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March 30, 2016

News

Do you live in a UK fitness hotspot?

by Hitshopi George on

Ever wondered whether you live in a fitness capital or hotspot? Now you can find out thanks to a unique research study from health influencer Treated.com, and doctor Wayne Osborne, who have collaborated to reveal the top fitness regions of the UK.

Treated.com and Dr Wayne launched the research to calculate the area within the United Kingdom that has the highest concentration of regulated fitness facilities and amenities for adult men and women. In doing so, they unearthed a major string of results that also give the number of facilities per capita by type, such as the following:

–               Privately owned fitness facilities and amenities

Treated_Fitness_Hotspot__Table_1

–               Council run fitness facilities and amenities

Treated_Fitness_Hotspot__Table_2

–               Independent fitness facilities and amenities

Treated_Fitness_Hotspot__Table_3

The study piece looked into the total number of establishments and amenities classified as fully functional for accommodating the needs of fitness and physical activity within the major built-up areas of the United Kingdom. The figures were cross examined by the exact population of each major area in the UK to calculate the density per 10,000 people.

The results below demonstrate which areas came out on top:

Table 1 illustrates the density per capita for major gyms that have private ownership, such as Virgin Active and Fitness First. The overall leader is Edinburgh, not through sheer volume of facilities but their ratio to the number of people that live there. Second was Greater London, which on paper should re recognised as the fitness capital for its wealth of facilities, however its booming population drags down the capita. Bristol performs surprisingly well in third place considering the moderate amount of facilities within the area.

Table 2 recognises the council run facilities made up of establishments with sports halls and swimming pools, which have been in decline for the past decade owing to the rise of big name gyms. In tis context, Liverpool comes out on top for having a marginally higher concentration of facilities per capita than second place Cardiff, also chased by Teeside with the third highest density for fitness facilities. All three areas are known for working class culture and this may explain the strong prevalence of leisure centre amenities here favoured over the major franchises seen in Table 1.

In Table 3 the research exposes the number of independent fitness facilities and amenities to determine that Sheffield is a clear leader in this sector. The results highlight that Sheffield has more than twice the density of fitness facilities per capita than any other area in the UK, quite a feat considering it doesn’t even reach the top five in terms of its population. Edinburgh and Bristol were hard to separate in second and third spots, respectively. Bournemouth is the lowest performing region of all with a mere four facilities open to the public.

To view the full findings for the Fitness Capital of UK study visit the Treated.com blog, where Dr Wayne Osborne provides his analysis on the relationship between keeping an active lifestyle and living healthily.

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Business

The Technological Way to Tackle Crooked Employees

by Hitshopi George on

In every business organization, no matter what it does, there are always some bad apples waiting in the wings to pounce at the first opportunity to do what they have been waiting to do for quite some time, i.e. to dupe you in one way or another. Employee monitoring technology has been created exclusively for dealing with such employees, dishonest and rotten to the core. This revolutionary technology has conceived iOS spy apps and various other tools for different platforms to keep tabs on crooked employees. Let’s find out this technology plays its part in tackling crooked employees and the threats they pose.

The Digital Line of Defense

Whether you’re running a small business with 50 employees, or a multinational empire consisting of thousands of employees, you don’t have any real chance of success while your employees are trying to pull wool over your eyes. Therefore, investing in digital tools is definitely the way to go. Not only can they bring ease and simplicity to employee monitoring, but these nifty employee management tools can also help you keep track of employees’ digital activities and whereabouts. Let’s take a look at how they go about achieving that.

  • Helps you identify employees who abuse company-owned devices;
  • Enables you to keep an eye on the emails being sent and received by employees to make sure confidential data is not being leaked;
  • Allows you to view their internet browsing history to make sure that they are not visiting shady sites, like digital black markets for instance;
  • Keeps you updated on who employees talk to and what they talk about by logging calls and SMS;
  • Protects company from litigation by keeping record of everything employees do online;
  • Keeps employees from wasting time online, thus improving their performance.

The Satellite Solution

Employee management tools come equipped with a GPS tracker that utilize GPS technology to keep track of target devices. Installing the said tools on company hardware i.e. iPhones or any other web-connected mobile devices, can help employers in keeping an eye on their employees discreetly. Employers may also use the location tracking feature to make sure employees are where they should be and not slacking off or wasting time on leisure.

Seeing Beyond the Obvious

Digital monitoring tools give you access to pretty much everything that has got anything to do with mobile devices and the internet. Whether it is about tracking the location of your mobile workforce or keeping an eye on crooked employees to keep them from indulging in illegal and unethical activities, you need to be on your guard for making sure that your business is not their next victim. Crooked employees are a handful as it is. Even with the use of monitoring tools, it is quite hard to keep them from giving into their rotten tendencies. Therefore, you need to not only have access to their online activities, but also need to be able to connect the dots and put two and two together to stay one step ahead of them. This can be done by evaluating the reports generated by employee monitoring tools.

The Bottom Line

Crooked is what crooked does. Therefore, no matter how hard you try, if you have a crooked employee working for you, your business will always face a huge risk of suffering at their hands. This is why it is very important to stay vigilant and invest in technology that makes it possible for you to keep a close eye on them, lest they’re secretly making your business bleed and getting away with it.

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