It’s funny how an item as simple as a large pad of paper, basically headbound so that each page can be turned over at the top to reveal the next sheet, would become such a vital product in every school, office and place of business! The flipchart pad is popularly used combined with an easel during presentations, lectures and seminars. Even though time has moved on and we are using more, increasingly advanced technology, the flip chart still continues to be the most effective presentation media there is.

The flipchart pad is a prime example of how it isn’t always necessary to invest a lot of money in high tech visual aids in order to create an effective presentation; the best visual aids are in fact the simplest. It is essential to remember the purpose your visual aid is intended for; you are looking to enhance your demonstration, not upstage it.

Often people invest in high tech presentation equipment, however find that due to the cost of replacement parts, bulbs, software and specialists accessories needed in order to complete the lecture; the machinery ends up dusty in a cupboard. There are several advantages to using a flip chart pad; you will not need to budget for bulbs, extension leads, specialist films and expensive markers; upgrading software, laser pointers and other such accessories; all that is required when using a flipchart pad is a box of flip chart markers. Using a flipchart enables you to brainstorm ideas and methods with your audience; you will be able to make last minute changes with complete ease!

Flipcharts are commonly used for:

• Presentations
• Training
• Capturing information during group discussions
• With an easel as a display and information board (where other methods prove too expensive or information is changeable)
• Teaching in schools, colleges or universities
• Track targets and goals in sales and manufacturing places of work
• Display menus or specials in cafes and restaurants
• Child play and learning in nurseries and pre schools
• Art classes and artists
• Coaching in schools, offices and sports teams

At Office 365 we have a selection of pads by the makers of 5 Star, Nobo, PAD, Quartet and Whitebox in a large variety of options such as perforated, plain, ruled and seven self adhesive! Ordering online couldn’t be simpler, however if you need any help or advise, please feel free to contact a member of our team on 0870 766 1624.

When you’re looking for the ideal method of keeping track of your employee’s attendance and time management, it’s not always easy to rely upon yourself to individually monitor each employee! Many firms will tack their employee time management by checking what time they logged into the systems. However this method is not fool proof as employees will often claim they were in work on time, just not logged in. You will become used to the many different excuses used, for example, “I was here, I was just making tea”, or “I was here, but I was just in the bathroom” and often “I didn’t log into the system as I responded to an email first”.

If you cannot be sure of your staff’s time management, assessing their illegibility for promotion is almost impossible! You need to be confident in their ability to prioritise their work, respect their hours and their loyalty to the firm.  In order to know this with certainty, you will need to implement and effective time attendance system.

Our favourite is the Safescan TA-850 Time Attendance System featured.

• High speed Fingerprint sensor
• Quick & Easy installation
• Registers up to 2.200 users
• Stores up to 80.000 time records
• 3″ LCD screen (128×64 pixels)
• Time Attendance Software (Safescan TA Software 4.5 version) for unlimited users included
• Manage user data and time records (presence, absence, breaks)
• Comprehensive reporting functions
• Real-Time access to time records
• Fire-Roll-Call report/ real-time presence overview for enhanced employee safety
• Data Export to Excel and payroll HRM programs (.csv format)
• Extensive employee management functions
• Filter function employee/department
• Calculates working hours and overtime
• Rounding options/plan (in- & out- time)
• Multiple Work schedules
• Clock in with Incident/Work codes (vacation, doctor, sick etc)
• Clock in with Project codes
• Automatic data back up function
• Add and edit logs manually
• Export through USB-stick or real-time Ethernet TCP/IP connection
• Supports the use of multiple terminals inside a single network
• Dual authentication option – clock in with combination pincode and fingerprint
• Terminal & Software in 11 languages: EN, DE, FR, IT, ES, PT, NL, CZ, SK, HU, PL
• No data loss in case of a power failure
• Wallmount model
• Dimensions: 189 x 140 x 40mm
• Weight: 0,48 kg
• 10 day satisfaction guarantee
• CE certified

The beauty of using biometrics for your time management system is it is 100% fool proof! When using systems that require cards and pin codes, you run the risk of these being lost, can be lost, forgotten and even swapped! What’s more, you can be sure that fellow employees do not ‘log each other in’! This system operated by fingerprint recognition and without any hassle, recognises prints easily. Your staff will simply log in using their finger tips upon arrival and departure at the terminal by placing a finger on the fingerprint scanner. With many other added features such as Real Time Data through the TCP / IP network connection, you can manage just about everything with the included Safescan Time Attendance 4.5 software! Using a works code function, you can see what projects your staff have been working on, plus codes can be used to register incidents like for example medical appointments, sick leave, and so on. The list is endless, and all this for just £453.94 inc VAT! (3 year warranty included!)

