SOME of Scotland’s biggest employers have lost some of the Christmas spirit as they reveal that they will be making no financial contribution to an office party this year.
A survey has revealed that organisations including Standard Life, Aegon, Scottish Enterprise and Northern Rock will not be funding Christmas parties.
Staff can still organise their own party but they will have to dip into their own pockets.
Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds say they will only be making modest contributions to the cost of staff parties. Continue reading →
EDINBURGH-based insurance and pensions group Standard Life are to axe nearly 500 jobs.
Over the next 15 months the company will phase out up to 600 existing jobs and create around 100 new jobs across the business.
The changes follow on from the structural changes which the company announced in June this year aimed at increasing organisational capability, flexibility and capacity.
Of the roles being phased out, around 100 are currently held by contractors and 24 are existing vacancies that will not be filled. Continue reading →
SCOTLAND’S beleaguered financial markets are celebrating a shock jobs boom.
There are currently now more financial job vacancies being advertised in Edinburgh than since the recession first hit the banking capital late last year.
The city has suffered more than most as bank staff and those from related finance industries found themselves out of work because of the credit crunch.
Economic analysts feared the concentrated cluster of financial institutions – such as RBS and Bank of Scotland – could see Edinburgh experience a crash in confidence.
But newly released data shows that from the 2972 vacancies advertised through local job centres, some 1464 of them – 49 per cent – were in the finance industry. Continue reading →
A PROUD mother duck and her 10 fluffy ducklings have adopted a £20 million refurbished office block as their new home.
The feathered family have settled down at the former Standard Life building in Edinburgh’s Canonmills.
The mallard and her brood of ducklings have made their nest within the building’s unique rooftop garden making them the official first tenants of the state-of-the-art offices in the city’s capital.
Tanfield’s extensive refurbishment has just been completed and provides up to 190,000 sq ft of stunning new office space in the city.
The building will be open for public viewing during Edinburgh’s Doors Open days on 26th & 27th September.
A VISCOUNT’S daughter recruited as a top banking executive by shamed former RBS boss Fred Goodwin has left almost £2 million in her will.
Viscount George Younger’s daughter Joanna Davidson – who died last October aged 50 after a year-long battle against cancer – was head of corporate responsibility for the Royal Bank of Scotland.
She was recruited by then banking boss Goodwin in 2003 to launch a new corporate and social responsibility division.
Ms Davidson’s father – the former Conservative Scottish Secretary of State for Scotland, and ex-RBS chairman, George Younger – also died from cancer in January 2003.
TRIBUTES have been paid to a globetrotting Scot who has died after a fall in Vietnam.
Charlie Gallagher, 39, from Inverkeithing, Fife, is thought to have tripped and fallen while at home in Ho Chi Min City on June 7.
He was rushed to the city’s main hospital but died the following day after failing to regain consciousness.
Mr Gallagher had lived in the city, also known as Saigon, for around four years and had built up a large group of local and ex-pat friends.
His family has paid tribute to the adventurous Scot, while friends have set up a Facebook remembrance page which has been inundated with heartfelt messages.
A TINY Scots company has been picked by Coldplay to help spice up the band’s world tour.
Edinburgh-based Pufferfish – set up by two entrepreneurial students – specialise in the 3-D spherical TV screen globes called PufferSpheres.
Founders Will Cavendish and Ollie Collier came up with the idea for the inflatable display system while studying at Edinburgh University five years ago.
Since they started up their business – which employs just seven staff – their PufferSphere has been used at functions for Google, Standard Life and London Science Museum.
But they have just been given their biggest gig yet – for Coldplay’s worldwide Viva La Vida tour.
So far the giant TV screen globes have wowed crowds all over America but are set to return to their homeland when the band play a concert in Glasgow’s SECC next month.
Ollie said: “It is an amazing feeling to stand backstage and look out at thousands of people and know they are getting a new experience of a music concert because of us.
“You work so long and so hard on a project like this, to see the end product having such an impact is incredible.”
And the pair, both 28, said they had fun discussing how to make the 150-date tour stand out visually.
Will said: “Despite being such a famous band, the Coldplay boys were really down to earth, nice guys. They had lots of ideas about how they wanted the visual side of the show to look – they’re really creative.”
Pufferfish started out as an art project undertaken while Will and Ollie were studying at the University of Edinburgh.
But the pair soon realised the idea could provide them with an income and set about creating their business.
And after three years of trying to secure funding and make sure they were ready, Pufferfish launched in 2006.
Their gamble paid off because apart from their most recent assignment with Coldplay, they have worked with lots of other big names, including functions for Google and Standard Life.
The company’s innovative ideas have already been recognised by the industry, and were last year awarded the O2 Scottish Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
And it was thanks to these orders that PufferFish landed the lucrative deal with Coldplay.
Will said: “Coldplay approached us because they had seen the PufferSphere and wanted to find a way to try and make their concerts a more interactive experience for their audiences.
“Our units allow them to do that. They project live feed from the stage and are suspended over the crowd in a way that means every member of the 15,000 strong audiences is seeing the concert from a different angle.
“It means the crowd are having a more personal experience, despite the massive size of the arenas Coldplay perform in.”
And after working on their “most demanding job to date” – which included several 18 hour days – they were invited by the band to see their work in action in LA.
At one US gig, the audience even began chanting ‘magic balls’ at the start of the show in anticipation of the spectacle.
Superfan Laura Young, 57, was at the gig in Madison Square Gardens, NY and said: “The balls are really cool. I hope the company keeps working on them to make them even bigger and better! They are great options for stage performers who want to push the envelope in terms of their lighting design.
“It’s nice to see that Coldplay cares enough to make their shows different and eventful to their loyal fans.”
And it’s not just the fans who are impressed by the PufferSphere – Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin has showered the balls with praise since the tour kicked off.
He said: “We have got some incredible balls and I mean that in the most technological of senses. In fact, they’re the most magic balls since John Lee Hooker had about 50 kids.
“They’re like a light show you’ve never seen before.”
During gigs the balls have so far been used as monitors for close-ups of the band, turned into pumpkins to celebrate Halloween and used as a lyric prompt so fans can sing along.
Now, Will and Ollie plan to take the rest of their staff to see their hard work come to life when Coldplay visit Glasgow’s SECC at the beginning of December.
Londoners have since been left in stitches by the large feature and believe it looks like an X-rated item more like… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…1 hour ago
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