Should employees be allowed to decide on their retirement age?
Mandatory retirement ages should be scrapped and employees able to choose when they retire, according to a report by the Employers Forum on Age and AGR (the Association of Graduate Recruiters). Graduating to Age Legislation – commissioned on behalf of the DTI as part of its consultation on age legislation – examines the views of […]
Inland Revenue updates
The Inland Revenue is drawing our attention to its online PAYE service. And they have also issued information about the forthcoming rise in National Insurance Contributions, and their likely impact.
The next big idea – review
Title: The Next Big IdeaAuthor: Carol KennedyPublisher: Random House Business Books, LondonFormat: Hardback, 266 pagesPrice: £17.99ISBN: 0712684441Buy this book from the TrainingZONE – Blackwells bookshop.For reasons that escape me, the most profitable retail outlets at large airports are, apparently, shoe shops. Properly shod, the traveller can then proceed to the bookshop where the latest management […]
Cost of employment regulations – out of control?
The Institute of Directors has computed the recurrent annual cost of employment regulations introduced in the past five years to be £6bn, and says that the cost will go on rising as new regulations come on stream. The computation is based strictly on Government figures. It omits regulations for which such figures are unavailable, so […]
No more job stability? and other myths about work debunked
Personal experience is, as Oscar Wilde said, a very limited and vicious circle. It seems that many recent descriptions of the modern world of work (remote working, short contracts etc) might well be true for the journalists who wrote them, but could have little relevance for the rest of us. The permanent job is still […]
HR Zone Any Answers Digest #6 – Interview skills, competencies, dyslexia
================================================================= HRZONE Any Answers Digest – Issue 6 Tuesday 30 April 2002 http://www.hrzone.co.uk/anyanswers/=================================================================********** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ***** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ********** …Recruitment: internal or external?… succession planning… advantages of diversity… improving interview skills… competencies… support for dyslexia********** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ***** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ********** Editorial=========Profile yourself to ensure continued access to HR Zone news […]
Moves to cut down work-related deaths
According to the TUC, every hour someone dies in the UK from a work-related disease. This weekend the TUC marked International Workers’ Memorial Day today (Sunday) with the largest ever number of local events around the UK, which aimed to promote better occupational health services.The TUC’s figures say that half of those dying from occupational […]
London workers have Europe’s worst commute, but are still envied
Public transport is the worst aspect of working in London, according to a new study, Working in Europe Today, carried out for property consultants Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker by Taylor Nelson Sofres. The study explores office workers’ attitudes towards their city, their office, and to getting to and from work, in eight European […]
Absence down, but costs still rising
Workplace absence has fallen to its lowest level for at least 14 years. But the annual cost to employers has risen by more than a billion pounds, according to a survey published today (Thursday) by the CBI and PPP healthcare. The number of working days lost fell by 16 million, from 192 million in 2000 […]
Work and life: why aren’t we improving the balance?
UK employees aren’t taking up their work-life balance options, even though government and employers want greater flexibility in working hours and many employers are offering it, without legislation, as a means of motivating and retaining valued workers. A new report: “Work-life Balance: Beyond the Rhetoric” from the independent Institute for Employment Studies, looks at why […]
Staff absence during the world cup – a charitable solution
A charity and an alliance of football managers past and present have offered a solution to what is, in some quarters, evidently the most important HR issue of the year. Sven Goran Eriksson, Kevin Keegan, Glenn Hoddle, Terry Venables, Graham Taylor, and Bobby Robson are supporting Cancer Research UK’s ‘World Cup Party’ crusade to allow […]
Gender policies in place, but aren’t monitored
The majority of employers now have policies on gender and diversity in place, but not enough are monitoring the effect of these policies on the organisation and on the workforce. This is the message of a this year’s issue of the annual report by Opportunity Now, a Business in the Community campaign that works with […]
Work out the cost of sickness and accidents at work
The Health and Safety Commission have launched a ready reckoner website and leaflet to help businesses, especially SMEs, assess the costs from not managing health and safety adequately. Case studies are used to show these costs, and there are also case studies showing the business benefits that can be gained from good health and safety […]
New legislation on sexual harassment in the workplace
The European Parliament and Council have reached agreement in conciliation on the implementation of equal treatment between men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion and working conditions.The agreement, adopted unanimously by the 13 members of Parliament’s delegation, lays down for the first time a clear definition of sexual harassment at […]
Employers and employees should both pay into pensions – poll
Research from Prudential UK, one of Britain’s biggest pension providers, suggests that people are increasingly realising the importance of saving for their retirement. Although strong support for bosses to contribute to their workers’ schemes is hardly surprising, the fact that over six out of ten people think that employees should be made to make payments […]
Record numbers in work
Nick Brown, Minister for Work, has announced that a record 28.4 million are people in work in the UK. The minister said: “The UK labour market remains strong with the number claiming unemployment benefit at the lowest for over 25 years. We are not immune to the world’s economic difficulties, but over the last year […]
Minimum wage to rise, just!
About 1.5 million low paid workers will be entitled to higher minimum rates of pay thanks to increases in the minimum wage (around 70 percent of the beneficiaries of the minimum wage are women). In October the minimum wage will go up by 10 pence/hour, to #4.20, with the youth rate at #3.60.The rate has […]
Profits down but confidence increasing
The Institute of Directors released the results of its Business Opinion Survey for the first quarter of 2002 (March) today which showed a slippage in company performance, lower capacity utilisation and weaker profits, despite better output growth over the past three months and a sharp recovery in optimism. However, all the forward indicators improved, especially […]
HR Zone Any Answers Digest #5 – Incentives, appraisal best practice, team building
================================================================= HRZONE Any Answers Digest – Issue 5 Tuesday 16 April 2002 http://www.hrzone.co.uk/anyanswers/=================================================================********** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ***** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ********** …Incentives for staff suggestions… Appraisal best practice… Team building for a remote team… Recruiting professionals… Employee Data********** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ***** THIS WEEK’S TOPICS ********** It’s Budget week so we can expect more changes […]
Guarded optimism on job prospects
Over 85 per cent of firms in the UK plan to actively recruit during the second quarter of 2002, a rise of two per cent on last quarter’s report, according to new research published today by Reed, the UK’s leading recruitment specialist (15 April 2002). Nearly 1,000 organisations across Britain were surveyed for the Reed […]