When you’re running a successful business, the last thing you need is your staff calling in sick all the time. Whether or not they have paid sick leave, your staff will always require time off for illness, this is an unfortunate certainty. However there are measures you can put into place which will greatly reduce the chances of illness and even allergy in your workplace.

Every office has contaminants, more so than other commercial buildings and homes. There are so many factors which need to be taken into consideration, such as moisture and mould, often chemical pesticide residues, cleaning products from the daily cleaner, air fresheners and antibacterial sprays, chemical emissions, formaldehyde from furniture and particleboard walls, the dirt collected in the carpets from hundreds of shoes, as well as synthetic fibres from clothing, chairs, and carpets, toner emissions from laser printers, faxes, and photocopiers, ozone from electronic equipment, dust captured inside computers (have you ever noticed how much dust a computer attracts!) which makes continuous close range fine particle emissions on desktops, various fragrances worn by staff, third hand tobacco residues from workers coming in from outdoor smoke breaks, airborne cat allergen would you believe, found everywhere cat owners go! There is microbiological contamination due to overcrowding and then of course the obvious two; viruses and bacteria from ill staff and pollen!

This is all very overwhelming and gives explanation to why we suffer will illness more in the workplace. The solution is easy; invest in a decent air purifier. We have just the one! Our 3M Filtrete Air Purifier has been designed to cover areas equalling 34 meters squared. If your office is larger, simply position more, strategically placed so that your entire office is filled with clean air!

• State of the art filtration technology
• The perfect balance of low noise, high clean air delivery rate and value for money
• 99.9% effective filtration of pollen, dust mite debris and mould spores
• Also captures household dust, pet dander, cigarette smoke, smog and particles that carry odours and viruses
• 11% higher pollen capture rate than a HEPA Purifier
• 28% higher airflow than a HEPA Purifier
• Quiet air cleaning
• Allergy UK seal of approval
• Filtrete Electrostatic Filter
• Filter life indicator
• Ideal for rooms sized up to 34m2
• Combined Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) of 800
• Our price – Just £242.86 inc VAT!

We are aware that this item is likely to be purchased in bulk to cover various office or building floors. In this scenario, we suggest you contact a member of our team on 0870 766 1624 to discuss a bulk order price. We’re always happy to reduce our prices when customers are ordering in volume; for the easiest method of bulk ordering, simply select ‘order in bulk’ on the product page. Enjoy cleaner, fresher air and healthier staff this year and get in there before the spring pollen arrives!

At Office 365 we pride ourselves on our many services we offer making the complete ordering process easy, fast and stress free with us. We have a huge variety of stationery and office supplies available to both businesses and individuals alike with products such as office electronics and their consumables, furniture, desktop accessories, stationery as well as cleaning and catering supplies. We offer a price match guarantee which means if you find any of our products elsewhere for cheaper, we will match that price! Many of our customers are schools, NHS trusts, GP’s, government departments and locals government organisations, and we understand that when ordering for a company such as this, different procedures must be complied with, which is why we allow for purchase orders to be faxed over where necessary!

Many of our customers find that we offer an unbeatable service in terms of delivery and price and so prefer to order their item in bulk so that it lasts the entire office for a year. We take great pleasure in offering a bulk order service where we are able to give you a quote where products are ordered in larger volumes. Here you can either add the item to your basket and then select ‘get a quote’, or you can call our team on 0870 766 1624 where a member of our team will be more than happy to help.

We offer the secure Mastercard Worldwide payment service which is unbeatable in terms of security and peace of mind and accepts cards such as Visa, Visa Electron, Mastercard, Maestro, American Express and Solo. However if you prefer, we even offer the ability to pay via PayPal now! We prefer you to place orders online, however if for whatever reason you need to speak to our team, our lines are open from 9:30am to 5:30pm Monday to Friday, or alternatively you can contact us via our email address info@office365.co.uk where we will also be able to help you.

