Modern workplaces can be fraught, and deadline driven environments don't always reveal people in their best light. Rest assured, many of us have been through times when a colleague has created a toxic work atmosphere or left us staggered by their behaviour.

As we contemplate our goals for 2016, considered these suggestions for recognising and navigating the stumbling blocks we sometimes are putting our own way.

My reluctant bet is that by the end of 2016 the UK will be slipping back into at least a severe slowdown. I hope to lose.

When it comes to running a business, either large or small, finding methods to stay ahead of the competition is no easy task. However, there's one big marketing technique that far too many businesses ignore and that's blogging.

Being an entrepreneur and working for myself gives me the flexibility to work around Alexander's schedule. Yes, I quickly learnt that babies are the boss. With everything subject to change I stopped fighting the process and found a way that worked best for us both.

It feels like Christmas has come early. Everything we have been discussing and debating since the Copenhagen climate change meeting in 2009 and the Rio Earth Summit in 2012, seems to have come together. It is what we do now that will be what define us though. Will 2015 be a wasted promise or a defining moment?

While all the news reports are focussing on how coal literally fuelled the industrial revolution, how at one point, one million miners were working in pits, how Big Coal is now over and heavy industry all but kaput in the UK, no one is really talking about how coal mining built communities, cultures, families, memories. My memories.

The interviews episode is always the best. Bear traps are laid, and the unwitting candidates fall into them. Every year without fail there's a numpty who believes the little lie about graduating from Cambridge/getting Highly Commended in Grade 4 Ballet/discovering the Higgs Boson won't be found out.

Although most businesses want their people to enthusiastically burst with new ideas, they use very limited ways to create innovation. Brainstorming, t...

Schengen in on life support and West African manufacturers should pay close attention. They are already convinced they won't be able to compete with the cheaper, better quality imports, which will be the inevitable result of a forthcoming EU/Africa free trade agreement. For most, exporting to Europe is a distant dream anyway. Increased border restrictions will make it even more unlikely.

Let me take you back to the 12th of September, 2015: Jeremy Corbyn has just won the Labour Leadership election with a landslide victory and 59% of the vote. There's a speech, a pub, some red flags and wait, what's that? A tea towel?

Research suggests millennials will work to live, not live for work. They watched their parents slogging their guts out endlessly and don't want to follow in their footsteps. Their values differ owing to lack of concern for employment hardship, recession and unemployment. Redundancy is not a fear.

You've probably heard a lot of rhetoric from the Tories about this supposedly "high-wage economy" they're creating. If you have, it might surprise you to hear that there are almost a quarter of a million working people in the UK getting paid less than the legal minimum to which they are entitled. Sports Direct may be just the tip of the iceberg.

As the Prime Minister and Chancellor have often reminded us, Britain is part of a global race for competitiveness and jobs. Our public finances are weak, the sustainability of our economic growth is under threat and youth unemployment is still too high. What Britain needs more than ever is for people to start new businesses and for existing companies to make new investments.

Today's annual Family Spending release from the Office for National Statistics contains a wealth of useful information - and the ONS has done a good job of presenting much of that data. Below we set out the Resolution Foundation's five key charts that explain just who spent what in 2014.

Most entrepreneurs are not entrepreneurs at all. They are entrepreneurs in name only because they spend most of their time doing the technical work of...