More women taking senior civil service roles

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As the heads of some of the UK’s largest companies backed an initiative to increase the proportion of females at board level to 30%, it emerged that the number of women in senior civil service positions grew slightly this year to just over a third.  The founding members of ‘The 30% Club’ have set the […]

Battle of the sexes: Employees prefer female managers

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Nearly two out of five employees prefer female to male bosses because they feel they are both more understanding and more assertive.  According to a survey among 1,182 UK workers undertaken by HR consultancy Reabur, only 29% preferred having a male as their manager, while a third thought gender was irrelevant.  Of those polled, just […]

HR not ready for future workforce headaches

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The very different demands of Generation Y and an increasingly ageing workforce combined with a progressive move to remote and flexible working will generate a number of HR headaches over the next few years.  But according to an online poll undertaken among 262 facilities managers by employee satisfaction measurement tools provider Leesman on behalf of […]

Attention ladies: you will not be getting paid until 2011

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Despite the Equal pay Act marking its 40th anniversary, Nov 2 was Equal Pay Day,the day when the average woman is no longer paid this year, as on average women’s full-time mean hourly pay is 16.4% less than men’s. The 2 November symbolically marks the last pay cheque that women receive in a year, since […]

The war for diverse talent

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Let’s face it – diversity has become a pretty tired term in HR circles. By now, HR people should know that diversity is important. However, is there a genuine business case for diversity? Raj C. Tulsiani investigates.  Are there distinct competitive advantages for organisations that manage to embed diversity? Could an HR Director stand in […]

Tackling inequality may require quotas

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The European Commission has hinted that it may introduce quotas to boost the number of women at board level at the same time as a report indicated that the employment gap for ethnic minorities is only set to widen.  The Commission has just unveiled a new five year strategy in a bid to tackle gender […]

DRA should be kept to protect SMEs

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Not only will coalition government proposals to abolish the Default Retirement Age have a negative impact on small businesses’ employment practices, but pension auto-enrolment will also add significantly to their costs.  A new paper by the Institute of Directors argues that the government should scrap plans to abolish the DRA and instead raise it progressively […]

UK unprepared to deal with ageing workforce

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The failure of senior executives to recognise the widespread implications of an ageing workforce mean that UK organisations are “woefully underprepared” to deal with the impact on their business.  Despite the impending abolition of the Default Retirement Age (DRA) and the fact that a third of UK workers will be aged over 50 by 2020, […]

The pension journey: auto-enrolment is just the beginning

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Auto-enrolment is a powerful remedy for employers struggling to sign up employees to their pension schemes, but it should only be the start of the relationship, according to speakers at AXA’s first Future of Workplace Savings roadshow.  Pension decision-makers from leading employers were given tips from the experts on how to deal with the enrolment […]

Making your business a lean, mean, people machine

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In shaky economic times organisations naturally look for ways to stabilise and recently there’s been a strong resurgence in ‘lean’ business management. But, argues Alethea McIntosh, principal consultant at Berkshire Consultancy, the ultimate success of this efficiency-driven model depends not on standardising process but in understanding people, and more specifically diversity. In business, ‘technical’ issues […]

What impact will abolishing the compulsory retirement age have?

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"What you have to know about this session is that I am me and I am not going to change". That was the opening line of a coaching session I recently undertook. I was sitting in front of a Swiss-German senior vice president with whom I had spent the previous two and a half days […]

The new retirement age – implications for employers and employees

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A radical shake up of the state pensions announced by the coalition government will involve an acceleration of the plans to raise the retirement age in order to help reduce the budget deficit and a plan to scrap the default retirement age of 65 from 1 October 2011.  These controversial announcements have received some mixed […]

Not enough jobs suitable for lone parents

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A dearth of ‘family friendly jobs’ could throw the coalition government’s plans to get more single parents back to work into disarray, according to research.  In its emergency budget, the government said that 100,000 lone parents whose youngest child was aged five – rather than the former age of 10 – would be required to […]

Older workforce will present new health challenges for employers

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Occupational health professionals have warned that employers could face challenges in managing the needs of the more than 50% of workers who either do not expect to retire or are unsure when they can afford to do so.  An online poll among 1,478 UK workers undertaken by ICM Research on behalf of Baring Asset Management […]

Equal pay for women in HR 107 years away

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The average female manager in the UK faces a wait of 57 years for their salary to be on a par with male counterparts, while equal pay for women HR bosses is a mind-blowing 107 years away.  These are the findings of the ‘2010 National Management Salary Survey’ undertaken among 43,000 managers in 200 organisations […]

HR must not fall for the ‘delusion of gender’

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HR professionals need to be careful of indulging in ‘neurosexism’, after revelations that widely accepted differences between male and female abilities are not hard-wired into their brains from birth but are the result of cultural assumptions.  Cordelia Fine, a researcher at Melbourne University, argues in her book entitled ‘Delusions of Gender’, which is due to […]

Antisocial hours still need equal pay

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A ruling that female workers at an NHS Trust in Merseyside are entitled to the same level of payment for working antisocial hours as men could open the way to similar claims elsewhere.  The women, who were employed by St Helen’s and Knowsley NHS Trust in roles ranging from healthcare assistants, domestic supervisors and receptionists, […]

Millennial training methods

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Who are these ‘millennials’ and how can they be motivated when it comes to training? David Chan gives some insight into the new kids on the block. The millennial generation is broadly defined as those individuals born after 1985, who have grown up with the web and mobile communications. The impact of technology is not […]

April ‘too soon’ for retirement age scrapping

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The CBI has warned that the coalition government’s proposals to phase out the Default Retirement Age from April next year are too swift and will make workforce planning “next to impossible”.  The government’s consultation document, which was released today, suggests that the DRA should be officially scrapped on 1 October 2011. It also proposes that […]

Coalition plans will lead to more older workers

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Age UK has called on the coalition government to do more to tackle age discrimination if it is to push through proposed benefit reforms likely to boost the number of older workers returning to the jobs market.   The charity estimates that plans to transfer Incapacity Benefit claimants onto Employment Support Allowance could increase the […]