Redundancy payments top £13 billion since recession

Employers have shelled out a huge £13.4 billion in redundancy payments over the last three years following job losses as a result of the recession and subsequent sluggish economic growth.  According to a report by Wedlake Bell, a City law firm that obtained the figures via a Freedom of Information request to Her Majesty’s Revenue […]

Duncan Smith calls to ‘give our young people a chance’ at employment

UK employers must stop taking on labour from abroad and give work to jobless British youths instead, the Work and Pension Secretary will say today.   In a speech to the Spanish Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies think tank in Madrid, Iain Duncan Smith will attest that the coalition government is attempting to tackle […]

Lloyds to cut back office function to save money

Lloyds Banking Group is to axe a further 15,000 jobs in a bid to make annual savings of £1.5 billion by 2014, with most of the cuts likely to come from middle management and back office functions.   The organisation has already announced 27,500 job losses since its merger with HBOS in 2009, but said […]

Manufacturing skills initative to improve automotive image

More than 35 automotive organisations have signed up to the coalition government’s ‘See Inside Manufacturing’ initiative, which is intended to try and improve the sector’s image in a bid to tackle Europe-wide skills shortages.   Business Secretary Vince Cable, speaking during a visit to the Mini factory in Oxfordshire yesterday, said that the reason why […]

Wellbeing at work: review of Fellowes office aids

You have a duty of care to your employees. Wellbeing is important and employees off sick – for whatever reason – is inconvenient and costly. So it’s important to make adjustments and practice preventative steps as the best medicine. This includes desk assessments and ensuring employees know how best to prevent any common issues caused […]

Driving behavioural change

Organisational change requires people to do things differently – to change their existing behaviour patterns. This is not an easy task and attempts to change behaviour often have poor success rates. Change initiators seldom take into consideration the fact that people have to change behaviour that has been successful for them for years. Over the […]

MP exposed as hypocrite over unpaid intern

An MP who campaigned for the introduction of a national ‘living wage’ has been accused of “hypocrisy” after replacing a salaried staff member with an unpaid intern.  Lyn Brown, Labour MP for West Ham has posted an advert for a “voluntary Westminster worker” whose duties include policy work and dealing with constituents on her official […]

Cancer-suffering apprentice sacked

A teenage cancer sufferer was sacked from his apprenticeship because his employers did not want to have to deal with a disabled staff member, an employment tribunal has heard.  Michael Ready is claiming unfair dismissal, discrimination under the Disability Act and breach of contract, although William and Tracey McManus, the husband and wife team who […]

Uni courses with poor employability to be named and shamed

The coalition government plans to shake-up the English higher education sector by opening it up to increased private sector competition and introducing a new ranking system to ‘name and shame’ degree courses with poor job prospects.  Under proposals put forward in the long-awaited higher education White Paper, which is due to unveiled today, universities will […]

‘Don’t strike’ Cameron plea to public sector

David Cameron will make a last ditch appeal to public sector workers today not to go on strike on Thursday after talks between the coalition government and the unions broke down last night.  The Prime Minister is to address the Local Government Association’s annual conference two days before a walkout of an expected 750,000 teachers, […]

Coming full circle – the four levels of performance appraisal

Despite widespread usage of annual staff appraisals within all sizes and types of organisations, in the vast majority of cases the process is time-consuming and unpopular because in most people’s experience appraisals deliver little value, to the employee or the organisation itself. Peter McHugh, CEO of Covalent Software suggests that the employee performance review processes […]

Ask the expert: Am I really redundant?

This week the experts, Adam Partington and Esther Smith advise on whether this HR practitioner is being made redundant fairly.     The question: Am I really redundant? I have worked for my current employer for 19 years as their HR/Payroll & Benefits Manager. Four weeks ago I was called into a meeting with the […]

Older workers neglected in training and performance

If employers fail to tackle the current widespread neglect of older workers’ training and performance management requirements, they will leave themselves open to discrimination claims when the default retirement age is phased out in October.  This is the warning issued by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development after publishing a survey of 2,000 respondents, […]

UK at risk of brain drain

The UK is at risk of suffering a ‘brain drain’, with just over a quarter of both blue and white collar workers saying that they would prepared to move overseas in order to improve their job prospects.  According to a survey of 30,556 working adults in 29 countries undertaken by employment engagement researchers GfK NOP […]

BeKnown – Facebook just got a Monster recruiting face

BeKnown and beware. Monster has built a platform on Facebook bringing social recruiting to the masses. It might just change the face of Facebook. When we think about social media, we tend to consider Facebook for family and social groups. LinkedIn is the career site – jobs, resumes and professional connections, and Twitter is a […]

Transparent top pay catches out 10% rise union leader

The ongoing controversy over executive salaries took a new twist this week after a union leader was criticised for taking a 10% pay rise and top mandarins lost their battle to keep their wage details secret.  Christine Blower, head of the National Union of Teachers which is taking part in a national strike next week […]

Police officer sacked after Facebook comments

A Metropolitan police officer has been sacked for acting like a “nasty schoolyard bully” after posting offensive messages about a fellow officer on Facebook and abusing a female colleague both verbally and by text.  The 35-year old constable, who was based in Islington, posted “deeply offensive” comments on the social networking site on 18 June […]

Cable announces C-suite pay crackdown

Vince Cable pledged to crack down on the “outrageous” renumeration packages offered to some senior business managers just as it emerged that Network Rail is to hand its former chief executive a £1 million payoff. Speaking at the Association of British Insurer’s biennial conference yesterday, the Business Secretary said that, over the next few weeks, […]

Ask the expert: Employee with two jobs

This time the experts, Esther Smith and Martin Brewer give their advice on an employee working two jobs. The question: Working time directive and two jobs If one of my employees has requested to work in secondary employment, if they are likely to exceed working 48 hours per week over both jobs, are they required […]

Case in point: The importance of pay in lieu of notice clauses

The recent case of Societe General v Geys [2011] EWCA Civ 307 has highlighted the need for companies to check the existence of ‘pay in lieu of notice clauses’ (‘PILON’) in employment contracts and the effects they have on both the employer and employee on termination of a contract – the effects can be substantial. […]