Video snacking, for the uninitiated among you, is the habit of spending small chunks of time, typically five or six minutes at a time, digesting information from PCs or mobile phones. While many people do this at lunch or during their daily commute, more and more are doing it on the quiet at work. Four per cent of those surveyed admitted that their video snacking accounted for half an hour of their working day, everyday.

There are two issues to consider here. Firstly, should employers be condoning what really constitutes theft of their time? Why should they overlook video snacking, when they obviously wouldn't cast a blind eye to someone sitting at their desk reading Hello.

Secondly, should employers accept that technology is here to stay, and use it for business purposes? Only half of the employers surveyed are using online tools to communicate with their staff, despite one in five of them advocating the use of online video clips, blogs and webcasts as part of their internal communications programmes.

According to Martin Addison, Video Arts' managing director, "It seems that HR and training managers are missing a trick when it comes to capitalising on the rise of video snacking. The format offers the perfect way to deliver a short training clip that can reinforce a key business message to an employee when and where it is needed. It is also ideal for those looking for something more than passive lunchtime viewing."

Three quarters of respondents would consider giving staff access to a digital library of short training clips, admitting that this would be a cost-effective and efficient method of delivering training. What's stopping them?

The way businesswomen network and use contacts is the subject of new research by the  Centre for Women's Enterprise at the University of Bedfordshire.

Transforming Contacts into Resources by Dr Beatriz Acevedo-Holguin and Muhammad Roomi looks at how women entrepreneurs in the East of England develop and maintain their social capital.

Social capital is a concept that refers to the number, nature and quality of contacts and networks that a person possesses and uses as a means of growing and sustaining their business. These resources can take several forms including advice, information, support and funding and can be both formal and informal. 

According to Muhammed Roomi, "We looked into the way women conduct their business as we found this was an under researched area which contributes to a better understanding of the ways in which women can build and maintain their social capital and how this can be a catalyst to facilitate and accelerate the growth of female owned businesses.

"Our research concluded that women found regular interpersonal contact, good relationships, building trust and sharing ideas and information with individuals and groups beneficial when growing a business and developing ideas."

According to the Basic Writing Skills survey, undertaken by educational software developer Basic Writing Skills, 67.97% of the UK adult population has below average basic literacy skills. These results support Skills for Life findings which estimate that 5.2 million adults in the UK are at, or below, the literacy standard expected of an 11 year old. If these adults were to sit a GCSE English exam, they would fail. And according to a survey by consultancy Ernst and Young, the growing problem of a lack of basic skills in the workplace is costing the UK economy an estimated £10 billion each year in lost contracts and incorrect invoices. 

The survey also discovered that women have higher literacy levels than men, scoring an average of 15% higher than their male counterparts in the test.

The reasons for declining UK writing skill levels are arguably attributable to two factors: firstly, people not knowing that there is a difference between informal and formal language, and secondly, people not understanding the rules for written English, and therefore writing in ways that are personal to them but not necessarily comprehensible to others.

Heather Ker, creator of the Better Writing: Better Business™ programme, said:

"There has long been a belief that because we speak English, we can write it.  The teaching of grammar and punctuation has therefore been largely neglected for about 30 years and we are seeing the results of that now.  Ignoring basic rules would not happen in any other subject.  We wouldn't say, 'You can bang a nail in with a hammer - go and build a house.'  If you want to write well, there are rules to be learnt here too. They aren't complex, and once you have them life improves in many ways.

"The decline in literacy has not been helped by two aspects of modern society - increasing reliance on 'spell check' tools within word processing programmes where, for the most part, any corrections are automatically made or highlighted and brought to the user's attention. Moreover, 'txt' language on mobile phones encourages personal interpretative spelling - which is inconsistent as well as incorrect - to save space and time. This kind of writing has increasingly been adopted by many for informal emails.

Dwindling literacy levels can have a direct effect on the corporate bottom line. The written word is today the most common form of business contact, be it email, letter or report, all of which are a direct representation of the author and the author's organisation. Spelling or punctuation errors convey that the writer, and the company they represent, are careless and lack attention to detail. Such a damaging evaluation can result in a loss of business, as the survey by Ernst and Young has shown.

Speaking to Personnel Today recently, underwear entrepreneur Michelle Mone said that we are at risk of becoming "lazy Britain" - and according to the latest CBI/ AXA absence survey, of the 127 million days lost to absence in 2007, more than one in 10 (12%) were thought to have been non-genuine.

Mone admits that in her parents' day it was "just work, work, work" but says that she wants her employees to want to go to work, and want to contribute to the company they work for.

The 21 million "sickies" covered in the report cost the economy £1.6bn last year, with 65% of employers assuming that staff are using them to extend weekends and 60% to extend holidays. Over a third suspected that sickies are used for special events like birthdays and major football games.

An estimated five million workers across the UK will not have gone into the office today. We're hoping that with fewer commuters, the roads are clearer and public transport less crowded than usual. Stress levels have fallen, pollution levels are down and CO2 emissions reduced. People are happier, have a better work-life balance and ultimately will be healthier.

According to the TUC's general secretary, Brendan Barber, "Being able to work from home every now and again is a sensible move for individuals and their employers. Smart employers know this already. Now it's time for the rest to wake up to the benefits of flexible working."

"Monday seems to be occupied with meetings, conference calls and catching up with e-mail. It also sees greater sickness and absenteeism levels, so the real work gets started on a Tuesday."

"Employees and bosses also put the most hours in on a Tuesday, when more overtime is done than on any other day of the week. When it comes to a Wednesday, challenges seem less exciting and the work becomes more routine, it's the middle of the week, and the weekend still seems some distance away so momentum is slowing. Thursday is the start of the weekend wind-down and Friday tends to be the day when two-hour lunches and casual dress common, all having an impact on productivity."