News

ALDI – Park a Little, Spend a Lot!

Posted on November 26, 2014

According to an article written earlier this year by the BBC, Aldi is now a household name and has ‘cracked the supermarket business.’ The bargain supermarket has achieved success through following five steps: basic store layout, selling unusual items, general ‘penny pinching’, satisfying middle-class shoppers and by ultimately being in the right place at the right time. Aldi’s huge growth overlapped with the UK recession around 2007 and with their trademark cheap price, shoppers are likening to lower cost supermarkets in order to reduce their outgoings. Unfortunately, shopping at these smaller retail outlets such as Aldi are actually becoming more expensive than if you decided to do your weekly shop at Waitrose. Last week, our company director was issued with a charge to pay £70 for parking thirty minutes longer than was supposedly suggested...

Disposing of Fireworks Safely

Posted on November 10, 2014

So you’ve had your display and hopefully nothing has gone wrong. You’re soaking up the applause from the audience and the satisfaction of setting off all of your rockets. But it’s not over yet; you still need to clean up and dispose of your fireworks safely! Immediate To-do List Once you have finished, still keep your boundaries. Don’t let your crowd come anywhere near the fireworks when you are cleaning up. All being well there won’t be any problem fireworks, however if there are any, make sure you give them plenty of room and let them finish smouldering. Make sure you don’t remove any safety clothing; gloves and hi viz are essentials. Ensure everyone is safe and injury free - report to first aiders, if necessary. ...

Community Business of the Year 2014

Posted on November 08, 2014

Here at The Workplace Depot, we are delighted to be named as a finalist for the Community Business of the Year Award 2014. This recognition is part of Rushcliffe’s Community Awards and will take place at the Becket School next week. The nominees for this award are businesses that have specifically worked to support their local community - people, charities, etc. These prestigious awards honour the work carried out by individuals, groups or businesses who’ve gone to great lengths within their local community to improve the lives and circumstances of Rushcliffe’s residents. We believe in helping others, be it getting their voice heard, providing them with some much needed supplies or donating money. Some of the work we have carried out to improve people’s lives within the community include: Donating much needed stock to charities; Cerebral Palsy Sport, Groundwork Greater Nottingham, Rainbows, Age Concern, Nottinghamshire Hospice, Food Cycle and The Mercury Theatre. ...

Goodbye Nokia - Technology Continues to Grow

Posted on October 25, 2014

As we seem to have been mentioning quite often in our recent blog posts, technology is constantly changing and those of us who work with it are having to learn to adapt to new features on a daily basis. Some of our recent articles in relation to this subject include the introduction and evolution of Google in the workplace, along with the importance of promoting your brand via YouTube. With this in mind, today I came across another technology related story, one that I’m sure many of us will feel a bit of nostalgia over! Microsoft have announced they are ditching the brand Nokia after buying the company. The infamous brand was probably the first phone you ever had and an article by the BBC takes a look back at this brand of phone throughout history. The first portable phone produced by Nokia in 1952 was a Mobira Senator, which w...

National Home Security Month

Posted on October 01, 2014

As the darker nights come in, the burglars come out. According to the National Home Security Month (NHSM) website there is a 20% increase in home burglaries when it’s darker outside. After taking this in to consideration, NHSM was born to create awareness around home security and the importance of this, especially within these darker months. October is the month to become more aware of your personal security; not only does securing your home give you peace of mind, it can reduce your insurance premiums. NHSM breaks down different elements of your home security week-by-week to allow you to focus on certain features separately and easily. Week 1 NHSM advise you to check the fundamental information on the current burglary statistics within your area. This can be carried out by downloading the Yale Crime Watcher app on to your phone. T...

Coding in the Curriculum – Encouraging Children to Learn

Posted on September 23, 2014

This week has marked the introduction of coding in to schools all across and country as part of the new curriculum, with the hope that it will encourage more children to aspire to work in the digital industry. The EU has estimated that by the year 2020, there will be over one million jobs in the digital industries that will be unfilled. Consequently, coding will now need to be understood by parents, teachers and employers alike in order to build confidence in young people to seek job roles in the digital sector. It is also thought that the starter of this coding syllabus stems from subjects such as ICT at schools falling in to disrepute, due to the fact that knowledge of Microsoft Office does not result in gaining a good job or getting in to university. On the contrary, coding, even basic coding, is an excellent starting point for children to learn as young as possible, in relation to landing a good job. The Importance of the Digital Industry...

