Giz a job: The state of the HR recruitment market
There have been encouraging signs of more HR hiring activity during the last couple of months following our golden summer of sport. HR stakeholders are now back in the office and permanent recruitment is starting to move again, with the flow of new opportunities also on the rise. Financial and professional services As […]
News: Earnings growth to remain weak for next five years
Current weakness in the labour market means that wage increases will continue to be muted for the next five years, with the average pay award estimated to be between 2.2% and 2.5%. According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, even though the UK has now officially exited recession, the slack in the labour […]
News: Eight ways to cope with the clocks going back
As the clocks go back this Sunday and the days continue to darken, millions of workers will once again find themselves suffering from the winter blues as British summertime officially ends. The short days can have a significant impact on some employees’ health and wellbeing, but the time change can also lead to short-term complications […]
News: Birmingham equal pay ruling could open claim floodgates
Thousands of workers could now bring equal pay claims dating back six years rather than six months after 174 women won a “landmark” ruling against Birmingham City Council. The Supreme Court ruled that members of the so-called ‘Abdulla Group’, which was named after the woman whose name was at the top of the list, could […]
HRD Insight: Allianz’s Philip Gennoy on aligning HR and business goals
For Allianz Insurance’s HR director, Philip Gennoy, the key to ensuring that HR strategy and business goals knit tightly together is to keep a close eye on both the day-to-day nitty-gritty as well as the bigger, more long-term picture. The idea is that by breaking strategy down into bite-sized tactical pieces, it becomes possible to […]
Blog: Remember your manners – The benefits of just saying ‘thank you’
“All I want is for someone, sometime, just one time, to say thank you.” She works late every night, and pulls long hours. This particular morning she left home at 5:30 to make sure she got in to prepare for the big meeting. She left at 8 that night to go home. As she […]
News: 1 in 5 Londoners get poverty wages as MPs go for 4 times average
Even though one in five Londoners now receive poverty wages, the Parliamentary watchdog has proposed that MPs’ pay should leap by a huge 40% to ensure earnings of four times the national average. Despite the recent Westminster expenses scandal and pay freezes across many parts of the country, a consultation document published by the Independent […]
News: Financial services firms scoop up at race diversity awards
Financial services organisations topped the charts this year in terms of accolades for promoting race diversity and equality in the workplace. Business in the Community’s Race for Opportunity campaign hosted its annual awards dinner at the London Hilton on Park Lane last night, in which four out of nine of the winners came from the […]
CEO Insight: Spencer Ogden’s David Spencer-Percival on engagement
The workforce of 2012 is a fluid one. Gone are the days when a job was for life. But even in this time of increased job insecurity, when you would assume that most employees would cling onto their positions for dear life, the rate of staff turnover is high. Figures vary according to industry, […]
Legal Insight: How to avoid employment tribunal claims
In an already difficult economy, employers face substantial costs in trying to deal with employee conflict and actual and threatened claims. Employment tribunal statistics for 2011-12 show that of the 186,300 claims brought last year, the vast majority were either settled or dismissed prior to the final hearing. Given that HR professionals and employment […]
Legal Insight: Employment tribunal proposals – Beware the silent killers
The government recently announced proposals to streamline employment law and the employment tribunal system, which could roughly be split into three categories: flag waving, old wine in new bottles and silent killers. The proposals themselves stem from the view that there has been significant growth in the number of complex employment tribunal claims, which are […]
News: Former TA chief: UK employers’ discrimination in hiring “despicable”
The former head of the Territorial Army has called for financial incentives and the tightening of UK legislation in a bid to prevent employers from routinely discriminating against reservists during the recruitment process. In an interview with the Telegraph, the Duke of Westminister, one of the country’s richest men and a two-star major general who […]
News: “Shareholder spring” leads to fewer senior exec pay rises
Almost half of senior executives in the UK’s largest companies failed to secure a pay rise this year following the “shareholder spring” backlash against excessive renumeration. According to a report by Deloitte Consulting, some 46% of the chief executives in FTSE 100 firms saw their basic salary frozen this year compared with only 21% in […]
News: Lawyers disagree over impact of tribunal “shake-up” proposals
Vince Cable’s so-called tribunal system “shake up” has sparked disagreement among lawyers as to how significant the impact on employers is likely to be. The Business Secretary confirmed today that the controversial ‘no fault dismissal’ proposals made in a Downing Street-commissioned report by venture capitalist, Adrian Beecroft, were being dropped due to a lack of […]
Blog: Punk Rock HR – Appraisals (It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it…)
This is the fourth extract of my new book “Punk Rock People Management – a no-nonsense guide to hiring, inspiring and firing staff”. Here's an extract on the topic of appraisal: I have had the privilege of working with ‘Honorary Punk Rock Leadership Professor’ Dennis Tourish, who asks audiences of HR professionals “Who enjoys their […]
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 […]
Infographic: The latest national salary snapshot
News: Sailors’ pay docked after £1.2m MoD overpayment error
Hundreds of Royal Navy sailors face having up to four day’s pay per month docked after having been mistakenly overpaid to the tune of £1.2 million by the Ministry of Defence. According to the Daily Mirror, the junior ratings were told in a letter received yesterday that they would be required to pay back the […]
Ask the Expert: Can employers simply take food allowances away?
The challenge A friend is a residential carer at an organisation that looks after multiple residents with learning difficulties. The job is shift-based and includes sleepovers. Historically, the company has included a food allowance for resident carers (it covers shopping for sustenance while onsite). Due to the nature of service users, carers prepare food […]
News: Ex-Apple exec sues over alleged ‘job for life’ promise
A former employee is suing Apple for emotional distress after being dismissed last December, claiming that co-founder and chief executive Steve Jobs had promised him a job for life. Ousted executive producer Wayne Goodrich alleges that, during a one-to-one meeting in 2010, Jobs, who died last October after a five-year battle with cancer, had told […]
