Banner Blog

We’ve got you covered in 2021!

Here are few simple tips to help you refresh your working environments, protect your colleagues and help you and your team keep going this year.

As a provider to Central Government and the Wider Public Sector via a number of Frameworks, Banner is delighted to offer a compliant supply route for a new certified, UK manufactured, face covering to both the public and private sectors. 

The Business Standards Institution (BSI) launched the new quality assured Kitemark^TM to help people instantly know whether they're buying a face covering that is effective or not.

With many face coverings available in the market and as masks become compulsory in more places, the new Kitemark^TM accreditation provides consumers with confidence and assurance that the products have been assessed and approved to a technical specification.

The UK manufactured face coverings are available to all Banner customers and are currently in stock in our Distribution Centres across the UK. 

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove said: "This is a major step to ensure that this country can meet any increase in demand for face coverings by working with British firms to establish the capability, capacity and skills required to manufacture these items at scale..."

Brother are committed to helping customers and their businesses work as effectively as they can whilst working from home.

To help ensure this Brother have created a home printing solution containing four printers to help customers ensure they have the most reliable printers possible in their home offices. The printers the make up this solution range from a single function mono laser to an A3 all-in-one inkjet.

The current situation has seen an unprecedented number of employees working from home, including those who have rarely worked remotely before. 

The information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has signalled that it will take the current circumstances into account when considering enforcement action under GDPR.  However, the ICO will still expect employers to take appropriate action to protect information when working from home.

In 2019, only 30% of UK citizens were able to work from home*; but in a time when many of us must work from home, it can be harder to get into a new routine. 

When working from home it’s not always in the front of our mind to get up from our desks, to walk around, to stay hydrated or even to get food. We can lose track of time, forget to take regular breaks and become more focused and engrossed in our work and jobs without thinking. 

For some, there are also distractions in our home environment, everything from children to TV shows, our phones and social media channels can all have an impact on productivity, motivation and overall wellbeing. 

So how do you find a happy medium? 

Read our tips on how to ensure your working from home set up, is working for you. 

For many of us, our initial working from home set up may now need a re-think into a long-term solution.

Even a basic desk and chair may still not be a reality and the effects of working from the floor, sofa or bed are taking their toll.

Don’t let your new workstation hinder you, there are solutions to make most places in your house safe, comfortable, and inviting.  Here are our tips and top picks of the best products to suit many different home office locations.

Employers may be concerned about the challenges of managing a team of employees working from home. 

Without preparing for a dispersed workforce, there can be risks of lower productivity, reduced security and inadequate health and wellbeing support.

You need the right policies and equipment in place to prevent these problems. When these steps are taken, dispersed working can be a big success.

The sun is shining, the air is heating up, and it's harder to concentrate when working. 

That's a familiar story for many of us when temperatures start to rise, and one that can take its toll on workplace efficiency.

One study of 600 office workers found that productivity dropped by around 20% when the weather got hotter, with projects taking 13% longer to complete and people becoming 45% more distracted.

Here are 5 tips to help you work smarter in the summer months: 

Workplaces have been evolving for some time due to an increase in flexible working requests. While some businesses have found it difficult to accommodate such requests, the current circumstances have left organisations with no choice but to become more flexible with both working patterns and environments.

Many businesses have had to adapt quickly and provide their workforce with the equipment and software necessary to enable remote working. Most companies will now have overcome the initial obstacles, but the next step is to consider how managers can keep their teams motivated and efficient while working remotely, especially those who are used to managing teams in the workplace.

Here are our six top tips to keep your team motivated while working remotely:

An increasing number of businesses are currently working on their digital transformation strategies to make their company more efficient, productive, and scalable.

And yet this approach regularly contradicts and pushes the boundaries for how many organisations operate in reality.

Managers carefully select the best talent by going through a lengthy recruitment process. Once they’ve hired the right candidate, they put them in an office environment where they are statistically interrupted every 11 minutes by endless ‘quick questions’. According to a UC Irvine study, it will then take an employee around 25 minutes to get back to the place they were at before the distraction.