Recruitment agencies indulge in “casual racial discrimination”
UK recruitment agencies are indulging in "casual racial discrimination" against job seekers from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, making them more likely than white applicants to apply to employers directly. This is the key finding of a survey among 2,500 people who have sought work over the last 12 months conducted by SPA Future […]
PM refuses to rule out ‘golden skirt quotas’ of 30%
The Prime Minister has said he will not rule out introducing so-called ‘gold skirt quotas’ as a means of boosting the number of women at board level. At the Northern Future Forum summit in Sweden today, David Cameron said that he wanted to “accelerate” the amount of high-level female representation and, while it should happen […]
Book Review: Age discrimination – Ageism in employment and service provision by Malcolm Sargeant
Malcolm Sargeant is professor of labour law at Middlesex University and could be considered an authority on the subject of employment and discrimination legislation. He has published four books as well as many papers on the topic, has been a speaker at international conferences and also worked on a broad range of international projects to […]
Lack of workplace training ‘boosts UK inequality’
A trade union-based learning and skills organisation has called on employers to provide their entire workforce with learning and development opportunities in order to boost motivation and retention rates and cut sickness absence. Unionlearn, which is part of union umbrella organisation, the TUC, cited "shocking" statistics from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills‘ Employer […]
Blog: The link between culture, brand and PR
WASP males don’t tend to get too many invitations to be involved in the promotion of diversity management; which is a shame really. I’m a firm believer in the notion that the promotion of diversity should embrace the full range of stakeholders and should truly practice inclusiveness in the way stakeholders are engaged with the […]
Vince Cable unveils plans to curb excessive executive pay
Business Secretary Vince Cable has unveiled government plans to curb executive pay and address what he described as “a clear market failing”. In a speech to MPs this week, Cable focused on matters of transparency, shareholder power, diversity and good practice, saying that. although it was “not government’s role to micro-manage company pay”, there were […]
Blog: ReServe – A new way of working for the over-55s
A recent article in the New York Times featured the work of ReServe, an innovative non-profit organisation that links people over 55 with meaningful second careers. As a model for what is needed to address the nature of later life careers for a sector of the UK population ReServe appears to have much to offer. […]
Is homophobia still an issue in the workplace?
When discrimination at work against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people was finally outlawed in the UK in 2003, few predicted how rapidly full LGBT rights would come to be seen as the norm. Even in 2007 when discrimination outside the workplace was likewise banned, homophobia and transphobia still seemed very live issues. This […]
Microsoft backs same-sex marriage to help it compete for talent
Microsoft has joined with five other companies to officially support the legalisation of same-sex marriage because it believes that discrimination of any kind is counter-productive in the war for talent. Washington State in the US, where the high tech giant is based, is scheduled to hear two bills today (Pacific Daylight Time) which, if passed, […]
Age discrimination still “firmly embedded” in UK workplaces
Age-related discrimination and stereotyping remains “firmly embedded” in UK society, but needs to be tackled due to the rapidly ageing population, according to a new government report. The analysis undertaken by the Department of Work and Pensions on an Office for National Statistics survey of almost 2,200 people, revealed that one in three had experienced […]
Analysis: Did the public sector pensions battle really need to be fought?
The Treasury is attempting to play down suggestions that proposed changes to public sector pensions, which led to the biggest walkout in a generation six weeks ago, are a poor deal for taxpayers. According to pensions consultant John Ralfe, the fight to get public servants to accept a later retirement age was at the very […]
Blog: Workplace pension changes in the pipeline….
Pensionssszzzzzzz…. Not the most exciting topic, but certainly one of the most current, given the panic over whether we will all be able to afford to retire in the future. (Assuming of course that we have jobs to retire from!) To address the problem, new pension laws are coming into place this year that […]
Trends 2012: Talent management
It’s been difficult for the HR industry to keep pace with the multitude of employment law changes this year – a situation compounded by the turbulent economic situation in Europe. The UK Government’s reference to ”six years of austerity” was no empty threat and businesses are continuing to make redundancies, undertake restructuring and redeploy staff […]
Finding and keeping disabled workers
Organisations facing cost pressures in today’s challenging economic environment would do well to explore the business case for employing disabled people. Exceptional characters such as Stephen Hawking, David Blunkett and Richard Branson would appear to prove the point that it doesn’t make sense to simply exclude them in the mistaken notion that they have nothing […]
Negative attitudes towards disabled workers “more damaging than disability itself”
Just under two thirds of workers avoid people with disabilities because they are unsure of how to act around them, while a third view them in an actively negative light. These are the key findings of a survey undertaken among 3,000 UK adults by BT. The study also revealed that among those who had […]
News Analysis: ‘Glimmers of hope’ for jobs market as incomes set to drop
While there are “glimmers of hope” that the jobs market may revive somewhat over the next year, real household incomes are in contrast expected to fall by 7.4% over the next 36 months. The Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s JobsOutlook report for November, which is based on a survey of 600 employers, revealed that, although employers […]
Update: PM dismisses national day of action as “damp squib”
The Prime Minister dismissed the biggest national walk-out since the 1970s as a “damp squib”, even though the majority of schools across the UK were shut, services were disrupted and demonstrations took place across the country. His statement at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday came only hours before Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, appearing on […]
HRD Insight: Dan Grant on Dell’s ‘Connected Workplace’ scheme
As job roles become increasingly global and Generation Y progressively enters the workforce, Dell’s aim in introducing its ‘Connected Workplace’ initiative was to continue being able to attract and retain staff. The initiative, which was initially piloted in the UK from November 2009 into early 2010, was rolled out across Europe, the Middle East and […]
The value of employee pension education
Auto-enrolment begins next October, with the aim of increasing the retirement income of a large proportion of the 14 million UK employees who do not currently save in a workplace pension scheme. An estimated nine million people will join the Government-sponsored National Employment Savings Trust, but millions more could opt straight out of the system […]
Are we ready for an older workforce?
Up until the middle of the last century, when a worker retired, the expectation was that they would not live for long afterwards. Sadly, this situation is still true in a minority of cases, although most have much longer to enjoy their retirement than in the past. In 2011, people born in 1946 will […]