If you order before 4pm, thanks to our dedicated ordering process, you will receive your items for next day delivery! The process is carried out in a fully automated pick and pack warehouse to ensure that we can deliver your most popular items within 24 hours, however if your item is urgent, we do suggest that you call to check stock!

Finally, we pride ourselves on being an environmentally aware company and offer our customers a great variety of Green Products which are recycled and recyclable! We also offer a variety of Breast Cancer Awareness products which when purchased donates money directly to Breast Cancer research! Our entire order process has been designed to have as minimal affect as possible on the environment from efficient logistics and packaging solutions to electronic invoicing to our ability to source the best environmentally friendly products for our customers. You will find that our Blog features various environmentally friendly articles offering advice on our green products and how your office can be green. However if you can help us be more eco friendly, we’d love to hear from you, so please do get in touch!

We all know by now that at the centre of a successful business is the effective organisation of time, space and ideas. We’ve each been there, struggled to work with an unorganised heap of mess, a desk without desk space, drawers so full you can barely shut them. When you work this way, can you ever find what it is you’re looking for, or at least can you ever find it within reasonable time? It’s that frustrating feeling of “I only saw it a couple of days ago, where has it gone?” It really is impossible to work this way, nothing gets done and you must endure a permanent feeling of being flustered and disorientated! You know that its easily resolved, you just keep putting off finding that moment to do it…well now’s that time!

First of all make a bin it pile, archive it pile, desktop file it pile, stationery pile, and so on. Discard of the rubbish, recycle it if you can. Starting with a completely clear desk and drawers you can now start as you mean to go on. Fill your top drawer with stationery items; hole punch, stapler, staples, repositionable notes, correction fluid, sticky tape, highlighters and so on. Use the drawers below to file paperwork, maybe for example recently dealt with accounts? Purchase a desktop letter tray for paperwork you are currently dealing with and file anything ancient into the filing cabinet. Purchase a desk tidy for all your commonly used stationery; pens and pencils, and acquire yourself a business card organiser!

There’s no doubting the fact that if you work for a business, you gather quite a collection of business cards, however without a place to store them, you can never find that contact when you need them. Whenever you are given a card, bring it back to the office and file it! Just think, for every potential client you meet, every supplier and every partner in business or associate, you will be given a card. Find the perfect way to organise those card and have them sitting on your desktop for quick reference.

Try our Durable Visifix Desktop Business Card File for example.

• Stylish modern desktop unit designed to store and protect business cards
• Supplied complete with A-Z index and 100 plastic card pockets for storing 200 business cards
• Pockets can be interchanged between both the Visiflix flip and desk units
• Black/Grey
• Great savings on RRP – Now only £36.90!

For more information and ideas on how you can create the optimum working space, why not browse our site or get in touch on 0870 766 1624 where a member of our team is sure to help.

If you were to look up the start up costs of your business, you’ll find that in the initial furnishing investment, flooring was right up there with the most expensive! Good quality flooring doesn’t come cheap, yet we walk all over it, wearing stiletto shoes, muddy boots, dragging heavy furniture and walking in wet shoes! Floors can be so easily damaged and the cost to replace or repair just doesn’t bare thinking about! Consider the value of your carpeted and hard floors, have you opted for parquet, real wood, laminate flooring, carpets; what would it cost to replace them should they be ruined? It really doesn’t have to be this way, not when there are cheap solutions out there which will protect your investment!

Floortex is a brand who is specially focussed on flooring products and solutions. They have been No.1 in the floor protection market since 2001 and their extensive range is unrivalled to this day with years of unbeaten value. Their selection of innovative mats provide cost-effective solutions for protecting your expensive or even irreplaceable floor coverings including carpets, real wood and laminated floors. Developed to focus on protecting your floors from diminishing appearance, wear and damage and what’s more, because it’s Floortex, you can choose from a huge variety of different products!

With all this snow and wet weather, our focus today is on Floortex’s doormat range. This selection offers superior moisture, dust and grime protection, whilst offering good water retention at the same time! This means that whenever a person enters your premises, the moisture from their shoes is captured as they walk over the mat, preventing water damage and dulling of your flooring, not to mention preventing trips, slips and falls (another huge cost to businesses).

