With a suspected second wave of swine flu just around the corner, many businesses could be left struggling to cope with staff shortages. Last month, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development warned that absence rates could hit up to 50% over the coming months, with swine flu being one of the main contributors.

I was talking to a friend the other day who had started getting the dreaded sniffles. Two days into Autumn (or Fall for our cousins across the pond) and already the lurgy is among us.

Unfortunately though, this Autumn there is talk of an absolute wipe out of staff. Millions are expected to get the dreaded swine flu (H1N1). Over the last few weeks, people have started to get a bit blasé about an illness which has struck down many and continues to exist.

Just because the media stopped talking about it, doesn't mean it's disappeared, just that something else more interesting has come along.

It may seem a bit foolish of Baroness Scotland to not follow the law which she helped create. However, that's what she did.

As someone who works from home, one of the most common questions I get asked is "how do you find it". So, I figured it's never a bad idea to sum up my thoughts, so here are my top five advantages and disadvantages of working from home - hopefully with the end result of helping you decide if it's something you should offer your employees or teams:

So do you know what you sell? I think most people (including myself) would say 'yes of course I do you idiot'. However it took one of our new customers to actually point out to what is really was.

Things to consider when developing your sales strategy

Storage and document management go hand in hand - and both cost money. I doubt many small or medium businesses really think about them in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately if you have disk space, you can have folders and you have files that masquerade as documents.

In a time of deep economic strife, it’s clear that businesses are struggling – whether huge or small. But while the big boys are forced to lay off staff (we see the doom merchants every day – and it’s quite likely that we all know somebody who has fallen victim to redundancy) this could be a great opportunity for small businesses to reap huge rewards.

OK, bit of a rant this morning... what is it with terminology and buzz words? Are we just getting so lazy that everything has to be buzz word led?

OK, so London is gradually returning to normal after the latest tube strike and attention returns back to the economic situation and the global recession which is now hanging heavy over our heads.