See our at-a-glance round-up of all the latest HR news including BBC strike suspended, pay settlements back at 3%, Labour’s plans for radical workplace reform and how looking after dodgems doesn’t pay.
Pay settlements back in the doldrums
According to analysts, IRS, UK pay awards have slipped back to 3% for the three months to April 2005, a fall of 0.2 percentage points from the previous rolling quarter.
BBC strike suspended
A 48-hour stoppage planned for next Tuesday over BBC job cuts amounting to 3,780 has been narrowly averted.
Talks with conciliation service, ACAS were held on Thursday following the first strike held on Monday, 23 May.
After 20 hours of talks with the unions, significant progess is said to have been made. The unions aren’t however, recommending that their members accept the terms and conditions as there will be no changes over the numbers of jobs that go.
See more on this story at: www.bbc.co.uk Government should handle maternity pay, says IoD See more at: www.accountingweb.co.uk Government plans radical workplace reform Mark Crail, report author of ‘Five Year Forecast: the IRS third term HR report’ said: “Looking ahead to the next five years, we believe employers will have to deal with a tranche of further regulation, including a statutory right to paid bank holidays and possibly tighter control over the use of agency temps. But some things may become easier. Labour’s training agenda is a real attempt to deal with deep-seated skills problems in the UK, and the creation of a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights may help to unify and simplify discrimination law.” Pay league is no surprise See further results at: www.statistics.gov.uk Workers bluff their way out of trouble Excuses for lateness range from: “I dropped a jar of honey and it smashed all over the floor – it took ages to clean up,” to “The bus run out of petrol.” While those looking to soften the blow of a missed deadline prefer lines including: “My computer keeps crashing,” to “I did it at home and my cat walked on the keyboard pressing delete.” Ninety-six per cent of workers admitted to fibbing when confronted with a tricky situation. See more on this at: www.officeangels.co.uk Missed holiday stacks up
HM Revenue and Customs should take on responsibility for administering increased maternity pay, says the Institute of Directors.
Despite a reduced majority, the Labour party are planning some radical reforms to mark their third term in power.
Chief Executives are 16 times higher paid with an average salary of £162,028 than leisure and theme park attendants who earn just £10,400. The official statistics collated by the GMB union and published in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings for 2004 threw up few surprises this year.
A survey by recruitment outfit, Office Angels has revealed the range of popular fibs used by workers to squirm their way out of trouble.
A survey by travel company, Expedia.co.uk shows that workers do 14.3 million days of work a year for free because they fail to take their full holiday allowance. A figure that amounts to £1.2 billion a year of free labour.
