Last week, active job adverts hit the highest number of 2022 so far - 2.08 million jobs. There were 269,000 new jobs posted, the second highest figure recorded for 2022. The first was the week before at 309,000. (Data from REC)

Now, if you’re like many other companies and held off hiring during the summer holidays, getting the message out about your role and finding spot on candidates, is going to be like finding a matching pair for Every. Single. One. of your child’s socks - nigh on impossible. And frustratingly time consuming.

And so August is well and truly here and we’re over halfway through the summer holidays with its seemingly endless days of sunshine, ice cream, and madly scrambling to ensure holiday clubs are definitely booked for one’s offspring. There’s no question that the long summer holiday can be a stressful – and expensive - experience for parents.

CVs – often one of the simplest but also hardest parts of applying for a new job. We can make them too long, too wordy, too sparse, too complicated and there are endless tips out on the great world wide web that can make it as daunting a house renovation Pinterest board you’ve collated over the last 10 years.

We're one week into the Summer Holidays and our feeds are full of posts on the topic - from already exasperated parents to incredible examples of flexible working to help parents navigate the summer vacation.

We have years of experience stirring the 9 to 5 pot by encouraging businesses to embrace #flexibleworking - showing them the benefits including the wealth of talent they can attract by flexing their working patterns.

And so, with that in mind, we bring you nuggets of flexi summer holiday guidance to get you all through the summer holidays…

Hot Dogs - The rise of the pet-friendly office?

We’ve spent many a happy hour writing about flexible working over the years. We’ve pondered the leaving of offices, the return to offices and the commute to offices. We’ve written about family-friendly offices, environmentally-friendly offices, returner-friendly offices and bottom-line-friendly offices. But we’ve never yet written about pet-friendly offices. This is a new horizon for us too, but one which seems to be gaining increasing traction in workplaces across the globe.

International Women’s Day, now well into its second century, has long celebrated the achievements of women – whether economic, social, cultural or political. This year, however, IWD’s calling on each one of us, individually, to Break the Bias. We’re being encouraged to stand up and demand an equitable world, where difference is valued and celebrated.

Whatever your working pattern of choice – part time work, remote work, compressed hours – there’s no question that flexible working has made a huge difference to our lives. Forget Biff, Chip and Kipper - for millions of us, flexibility has been the magic key to unlocking a better work-life balance. It’s enabled us to cheer on our kids at sports days. To provide a listening ear for elderly relatives. To volunteer in our communities. For some of us, flexible working is what makes our worlds go around.