uk

UK Permanent Hiring Falls at Fastest Rate in 10 Months as Uncertainty Drives Shift to Temporary Work

The UK jobs market took another knock in May, amid rising business uncertainty linked to the war in Iran and UK political turmoil. The latest Report on Jobs, from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), showed UK permanent hiring...

Why the UKEXA 26 Finals Day Is Unlike Any Awards Experience You’ve Had Before

For most awards programmes, entry and recognition happen in separate worlds. You submit your work, wait, and – if you’re lucky – collect a trophy a few months later. The UK Employee Experience Awards (UKEXA) 2026 is doing something different. This year, for...

What BP’s Leadership Crisis is Really Doing to Its 93,000+ Employees

BP’s leadership crisis has dominated headlines this week. A chair removed after eight months over conduct deemed ‘unacceptable’. A fifth CEO since 2020 and a third chair search in just two years. Then there’s the strategic identity that has lurched from...

UK Consumers Are Screening Out Legitimate Businesses Because They Can No Longer Tell What Is Real

Contact centres have spent years optimising dial rates, agent scripts, and channel strategies. But a growing body of evidence suggests the most consequential decision in outbound contact now happens before any of that comes into play. It is whether the...

The Role Nobody Wants: 85% of Employees Have No Interest in Becoming a Manager

The progression from individual contributor to manager used to be the dominant career aspiration. Not anymore. New research from Ipsos Karian and Box, published today, finds only 15% of non-managers think the people manager role looks appealing, raising concerns about the...

Eight in Ten Frontline Workers Faced Abuse Last Year. Why Aren’t They Speaking Up?

In the past year, 80% of UK frontline employees experienced workplace abuse. Of those who did not report it, more than half said it was because violence is simply “part of the job.” The data comes from a Trades Union Congress...

Learning Pool Acquires WorkStep to Build End-to-End Frontline Employee Experience Platform

On 20 April, Learning Pool announced its acquisition of WorkStep, an AI-powered employee engagement platform built specifically for frontline organisations. The deal follows two earlier Learning Pool acquisitions: WorkRamp, an AI-first learning management system (LMS) for high-performing teams, and Elucidat, a...

M&S CEO Says Leaders Shouldn’t Switch Off Completely — But Intentional Disengagement Is What Drives Performance

In a recent speech at the Business Leader Summit in London, M&S CEO Stuart Machin suggested that leaders shouldn’t fully switch off during holidays. These remarks have, unsurprisingly, reopened an important debate about work-life balance. Such thinking usually stems from a...

Banking Glitch and Health Data Leaks Draw Regulatory Attention and Calls for Accountability

A technical fault at Lloyds Banking Group briefly exposed customers’ financial transactions to other users, while a Guardian investigation revealed that health records from UK Biobank had been leaking onto public platforms for years, two incidents that have put institutional...

UK Regulator Reminds Businesses: Consumer Law Still Applies to AI Agents

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published new guidance making clear that consumer protection law applies in full when businesses deploy AI agents, and that companies will be held responsible for what those agents do. The CMA assures it...

Nationwide Deepens AWS Partnership to Personalise CX and Tackle Impersonation Scams

Nationwide Building Society has expanded its relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as part of a broader move to modernise how it serves more than 17 million members, without compromising on trust, security, or service quality. The new agreement strengthens...

Over 8,000 Breaches Show Cybersecurity Struggling to Contain AI Risk

More than 8,000 global data breaches in the first half of 2025, exposing an estimated 345 million records, are not only a security headline but a customer experience warning signal. Experian’s newly released 2026 Data Breach Industry Forecast reveals that...