News: “Real likelihood” of coordinated strikes by year end, warns Unite

The leader of the UK’s biggest union has warned that there is a “real likelihood” of a fresh wave of coordinated public sector strike action before the end of the year. Speaking on the eve of the annual TUC Congress, which opens in Brighton on Sunday, Len McCluskey, Unite’s general secretary, said that the pensions […]

News: Unemployment fears used to dampen pay, claims incoming TUC boss

Unemployment appears as if it is being used as a “deliberate measure to keep pay down, and to keep people scared”, according to the TUC’s leader-in-waiting, Frances O’Grady. In an interview with the Guardian, she said that there was “a fair bit of evidence” that the country’s lengthening dole queues could be part of a […]

News: Pensions gap widens between top directors and everyone else

The pensions’ gap between top company directors and everyone else appears to be widening, according to research. The TUC’s PensionsWatch survey, which analyses the pension arrangements of 351 FTSE 100 directors, revealed that their average occupational pension was a huge 24.4 times larger than the average UK workers’ of £9,929.   Of the 144 senior […]

Legal Insight: The HR implications of pensions auto-enrolment

From 1 October this year, pension auto-enrolment will start to affect the UK’s largest businesses. While a lot of these employers will already have got to grips with fundamental issues such as identifying their staging date and considering which pension scheme to use to satisfy the new legislation, there are a number of HR implications […]

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 […]

Do you do a Basil Fawlty when talking to foreign partners?

The lack of importance placed on developing language and business communication skills by UK employers is startling.   In order to mark our centenary this year (we’re having a party to celebrate this weekend at The Orangery at Kensington Palace), we commissioned some market research among UK HR directors and discovered something that we had […]

News: UK workplace relationships hit new lows

Workplace relationships in the UK appear to have plumbed new depths, with large numbers of employees complaining about everything from abuse of power to nepotism and bullying. According to a survey conducted among 1,607 people by Canada Life Group Insurance, a huge 42% said that they had witnessed senior staff members abusing their power.   […]

News: Holiday season stress levels rocket for colleagues stuck at work

While some may be off relaxing in sunnier climes, it appears that the rest of us are having to pick up the slack – and are likely to need a holiday of our own when they get back to de-stress. According to a survey among 200 UK-based HR directors conducted by recruitment agency OfficeTeam, a […]

News: Strikes to become “increasingly routine” over year ahead

Although industrial action at the end of last year represented an “acute high water mark”, strikes are becoming “increasingly routine”, which means that employers must implement robust contingency plans, a legal expert has warned. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, almost 1.4 million days were lost to labour disputes last year, four […]

Blog: Me and my Blackberry are on holiday….

One of the things we often hear from our HR alumni and network is that, however much they’d love to change the way they and their teams or functions ‘do’ HR, they simply don’t have time. The daily dilemma: you may have found a new way to help their clients solve their business problems, but […]

News: EU – Employers must assess staff well-being during redundancy

Employers may have to assess the psychological health of their staff if considering whether to make any of them redundant in future, according to draft European Union proposals. The proposed new directive, which the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on in November, would also mean that bosses had to evaluate the impact of job […]

News: Employers face “make-or-break” in next 12 months

If the economy fails to pick up over the next year, employers will face a “make or break moment” as many are forced to axe skilled labour, sending unemployment levels soaring. According to the Labour Market Outlook survey of more than 1,000 employers conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and […]

Blog: Should we name and shame bad managers?

Recognise This! – We publicly praise the stars. Should we publicly highlight the truly poor performers as well? Regular readers know I’m a very strong proponent of frequent and public (when appropriate and preferred) recognition of star performers as well as employees who live the values day in and day out, making it possible for […]

Blog: How to stop your talent from becoming tea leaves

A recent report from CIFAS has shown that the dire economic climate has had another impact – staff who may not normally stray from the straight and narrow are turning to fraud and various acts of ‘low level dishonesty’ against their employers, and justifying it to themselves through resentment of payfreezes, insecurity, unemployment and other […]

Legal Insight: Dealing with workplace sexual harassment

Tippi Hedren, the heroine of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, ‘The Birds’, recently told how her movie career was “sabotaged” after she rejected Hitchcock’s advances. Having done so, Hedren was held to her contract – the modern day equivalent of being sent to Coventry.   Fast forward to 2012, and if the alleged events happened now, she […]

Ask the Expert: What should I include in an absence management policy?

The question What do I need to include in our absence management policies and procedures and what do I need to be wary of?   I am particularly interested in the Bradford Factor as I am looking into the possibility of introducing it as a way of triggering return-to-work meetings – can you provide any […]

News: Fraud leaps as employees struggle to make ends meet

High unemployment rates are causing more people than ever to lie on their CV, while pay freezes and squeezed living standards are leading greater numbers of staff to steal. According to an analysis of its staff fraud database by the UK’s fraud prevention service, CIFAS, the amount of successful job application fraud rose by a […]

Blog: Do you have an employee value proposition?

I wanted to share some thinking from a recent article in our SCM Journal on a topic that I know sits close to the heart of many HR executives, as well as Internal Communicators. The Employee Value Proposition (EVP). If EVP feels too much like yet another piece of management jargon, I’m with you. But […]