shoes in her present office – and not Peter Hill taking over as chief executive.

When challenged by Diary about her shoes, Kim did not demur; she simply referred the correspondent to a recent members’ forum in the North East.

The Leeds society had rolled out its top brass to allow North East members to quiz executives ahead of the annual meeting: Kim was then approached by three or four serious looking members.

Kim takes up the story: “A very grave looking gentleman introduced himself and said ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, I mean you’re obviously a very intelligent and successful woman and know a lot about everything’.

“He then paused and looked awkwardly around the room before saying: ‘It’s just that me and my friends over there have been wondering why you are wearing shoes that are a size too large for you.’

“The man then walked uncomfortably back to his friends, leaving me stunned on the spot...”

One size clearly doesn’t fit all...

Pounding the beat undercover

IT takes a brave boss to go undercover on national television to find out exactly how their business is performing on the ground.

But such is the premise of Channel 4’s Undercover Boss series and Martyn Birks, marketing director of Normanton-based discount retailer Poundworld, is the latest to undertake the challenge.

Mr Birks, who will feature in tonight’s episode, visited Poundworld shops in Wolverhampton, High Wycombe, Liverpool, Nottingham and Essex spending six days working undercover on the shop floor.

During the show, Mr Birks posed as someone participating in a job placement scheme shadowing shop staff and managers. He said: “Our MD originally was going to go undercover but he’s very well-known throughout the business so he decided that I should go out and get a handle of how shops and staff operate on an everyday basis.”

Managing director and founder Chris Edwards added: “We have immediately taken steps to improve the issues it raised.”

When it’s no longer a holiday

More than half of Yorkshire employees are working through their holidays, according to new research.

While 51 per cent of Yorkshire employees who are not self-employed admit to working through their holidays, around six per cent make a regular habit of it according to research by YouGov for Croner, which provides workplace information, software and services.

There are some interesting regional differences. Some 14 per cent of East Midlanders in the survey admit to always working through their holidays, as opposed to just two per cent in the North West and three per cent in Wales. With six per cent of Yorkshire workers always working through their holiday, this means the county is neither as hard working as the East Midlanders or as lazy as the layabouts across the Pennines in the North West.

The research concludes that work-related stress is now recognised as a very serious occupational health issue. Poor management of the risks involved can be very costly to employers in a number of ways, including high levels of absenteeism, increased staff turnover, recruitment costs and insurance premiums, low staff morale and productivity, personal injury claims and enforcement action.

Bosses, you have been warned.