We have been at our new head office in Abbey Street since December 2011. We have made a real effort to develop a modern and efficient work space that allows our staff to share ideas whilst also allowing them to focus on their daily tasks. The building has a long history and was once a coach house, sadly the bar is long gone but our new open plan office helps to encourage team work and communication amongst our team.

Thank you to everyone that took part and donated to help Team HIREMO raise £645. The team made a great effort in growing some spectacular mustachios and were ever so reluctant to shave them off and the end of the month!

Hopefully we can continue to build awareness of male cancers and raise even more money next year.

The Bank of England and its monetary-policy committee (MPC), under the guidance of governor Sir Mervyn King, has just pumped a further £75 billion into the British banking system via an unconventional process known as quantitative easing (QE). But how effective will this be at kick-starting our economy and how much of this money will filter down into the real economy?

During my short time back at The Hireman I have been investigating how to migrate out current IT infrastructure on to the ‘Cloud’. As I have found, the Cloud is a woolly term for anything that isn’t tangible and sitting in the corner of your office, instead it refers to virtual services hosted elsewhere. My key objective was to take our current IT infrastructure and place it all on the Cloud. Easy I thought, how hard can it be?

Much has been documented about the risks posed by Hand Arm Vibration (HAV) and similarly the importance of proper dust extraction and control in small tool use, and these rightly remain very high on our industry’s agenda. However, the less discussed and often overlooked need to properly test, maintain and repair small tools plays as much of a role in preventing more immediate health issues.

I have recently had two interesting conversations, one with an accountant and the other with a bank manager, both younger men than me and both with no real recollection of the severity of the recession in the early nineties. That recession lasted for at least four years, during which time our turnover halved and we lost a lot of good customers with well run companies who were forced into receivership. I vividly remember regularly reading stories of wrecked lives and shattered families within the construction industry.

During this latest recession, caused by a totally different set of circumstances, our turnover was reduced but I’m pleased to see that the majority of our customers are emerging with a healthy workload, which is not an accident. I’m fairly sure that like us there has been a lot of operational reviewing, rationalisation and a renewed focus on sales and marketing and customer retention.

Family businesses, large and small, are the backbone of the economy. Two thirds of all companies describe themselves as family-owned. However, I can think of one or two families – the Murdoch’s and Hilton’s spring to mind – as well known for their family feuds as they are for their companies.