Take a look at our Doortex Valuemat Indoor Entrance Mat featured.

• Tough and hard-wearing mats designed to soak up any excess moisture from footwear as well as remove finer particles of dust
• Combines great performance with superb value
• Optical barrier keeps mat looking clean while collecting dirt
• Grey
• Size: 600 x 800mm
• Just £13.78 inc VAT!

Using these mats in all entrances into your building, your floors will stay safe and clean without any added hassle. Guaranteed easy maintenance, these mats can be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner or hosepipe! To add the icing to the cake, these mats even have an anti-slip backing so that you can be sure they’ll stay in place when in use! To browse through our selection of mats and chair mats for yourself, take a look on our site where you will find low prices across the entire range!

We have just 10 days to go before Christmas, don’t you think it’s time you get into action! Those ideas you’ve been planning, now’s the time to put them into motion. Many people use Office 365 are their go to for Christmas presents; as the cheapest online office and stationary retailer (backed up with our price match guarantee), we have a huge assortment of different products which are not just aimed at offices.

We have a great selection of surprising items such as artists supplies; pastels, watercolours, organisers, headphones, DAB radios, tins of biscuits, special chocolates and more. Many come to us to create their own Christmas hampers.

Here at Office 365 we have all the tools you could need to make a stylish, exciting and fun Christmas hamper for just about anyone! Simply follow the steps below.

1)      Choose your box – We have so many different boxes to choose from here, in various strengths and sizes. All you have to do is pick the most appropriate size and strength for your Christmas hamper.

2)      Case sealing tape – Now that you have your box, you must seal the bottom for protection. You may be packing some heavy items into your box, so make sure you apply appropriate tape to add strength and durability.

3)      Find your protective foam filling – Choosing a loose filling such as this one means that the recipient can rummage around in the box, easily retrieving whatever gifts lye hidden inside! You know that your purchases are safe and well hidden too!

4)      Choose your gifts! – Now for the fun part, you can have your own bit of fun, sifting through our site choosing yourself some colourful little treats and surprises for the recipient.

Popular hamper choices include mechanical pencils, electric pencil sharpeners, chocolate biscuits, good tea, correction fluid, highlighter pens and felt tipped pens, diaries, calendars, staplers, chocolates, printer cartridges and so much more! Take a look through our site; you may well be pleasantly surprised at our staggering selection of everyday items and fabulous gifts!

Remember, right now for first time customers, we’re offering a generous 10% off their orders! And then to add that further little treat, we’d also like to throw in some freebies. Until the 30^th December, we’re giving away free chocolates for all orders over £60!

During the month of December we have an abundance of orders for our calendars. With plenty of stock to cover the demand, we simply ask that you order quickly to save disappointment! We would also strongly advise to phone our offices and check stock availability prior to ordering, should your requirements be urgent. Our telephone number is 0870 766 1624. We do hate to disappoint, and would suggest that as they are so in demand at this time of year, it is always safer to check the availability before ordering. That way, if they are out of stock, we can point you in the direction of one of our calendars that isn’t.

Our calendars are designed to work in the home or the office and have been created by a wide selection of different brands and in a number of different designs. You can even order in bulk and receive a better offer price, this way you can ensure that there is a diary at every desk for your employees, ensuring their organisational skills are in tip top condition! I would personally like to recommend the At A Glance 2013 Wall Calendar featured.

I’ve ordered two; one for my very disorganised daughter and one for the ‘house’ and have been pleasantly surprised by quite how excellent the quality actually is! Designed to boast style and functionality, this month-to-view calendar is perfect for the home or office.

• Month to View calendar with At-a-Glance date indicator
• Full year for reference on each page
• Gold blocked on a selection of coloured leatherette borders
• Can hang or stand
• Size: 162 x 193mm
• Just £4.28!

This fantastic date calendar from At-a-Glance has handy tear off pages which detail one month at a time, plus a full year for reference on each page! When the month is done, simply tear off to reveal the following month underneath, it couldn’t be easier. Also benefiting from a date indicator, you can select ‘today’s date’ for faster, more convenient reference, plus the fancy leatherette border with gold detailing adds a touch of glass and sophistication to any office or desk area.

