Welcome to Taking Stock on Tuesday 26th September 2023
Taking Stock: Is a look at today's top business news & investment views plus we cover the winners, losers, the most read company news & the most followed. Today this includes:
If Cash is King, what is Queen?
MOST FOLLOWED
MOST READ RNS
TOP BUSINESS STORIES
Water firms forced to pay back customers for poor performance
Water companies have been ordered to pay back £114m to customers through lower bills after missing key targets.
Ofwat, the industry regulator, said that firms are "falling short" on performance measures around leakages, supply and reducing pollution.
It said that following a review, millions of pounds would be returned to households by cutting bills.
Ofwat said in its assessment that not one company reached the highest measure of performance.
If they fail to meet targets on things like reducing pollution, leaks and water outages, Ofwat restricts the cash they can take from customers.
All but five of the water providers reviewed will therefore have to give money back to customers by reducing their bills in 2024-25, rather than each bill payer getting a lump sum refund.
Sick days at work hit highest level for 10 years
UK workers are taking more sick days than at any point in the last decade, research suggests.
Staff took on average 7.8 sick days in the past year, up from 5.8 before the pandemic, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) found.
The trade group said the rise was a "worry" and blamed stress, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis.
These conditions were having "profound impacts on many people's wellbeing", it added.
The research analysed rates of absence in more than 900 organisations, representing 6.5 million employees.
Changes in working culture since the pandemic coupled with the cost-of-living crisis have left some employees feeling disengaged and stressed, the CIPD said.
Working from home could also present an issue for staff that lived alone or had limited social contact.
Spotify testing AI-powered feature to translate podcasts into different languages
Spotify Technology is testing an artificial intelligence (AI) powered feature that will translate podcasts into other languages.
Powered by Microsoft-backed OpenAI's newly released voice generation technology, translated versions of podcasts will mimic the original speaker's style and will be more natural than traditional dubbing, Spotify said.