Employment legislation: Untangling the red tape. By Matt Henkes
The crushing weight of current employment laws may be cause to complain, but they’re not going away any time soon. Matt Henkes looks at how you can keep up to date and where some companies are slipping up. Long-serving HR professionals may grumble about the amount of employment regulations they face these days but, like […]
How to prevent leavers working for the opposition
Barrister Charles Price highlights what employers need to know when trying to prevent departing employees working for the opposition, and considers whether your restrictive covenants are effective in law. An employer can limit the activities of former employees by including express contractual restraints in their contracts of employment. These covenants usually involve clauses prohibiting non-solicitation […]
Revisiting the interview
HR Zone member and chartered occupational psychologist Denise Taylor recommends refining your interview technique to increase your skills and performance during the recruitment process. Many people will say they are a good interviewer; it is a part of many jobs, but how good are we really? Have we slipped into some bad habits? Could we […]
Working towards a flexible future
James Manning, business development manager at Auto:time Solutions, considers the importance of offering flexible working to ensure organisations gain, and keep, that competitive edge. Offering staff flexible working arrangements has previously been an overlooked business consideration and the potential benefits it brings has been particularly undervalued. However, having a productive workforce in place has become […]
Ask the expert: Obtaining medical information
Esther Smith, partner at Thomas Eggar, and Martin Brewer, partner and employment law specialist at Mills & Reeve, discuss what employers need to be aware of when seeking to obtain further medical information from a sick employee’s team of health providers. The question:An employee has MS and has been absent for a while. This has […]
Happiness is elusive amongst HR
Many HR professionals are unhappy in their current job and believe they are being paid less than the average salary for their role.These are the findings of the ‘Happiness at Work’ Index by recruitment consultancy Badenoch & Clark, which found that just 31 per cent of HR workers are happy in their current job, with […]
Lack of training means lack of talent
Organisations are failing to offer sufficient career development and training opportunities to managers, which is leading to increased recruitment and retention problems.Research conducted by the Chartered Management Institute show that although 74 per cent of individuals believe management qualifications are becoming more important, over half of organisations admit they offer little in the way of […]
Facebook misuse costing employers millions
Workers who waste time on Facebook during office hours are costing UK companies £132 million a day, according to new research.The survey of 3,469 UK organisations also showed that 233 million hours a month are lost due to employees spending their time on social networking sites instead of getting on with their work.The survey authors, […]
Risky business: Facing adversity and riding the storm. By Annie Hayes
An HR director of a leading bank recently asked his business continuity adviser to predict the number of body bags he should buy in. HR’s role in risk management is varied and challenging and requires not only military precision but dedication and a fair dollop of patience. Annie Hayes reports. Noah’s Ark is the oldest […]
The end to an HR career?
Jan Hills, from HR with Guts, discusses the problems facing the HR industry as service centres and career administrators are taking the entry level positions, and she explains how, without lower level strategy roles, the industry will stagnate. Once upon a time, there was a clear and well defined HR career ladder. This meant that […]
Legislation update: ‘Service provision changes’ under TUPE
Richard White, specialist employment solicitor at Withy King, considers a recent case concerning the effect of the rules relating to ‘service provision changes’ under TUPE 2006, which came into force on 6 April 2006. The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE 2006) are designed to safeguard employees’ rights when a business, or […]
HR tip: Restrictive covenants
These questions are being answered by Learn HR, a market leader in the provision of HR and payroll training and nationally-recognised professional qualifications. Question: "How can I make an employee accept a restrictive covenant?" HR Tip: This could be difficult. If there is a really sound business reason for wanting the covenant, and the employee refuses it unreasonably […]
Colborn’s Corner: Industrial inaction
Quentin Colborn comments on how the current headlines about strikes on the London tube have alerted people to the fact that industrial walk outs are not necessarily a thing of the past. There has also been recent news of potential action at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and, of all places, a strike at Coca Cola. How […]
Fat cats bow out to the tune of £3 million
Top directors are retiring at 60 on an average final salary pension worth over £3 million.This is an increase of £300,000 in a year and enough to provide a pension of £193,000 a year – more than 25 times the average occupational pension of £7,500 a year. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) annual Pensions Watch […]
Demand for IT training strong among silver surfers
The age of the silver surfer is upon us, according to research from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE).More than half (51.3 per cent) of all the courses that people over 65 are taking relate to computer skills. The second most popular subject amongst older people is foreign languages with over one in […]
Eating for two? The perils of the office diet
The dietary habits of neighbouring work colleagues can have a drastic effect on your weight, according to a new survey.More than three quarters of employees believe that gaining weight is the result of the unhealthy influence of the person who sits next to them in the office. The study of 2,000 workers also found that […]
Being ‘fired’ is secret of success
Disgruntled workers are among some of the top British entrepreneurs, with almost a fifth of small business owners founding their company after being fired from a previous job. Other entrepreneurs have left of their own accord, according to research by accounting software company Kashflow, which revealed 44 per cent of respondents were driven to start […]
Six-figure pay out looms for bullied epileptic woman
Perfume giant Estée Lauder has been accused of bullying business analyst Susy White after she told them that she had epilepsy in September 2005.Reported by the Daily Telegraph, the business analyst claims that senior managers at Aramis and Designer Fragrances, a division of Estée Lauder, “demolished” her self confidence after she told them of the […]
Wages lose pace with spiralling house prices …again
House prices have risen four times faster than pay over the last decade.These are the findings of the Trades Union Congress (TUC)which says that since 1997, when the average house could be bought for £60,000, equivalent to three years and six months of the then average wage of £17,000, house prices have risen by 180 […]
Sage launches £250 HR management program
Sage has started shipments of Sage 50 HR 2007, its latest attempt to open a new front in the business software marketplace. John Stokdyk reports.As previously reported on our sister site AccountingWEB, the £250 HR application fits into the Sage 50 family of products for small businesses and integrates with Sage Payroll 2007 so that […]