I’ve put mine aside for the new year and promise you that this time next year, after I have lived with and worked with the calendar and its features for a full year, I will write a full review on the item. Please feel free to come back to us and share your experiences, compare stories and even write a review! Remember, if you write one review for us, you will receive 5% off your next order; write two reviews and you can enjoy a pleasing 10% off!

Working in HR or as an office manager can be extremely exhausting; everyday you are overwhelmed with emails, calls and visits from staff requesting time off and holidays, and this is on top of the work you already have to do; provide guidance, support and advice to staff, explain policies and procedures, build relationships within the company, training, the list is endless.

Those who work in HR are the source of expertise on people issues in a business; it is their role to develop policy and practice people issues, to advise where needed on the people aspects of the organisation, to identify solutions and challenges. When they become the ‘go to’ for holiday and almost employee ‘haggling’, there becomes a lot of pressure to perform as a decision maker where it would often be the manager’s role to decide such matter.

Take our office for example; our lovely office manager has taken on many different roles indeed and has so many different aspects of the business balancing on her fingertips. She juggles, successfully, all kinds of different duties and has become the core of daily matters. Thanks to this, she has become the office go to, holidays, sickness, ‘where’s the boss’ phone calls, or any questions as a matter of fact; there’s no end to what she does!

This is why it has become appropriate for our office to feature a staff holiday planner. Just like many other organised businesses, we display our wall planner in an area of the office where everyone can refer to it when needed. At a glance we can see which holiday days are free, we can see where others have requested holiday and therefore we cannot overlap that time, we can see how many holiday days we have left and where bank holidays fall as well as other national holidays. Having an at-a-glance reference means that it is no longer necessary to burden the HR manager of office manager with such queries.

Take our Sasco 2013 Annual Holiday Planner for example. This un-mounted annual holiday planner from Sasco has been designed to help keep on top of staff holiday planning in a busy office. With week by week view, recording a whole years holidays for up to 33 people, this single sided chart is a must have for any working office!

• Week by week
• Single sided chart showing whole year
• Space for recording annual leave for up to 33 people
• WxH: 75 x 41cm
• Unmounted
• £14.35 inc VAT

We absolutely love this office gem and can only highly recommend it for every busy working office. Give your HR or office manager a break and pin a holiday planner by their desk, then whenever an employee comes to them to ask about holiday availability, they can simply point at the chart!

Now into November, it might be an idea to consider what you’ll be rewarding your staff with this year as their company Christmas gift?! I remember receiving an atlas in a box one year from an old firm I worked for, I still use it now and it sits proudly on my dining room shelves. Another year we all received a rather optimistic travel BBQ, as if any of us could afford to travel, or that we would have the summer for a BBQ! But never the less, it was used! However the best gift you could invest your company’s money on would be one that would also benefit you and the firm. One that would ensure that your employees are organised, meeting schedules and able to work efficiently; what could this be? A diary of course…

Here at Office 365 we specialise in a great number of different stationery and office supplies bringing you a full and complete online selection as well as the lowest prices on the web (backed up by our Price Match Guarantee). Why not consider arranging for your stationery to be personalised so that the recipient will feel valued? We have a huge selection of items that would work well with personalisation, and a popular item our customers have purchased from us to send off for personalisation is the diary.

Take this dairy for example; the 5 Star 2013 Big Diary 2-Full-Pages-Per-Day A4 featured is perfect!

• Fully section sewn Big Diary
• Ideal for restaurants and hotels
• A full two pages for each day
• 70gsm white wove paper
• Colour matched ribbon marker
• Black
• Size: A4 297x210mm
• 2013
• £7.07 inc VAT!

The perfect organisational gift, this diary not only boasts a superior, sophisticated look, but is also capable of holding a maximum number of appointments and notes. With 2 A4 pages per day in a day-to-view format, you can simply open up your diary and lay it flat on your desk ready for appointments over both pages. Writing can be neat and not cramped making it perfectly legible and with all this additional room, you can add as many appointment slots as you like! What better gift to offer your workforce than this! Alternatively opt for the bigger brand; we have the Collins 2013 Big Diary Two Pages Per Day which provides all the same features, but with all the quality of Collins! For orders simply follow the link to our website where you can also select ‘get a quote’ if you’d like to order more than 15 units, or call a member of our team for help and orders on 0870 766 1624.