Inclusion: Reaping what you sow
From the rallying cry of the Lord Davies report calling for more women to join British boardrooms to the abolition of the official retirement age, diversity has been in the full glare of the media spotlight over the last year. Yet the story at ground level is rather different and the key theme in […]
Spiralling childcare costs risk driving parents out of work – report
Above inflation rises in the cost of UK nursery places at the same time as wages continue to remain stagnant risk forcing parents to give up their jobs because they can no longer afford to pay for childcare. This is the key finding of a study conducted by national childcare charity, Daycare Trust, and sponsored […]
Blog: Diversity is good for business
I have watched with amusement these past few weeks the reaction in the sports world to the phenomenon called Jeremy Lin. Not being much of a sports fan (especially basketball), I had to delve a little deeper than the normal fan. Chinese-American and Harvard-educated does not normally equal star in the NBA — or at […]
Blog: Are most diversity initiatives just PR stunts?
If we want to create truly sustainable change and a culture of involvement and responsibility throughout our organisations, then we need to examine our every action to ensure that it supports our objectives. Sustainable change requires total commitment, not just rhetoric. Sadly, this isn’t always the case – as a recent survey from recruitment […]
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 […]