News: Don’t act “too gay”, senior GP tells medical students
A senior member of the Royal College of General Practitioners is under investigation after telling medical students that they should act in a less “overtly gay” fashion in order to pass their exams. According to the Independent, the inquiry was launched following the discovery that Dr Una Coales had written a controversial guide setting out […]
Blog: Working your business skills on the dating scene
Many of our finely tuned business skills can be applied to the dating scene. Match.com’s resident clinical psychologist, Dr Cecilia d’Felice, shares her advice on how you can transfer your business expertise to your dating toolkit: Research You wouldn’t turn up to a business meeting unprepared and the same diligence should apply to a date. […]
Talent Spot: Karen Gill, co-founder of everywoman
Karen Gill knows all about the hard work and knock-backs entailed in setting up a new business. Thirteen years ago, with the help of a friend, Maxine Benson, she established everywoman, a women’s membership organisation that aims to increase the number and status of females in business. The organisation, which today has 40,000 members, […]
Ask the Expert: How can we avoid ageism claims over gym membership?
The question The way that our business is currently set up is as an Industrial Provident Society, which means that employees can buy a share in the company and also receive free gym membership for a friend or family member (employees already have membership themselves). But we are now having to change our legal […]
News: UK rounds up allies to fight EC female board quotas
The UK has launched a Europe-wide campaign in a bid to block proposals by Brussels to impose a 40% quota for female board representation on FTSE 100 companies by 2020. According to the Financial Times, a pointedly-worded letter has been sent to at least 10 other European Union governments, including Germany and Sweden, that appear […]
News: European religious discrimination cases could shake up UK employment law
Employers may be obliged to “accommodate expression of religion” by their workers if four Christians win a key test case on religious discrimination heard at the European Court of Human Rights today. Two of the Christians – British Airways check-in clerk Nadia Eweida and NHS hospital nurse Shirley Chaplin – who were refused the legal […]
Talking Point: Could HR and internal comms make happy bedfellows?
The business world is in for a turbulent time of it over the next decade, according to Rohit Talwar, futurist, award-winning speaker and chief executive of Fast Future Research. Without doubt, the world as we know it will change as a result of continued economic uncertainty, political instability, the redistribution of wealth from west to […]
News: State pension age rises to create “limbo zone” for older workers
Increases in the state pension age will lead to the creation of a new “limbo zone” in which many workers are too young to draw their pension but too old and infirm to work. The TUC issued the warning on releasing an analysis of official labour market data, which revealed that a mere 54% of […]
Diary of a misfit: Becoming a wildcard
On my own personal change curve, I appear to have progressed from misunderstood misfit to shortlist wildcard in just under a month. Result, right? So, I am in my second month of job hunting and the transformation has come about largely as a result of a new and improved CV, thanks to a panel of […]
Blog: One suggestion for tackling the workplace gender imbalance
Women form half the UK workforce but, according to new research from The Institution of Engineering and Technology, just six per cent of engineers are female. Change is called for as the strategically important sectors of manufacturing and engineering need to recruit 82,000 new scientists, engineers and technologists by 2016 and companies are reporting difficulties […]
News: Age and motherhood are top two barriers to female career progression
Working women face not just one but multiple glass ceilings, with the biggest barriers to career progression comprising age and motherhood. According to a survey of 1,000 UK females in employment undertaken by accountancy firm Ernst & Young, the other key inhibitors were a dearth of role models and a lack of experience or qualifications. […]
Ask the Expert: What is the right terminology for family-friendly policies?
The question I am redrafting some family-friendly policies and naturally wrote "you" on the presumption that the main reader would be the person who wants to take maternity leave (although a manager might also like to read the document, just to understand their part in the process). Researching other policies, however, I noticed that […]
In a Nutshell: Five ways to make the most of your older workers
The UK’s working population is aging but attitudes towards older workers – despite legislation – are taking a long time to catch up with the change. Therefore, Dianne Bown-Wilson, who set up consultancy, in my prime, to help address just such issues, shares her top tips to help employers get the most out of their […]
Talent Spot: Caroline Waters, BT’s director of people and policy
Because Caroline Waters has only been at BT for 33 years, she classes herself as a bit of a newcomer in an organisation where two people are celebrating 50 years of service and 3,500 have clocked up 40 or more. Today, as director of people and policy, Waters has a long list of responsibilities outside […]
How to accommodate disabled workers in a post-Remploy world
It isn’t often that workplace disability rights make national headlines. But following recent news that 27 Remploy factories – including five dedicated to employing disabled people – will be shut, that has certainly been the case. Disability activists and employment specialists have been publicly rethinking what equal access to work means and how society […]
Book Review: Diversity in the workplace – Multi-disciplinary and international perspectives
Today workplace diversity is a huge and multi-faceted topic that all organisations must address at a variety of levels across all areas of their operations. But, as this book proves, just because a subject is huge doesn’t mean to say that it has to be impenetrable. Editor Stefan Groschl gets things off to a […]
Talent Spot: Community blogger, Dianne Bown-Wilson
People are living longer, the overall population is aging and people are going to be working for longer. Everyone knows these facts and yet employers and workers alike are struggling to deal with them. But Dianne Bown-Wilson set up a consultancy, in my prime, to address these very issues, providing advice, strategic guidance and […]
News: Employers to be paid £2,000 to hire young disabled people
Employers will be paid more than £2,000 to take on severely disabled young people following the government’s decision to close two thirds of Remploy factories, leading to UK-wide industrial action today. Under a three-year government scheme entitled ‘Work Choice’, financial incentives of up to £2,275 for each employee working 30 or more hours per week […]
Blog: Babies in the office – Will it work?
The BBC series ‘Babies in the Office’ has been an interesting insight into the prospect of parents bringing their babies and toddlers right into their workspace. As an experiment the program is brilliant, but for me the long term potential of this concept seems limited. I suppose that they chose a call centre […]
Blog: Seven reasons to employ a pregnant CEO
Last week’s announcement that Marissa Mayer had been appointed CEO at Yahoo! while pregnant should send a message to the Lord Sugar brigade; business leaders who believe that you shouldn’t employ women of a certain age in case they get pregnant. We’ve been thinking about the benefits that employing a senior woman while she is […]
