Careers Life at GBP Consult Agony Aunt Karen Young’s top advice; and our book review

Ask PQ’s agony aunt Karen Young when you need expert advice. Email your dilemma to graham@pqmagazine.com, and he will pass on the best ones to Karen

THE QUESTION I recently did an interview for a job that I loved the sound of. However, since learning more about it I am no longer interested. Unfortunately, I received an email offering me the job, so how can I respond in a professional and graceful manner turning down the offer?

KAREN’S RESPONSE Once you have made your decision contact the employer as soon as possible. How you communicate your decision says a lot about you, so sending a polite email asking to speak to the most appropriate person is a good option. Speaking to the contact over the phone demonstrates your professionalism.

Don’t forget to follow up with everyone you were in contact with throughout the application process directly. This not only looks good, but it can also leave the door open for any future job opportunities if you liked the company.

The most important thing you need to do is make sure you show appreciation for the company’s investment. Recruiting requires time, money and resources, so remember to thank them for their time, effort and consideration.

Share the technical and logistical reasons why you decided not to accept the offer. If you are interested in the position, but got another offer with better salary or benefits, for example, you should share that information. Your honesty may help that company make some changes. • Karen Young is a director at Hays. She is passionate about helping people to find the right job, and companies to find the right person

Alston Owens is a CIPFA-qualified managing consultant. He has a degree in Business Administration with Law and has 15 years’ experience working in healthcare

What time does your alarm go

off? 6.07am (with a three-minute snooze time). There something about waking up to an alarm on an odd number. What is on your desk? Relentless by Eddie Hearn, Rubik’s Connected Cube and my trusted FRC – UK Corporate Governance Code Manual.

How long is your commute to that desk and is it better now?

I’ve swapped my commute for a morning walk/run – so I still get my steps in. But yes, it is 100% better.

Do you have a favourite lunch?

I’m a big fan of a chicken burrito.

What can you see from your

desk? My daughter’s school timetable and after-school club activities; a photograph of the ‘Empire Windrush’ setting sail for England; and a picture of my wife.

Which are your favourite websites?

Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime.

How many hours a week are spent in

online meeting rooms? I have lost count – way too many.

Are you spending more time

working now than normal?Yes, but in a more productive way. How do you relax? A 5k–10K run keeps me rested and ready to tackle the challenges for the next day.

What is your favourite tipple?

Not really one for a tipple.

What’s your favourite TV show?

Money Heist.

What is the best film you have watched

recently? Margin Call and Django Unchained.

Summer or winter?

Summer. All day every day. Pubs or clubs? Clubs, maybe. Do you have a hero? My father.

If you had a time machine where

would you go? To the 1980s, so I could pick on my older brothers.

In brief

Pap Top CEOs take pay cut

FTSE 100 bosses took an average 17% pay cut last year, as the pandemic pushed down earnings for some of the UK’s highest paid people. The average paid to CEOs was £2.7 million, with bonuses and basic salaries down, says a study from the High Pay Centre. Just 64% of FTSE 100 firms decided the time was right to pay bonuses. And those who got one saw them fall from £1.1m to £828,000. The best paid CEO is AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot. He was paid £15.45m in 2020. The High Pay Centre pointed out that the Average CEO still earns 86 times more than the median earnings for ordinary UK workers last year.

Pap WFH works for women…

Working from home boosts career progression, say half of women. A BBC survey by YouGov found 56% of women believe WFH will help them progress at work, because childcare and caring duties are easier to manage. Researchers said that two-thirds (65%) of managers agree that home working helps advance women’s careers. However, a quarter of women worried that WFH could damage their career prospects. There was also a worry that it could also lead to lower salaries in the long-term. The YouGov survey found the highest ‘believers’ that WFH benefits career among women in the 18 to 24 age range (65%) and those living in London (61%). In contrast, just 49% of women surveyed in Scotland agreed.

Pap … and is growing on you

The popularity of working from home is on the rise, according to a PwC report. It found that the more people worked from home, the more they liked it. Some 41% of respondents wanted to stay at home full-time for work, up from 29% in January. Nearly threequarters (73%) believed remote working had been a ‘success’ in the summer of 2020. That has now risen to a whopping 83%. The only downside to the survey? It was of workers in the US.

The PQ Book Club: books you should read

Woke, Inc. – Inside the Social Justice Scam by Vivek Ramaswamy (Swift Press, £20) When did it become the job of the big corporations to shoulder the injustices that befall some people in society? Author Vivek Ramaswamy believes even ‘woke’ capitalists fail to see how much harm they are doing to democracy when business elites tell ordinary citizens what causes they are supposed to prioritise. His really worry is that business leaders decide on the moral questions, opening the floodgates for unscrupulous colleagues to abuse that newfound power. Ramaswamy believes there are far more CEOs who are eager to grab money and power in the name of justice than there are CEOs who are agnostic to money and power and care only about justice. Under the guise of doing good, he says these corporate con artists hide the bad things that they do every day. “Coca-Cola fuels an epidemic of diabetes and obesity among black Americans through some of the products it sells… and implements antiracism training that teaches their employees to be less white.” None of this is by accident, he claims.

Ramaswamy once worked for Goldman Sacks and he doesn’t have anything nice to say about them! He claims Goldman said it would refuse to take companies public unless they had at least one ‘diverse’ member, when they knew every S&P 500 company could say they met the standard. PQ rating: 5/5 We loved this book, and while we don’t totally agree with the premise, too many are jumping on the woke bandwagon for private gain.