Voluntary benefits– knight in shining armour or plaster over a sore?
Offering a voluntary benefits (VB) programme to employees can be an inexpensive, quick and effective addition to an organisation’s benefits scheme. VBs provide a practical way for employees to stretch their often frozen net pay at little or no cost to the employer, since they are paid for by the employee, often through the payroll. […]
Up to 14 years to recover from lost public sector jobs
The UK risks sliding into a double-dip recession before the end of the year as business leaders resolve to slash recruitment and rein in expenditure in response to the coalition government’s proposed austerity measures. But even if private sector employment growth continues at the last decade’s average of 0.7%, it is expected to take 14 […]
Union calls for civil disobedience to beat cuts
The Trades Union Congress is expected to overwhelmingly back a composite motion today to ‘support and co-ordinate campaigning and joint industrial action’ at a national and local level in response to proposed public sector budget cuts. Union leaders warned the Financial Times that public sector pensions are shaping up to be the most “combustible” issue, […]
Sexual harrassment at work widespread and unreported
While almost one in ten women feel sexually harassed at work, just under half report the situation to HR or managers over fears that their career will be affected or they will not be taken seriously. The most common complaint, cited by one fifth of female workers, was being subject to sexist comments from male […]
US and European brain drain on horizon
Companies in China, Taiwan and India are leading the world in their desire to expand their workforces, but with employers across the US and Europe remaining reluctant to do so, the situation raises the unpleasant prospect of a brain drain. According to the ‘Employment Outlook Report’, which is based on a survey of 61,000 companies […]
Employment law takeaways for September
Employment law takeaways: our bitesize legal updates for busy HR professionals, provided by Ann Bevitt of Morrison and Foerster. This month, equality, incapability and disability discrimination. 1. Community Dental Centres Ltd v Sultan-Darmon – Unfettered right of substitution fatal to worker status2. Aylott v Stockton on Tees borough Council – Identifying the proper comparator in […]
Uncertainty taking toll on morale
Four out of five senior managers believe that the current unsettled economic outlook is more difficult to deal with than outright recession, not least because they are finding it increasingly difficult to win staff buy-in for difficult decisions. Just under half acknowledged that employees now had a jaundiced view of the sincerity of the leadership […]
Dying for work – over 20,000 every year, claims TUC
More than 20,000 UK staff are killed prematurely through their work each year, while 1.2 million are suffering from work-related illnesses ranging from musculoskeletal disorders such as back pain to mental health problems such as depression. These are the findings of research undertaken by union umbrella organisation the TUC, which revealed that the equivalent of […]
Employees win over lack of redundancy consultation
About 60 workers made redundant in January after their employer went into liquidation have been awarded 90 days’ back pay due to inadequate consultation over the situation. Electrical contractors J&G Engineering had debts of around £2.3 million when it went into liquidation just after Christmas. But Unite brought a case against it because staff were […]
SMEs recognise value of social media
While just over half of small-to-medium businesses regularly use social media in their day-today activities, the number jumps to four out of five among engineering and technical firms. According to a survey of 269 companies undertaken by Darryl Willcox Publishing, some 35% of SMBs updated social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter on […]
Ask the expert: Is this redundancy fair?
This week the experts, Martin Brewer and Esther Smith, advise on whether this redundancy selection is fair. The question: Is this redundancy fair? The shop floor team consists of five employees working 42 hours per week (full time), three employees working 35 hours per week (part time) and six employees working a variety of […]
Has Britain’s public sector got talent?
Imminent pay freezes and job cuts in the public sector threaten to make the war for talent even harder to win. Faced with a gamut of challenges across the board, public sector employers need to take steps now to ensure they have the skills needed to achieve genuine reform, says Tom Marsden. In an effort […]
Making your business a lean, mean, people machine
In shaky economic times organisations naturally look for ways to stabilise and recently there’s been a strong resurgence in ‘lean’ business management. But, argues Alethea McIntosh, principal consultant at Berkshire Consultancy, the ultimate success of this efficiency-driven model depends not on standardising process but in understanding people, and more specifically diversity. In business, ‘technical’ issues […]
Tea workers expected to train cheaper replacements
Staff who are due to lose their jobs at an iconic British tea company have reacted angrily to demands that they train foreign workers scheduled to replace them next year. Twinings’ bosses announced last November that they intended to close the company’s factory in North Shields with the loss of 263 jobs. The aim was […]
Half of employers fear ‘old won’t go’
Only just over a half of employers expect to scrap default retirement ages completely when the practice is abolished in October next year amid fears that staff will refuse to go even if they are no longer up to the job. Research undertaken among 115 customers by law firm Shoosmiths indicated that only 20% of […]
Workplace trust eroded by recession
Low levels of senior management trust are particularly marked among Generation Y and legal personnel, central and local government sector workers and those scarred by office closures and compulsory redundancies during the recession. According to a survey undertaken among 5,000 staff by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), those organisations that chose to cope […]
Tube strikes after ACAS talks break down
The London Underground network is set to be crippled by a wave of 24-hour rolling strikes from today after talks at the conciliation service Acas to avert industrial action collapsed last week. Some 10,000 members of London Underground’s two biggest unions, the RMT and TSSA, began preparations for strike action from 5pm on 6 September […]
HR is going into the war for talent unarmed
Employers across both the public and private sector fear that they are no longer able to offer the pay and benefits packages required to attract and retain key skills, an HR body has warned. Number two on the list of concerns relates to the ability of line managers to administer such rewards, while the number […]
Training not supporting business objectives
While a huge 86% of organisations have introduced coaching or mentoring programmes, nearly two thirds fail to directly support corporate objectives but focus instead on developing individual talents. To make matters worse, 15% of employers have put no measurements in place to assess the outcomes of their coaching and mentoring initiatives. These are the findings […]
Bosses confident growth is around the corner: podcast
Is growth in business or hiring just around the corner? A study of European business leaders has revealed nearly 40% are planning to invest in existing talent, while a quarter claim they will invest in training as this long awaited confidence makes a welcome return to the market with over half of all companies across […]