Video: Avoiding serial litigants
Jenny Wilson, employment lawyer at Pinsent Masons, explains the dangers presented by serial litigants to companies advertising positions without taking advice.In this second video Jenny explains what employers can do to avoid this issue. You can find out more by visiting Pinset Mansons online.
Update: Immigration cap legislation and how it affects you
One of the keystones of the Conservative party’s election manifesto was to reduce net migration to tens of thousands. Here Kerry Garcia outlines the latest plans. Businesses and politicians alike have expressed concerns about the impact this will have on employers. The government recently set out its proposals for implementing this permanent cap on non-EEA […]
Season of Goodwill? A very HR Christmas
The festive season is upon us, or as employment lawyers like to think of it, the litigation season. It is time to send HR’s annual email explaining that there will be no office party this year/there will be a cheaper one than usual and that no-one must smoke, drink too much, tell any jokes, or […]
Recruitment freeze thaw forecast to hit London
London-based employers are expected to abandon widespread recruitment freezes over the next six months despite widespread uncertainty over the UK economy’s growth prospects. According to the latest ‘London Business Survey’, which was undertaken among 91 businesses by employers lobby group the CBI and management consultancy KPMG, 45% of London companies are planning to start hiring […]
UK skills body to be scrapped
The coalition government revealed it was scrapping the sector skills council for lifelong learning just as a new report indicated that greater skills investment would be crucial to achieve the sustained private sector-led recovery for which it hopes. Following a review undertaken by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), the Department for Business […]
Recession agression – HR managers are getting tougher to demonstrate greater ROI
Tough times call for tough measures and modern HR departments are now finding themselves tasked with delivering rigorous and robust return on investment (ROI), says Jason Willis, Divisional Manager of Reed Human Resources. As the UK creeps out of recession, senior HR bosses need to possess an additional results-driven skill set. There is an increasing […]
Finance Bill 2011: Childcare voucher schemes
It has been confirmed that there will be changes to the tax laws regarding the childcare voucher schemes in 2011. The government view that there are too many well-off parents benefitting from this (including tax-free music lessons through certain schemes) has led to a change in the way the system will work. This is the […]
Government u-turn on pension rates makes schemes more expensive
A pensions fund body has criticised the coalition government’s decision to backtrack on moves intended to slash the costs for employers of providing workplace pensions. Ministers had suggested in July that they would introduce legislation to enable private sector organisations to use the lower Consumers Prices Index rather than the traditional Retail Prices Index in […]
The eyes have it: Study into ‘nudge’ psychology
HR professionals wanting to ensure that employees behave themselves could do worse than hang a poster of a staring human face on the wall. A research paper, published online this week in the American journal ‘Evolution and Human Behavior’, revealed that sticking a poster of a face on the wall of a cafe made people […]
Informal learning and driving innovation future of L&D and HR
Ever increasing interest in informal and continuous learning will be the key driver for change in the learning and development function over the next 10 years. According to a report published by research and consulting firm Bersin & Associates, this growing focus on informal and continuous learning will result in the further adoption of internal […]
Getting retirement right
The recent announcement that the coalition government is to phase out the default retirement age of 65 was met with apprehension by some employers. Concerns were expressed that by abolishing fixed retirement ages we are loosing a dignified way of retiring staff whose performance may be in decline. In addition, employers feared that unproductive employees […]
Take home pay growth at 50% of last year
The average growth in workers’ take home pay is just under half of what it was last year, reflecting the ongoing uncertainty in the UK economy, according to a study. The FTSE 350 Take Home Pay Index, undertaken by payment provider VocaLink and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, revealed that, although private sector […]
Hunt the Robin is back!
This festive season you can win cinema tickets when you find the Christmas robin hiding on HRzone.co.uk . The prize: A pair of cinema tickets, redeemable at any of 230 cinemas nationwide, courtesy of Filmology. Filmology is the UK’s first dedicated movie marketing and promotions company and leading supplier of cinema vouchers as staff rewards […]
David Fairhurst’s decade in HR: How HR earned its place at the top table
David Fairhurst gives his opinion on how the last 10 years have changed HR and where we will go in the future. The last 10 years have been some of the most formative for HR in recent history. The so-called noughties have seen our profession go from strength to strength, from an also-ran in […]
Mediation: an essential skill for today’s leaders
HR professionals and line managers who have been trained in mediation skills report a greater understanding and self-awareness of their own conflict management styles, as well as a significant increase in their confidence and skill levels which enable them to address conflict. Importantly, HR and line managers also report that after undertaking mediation skills training, […]
Employment law takeaways for December
Employment law takeaways: our bitesize legal updates for busy HR professionals, provided by Suzanne Horne of Morrison and Foerster. This month: agency workers, re-employment and pension payouts. 1. Tilson v Alstrom Transport – Fully integrated agency worker was not employee of end user2. Hinsley v Chief Constable of West Mercia Constabulary – It was a […]
Happy workers have a sense of shared purpose
Business strategy must be based on a shared sense of purpose between employers and workers in order to boost staff engagement, job satisfaction and organisational performance. According to a survey undertaken among more than 2,000 employees by YouGov on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), 84% of those working in organisations […]
Charity and retail workers ‘not party animals’
While recruitment and marketing staff enjoy a good Christmas party more than any other group of workers, back office personnel in the retail sector are the most likely to make their excuses and not turn up at all. According to a survey among 2,500 UK office staff across eight industries undertaken by serviced office provider […]
More than half don’t measure training impact
Just over half of organisations fail to measure the business impact of their training programmes due to both a lack of resources and personnel qualified to do so. According to a study among 412 learning and development decision-makers across the world, other key reasons for failing to gauge outcomes included confusion about what actually should […]
Depressed police officer should have been re-employed
In a case that raises questions over the extent of employers’ duties under disability discrimination legislation, an appeal tribunal has ruled that a police force acted unlawfully by refusing to reemploy an officer following her resignation. Sarah Jane Hinsley was suffering from undiagnosed depression when she quit West Mercia Police in January 2007, saying that […]