Online Retail Award Winners for the Second Year Running!

Posted on September 18, 2014

The Workplace Depot have done it again, for the second year running, we have won the Online Retail Award in the ‘Office and Workplace Supplies’ category! Over 50 companies including the likes of: Halfords, Littlewoods, RAC, Vodafone and Very.co.uk turned up to this event, in the hope to take home an award, some of them not being as lucky as The Workplace Depot, we were nominated for: ‘Office and Workplace Supplies’ and ‘Small Size Online Retailer Site of the Year’. Unfortunately we only took home the one award, however we can’t be greedy and there’s always next year! Four members of our web team had the honour of attending the event and collecting the award on the night, Richard Bloomfield Website Editor for The Workplace Depot, who attended both the 2014 and 2013 awards added: “It is an amazing achievement to win the award for the Office and Workplace Supplies category in two consecutive years. The judges seemed particularly impressed with the giant steps...

Top 10 Cool Office Gadgets

Posted on September 06, 2014

After crawling the internet I wanted to write something that all office workers would enjoy reading – something the majority of us envy every time we see something similar. In this case I have picked out 10 of my favourite office gadgets that would make life at your desk a little bit better and would never fail to put a smile on your face. USB Cup Warmer / Cooler This is one of my favourite gadgets I have ever seen. The ability to keep your drinks cold or warm, depending on what it is, whilst you’re sat at your desk – Brilliant! Image Credited - Designyourway ...

Boardroom Essentials

Posted on August 26, 2014

It doesn't matter if you are a new business or an existing one; you need to make sure you have a nice boardroom to make sure everybody is comfortable and obviously to impress all of your clients – first impressions and all that! So before organising any meetings, make sure your boardroom is well equipped with the essentials. If you are a company like Google and have plenty of money and thousands of staff; you could go with the option of kitting out your boardroom with unique designs and expensive equipment, such as: smartboards, mini bars, lazy boy chairs, mood lights, etc. However if this isn't you, you could go for the more traditional board room layout with all of the essentials, yet still look good! Starting with the main focus of the room, where everybody will be looking; the whiteboard. You need to have a main focus point of your room, when you...

Whiteboards' History, Materials and Buying Tips

Posted on August 20, 2014

We won’t hide our love for the good old blackboard—that sweet smell of chalk, that hissing sound as you write on the board... You could write in bold by applying pressure and shade different areas of a diagram by flipping the chalk sideways and wiping it across the blackboard surface. There used to be "chalk-fights” between groups of students and I remember more than one of our teachers target-practicing on my rowdy peers with pieces of chalk; but thanks to whiteboards, we don’t see any blackboards around anymore. Invention and History of Whiteboards Why did the whiteboard become such a huge success when we already had blackboards? The answer is "convenience". Blackboards were hard to wipe clean and turned whitish after a little use. You had to wet-clean them frequently to keep the writing clear. In fact, the earlier versions of whiteboards also needed to be wiped with a wet cloth. It was for this reason that despite being invented as far back as the late 1950s, whitebo...

The Future of Technology – What Does it Mean for Businesses?

Posted on August 18, 2014

Last year, we published an article referring to the Top 5 inventions that changed the workplace, today I wanted to talk about the future of technology in the workplace and what this might mean for us. It would appear with institutions such as Google HQ, Apple and internet sites such as Kickstarter, a website designed for people to display their innovations and have them funded by the general public, people are wondering what will be thought of next and how, as a business, can you keep up? The Importance of Social Media Not only is it important for businesses to maintain social networking sites and blog posts for fresh content and possibly a click through, more and more employers are ...

A True Office Classic

Posted on August 13, 2014

Being involved in my fair share of meetings, I can truly say that you can’t beat a classic. No matter how much technology comes out, nothing can replace the trusted Whiteboard in these situations. Tablets and Smartboards are being rolled out nearly everywhere these days, but I believe that you still need a Whiteboard in your workplace boardroom. The ease of scribbling notes and diagrams onto the board for everybody to see is just simple and very effective. You may say you can do the same with Smartboards, however we all know that technology can go wrong and normally does when you need it most. The simple approach of writing out what you need and then having the ability to erase it easily is brilliant. Another advantage of using Whiteboards, is that they are “green”. They are better than using paper or Smartboards, making it a perfect, cost effective, solution. Finally Whiteboards work perfectly alongside projectors. You are able to view your presentation on screen, whils...