All articles by Debi O'Donovan – Page 2
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ArticleEmployee Benefits digital magazine – October 2014
Time is becoming an increasingly rare commodity for HR professionals as they work to implement and administer benefits, but help is as hand. Read where in Breaking the time barrier (page 18)Employers have a lot of spadework to do to prepare themselves and their staff for next year’s pension changes. ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: Time to face up to mental illness
How we handle mental illness in the workplace came under severe criticism this week.On Tuesday, chief medical officer professor Dame Sally Davies published her recommendations to improve public mental health in Annual report of the chief medical officer 2013: public mental health priorities.I am not surprised at her criticism.Currently, employers’ ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: Pensions costs impact pay rises
After the quieter the summer months of July and August, workplace pensions came back onto the agenda this week.We can now see the increasing impact of new and incoming changes to pensions on keeping back business and pay growth.I thought we might be over the worst hits of cost increases ...
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ArticleDOD's blog: Sharpen your benefits skills
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, it is the month I joined the wonderful world of employee benefits back in 1998, so it is a personal flag in the ground from which to measure all the changes.Secondly, and no doubt far more importantly, it is the month of the ...
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ArticleEmployee Benefits digital magazine – September 2014
HR and benefits professionals of the future will need a wide variety of new expertise to drive business growth. Read how in Cutting edge skills (page 16)Data can be essential to a healthcare strategy. Learn how in Focus on the facts (page 23)When Dixons and Carphone Warehouse merged, a major ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: History is against us on unfair pay
And so it was this week, when the Chartered Management Institute published its annual National management salary survey in which it found female managers earn 35% less than men.No one likes unfairness, and I condemn it completely.But unpicking the causes of this unfairness are extremely tough. These days, in the ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: Get the free stuff right first
Don’t tell all the consultants and suppliers selling services, but … in my opinion, most of what makes a great employer costs nothing at all. While these things can all help, to me they come quite far down the list of what really makes an organisation a pleasure to work ...
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ArticleDOD's blog: More wine, less cycling
How many of you have succumbed to one of these mobile wellbeing apps or bracelets?A few years ago we hadn’t even heard of them, now large numbers of people rely on them and their entry into UK workplace wellbeing programmes must be imminent (perhaps an employer is already using them ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: Is your EVP in tune for 2014?
This week, I have been interviewing candidates for a reporter role at Employee Benefits (sadly, our wonderful Jennifer Paterson is moving back home to Canada after four years on the EB reporters’ desk).During the interviews, as our potential reporter candidates talked us through why they want to work for us, ...
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ArticleDOD's blog: Health isn't an individual issue
It isn’t often someone says something that completely changes your opinion.But this happened on Tuesday morning over a coffee with Sneh Khemka, president – international population health solutions at Aetna.To date, I have been a keen believer in individual responsibility when it comes to healthcare (albeit with a healthy dose ...
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ArticleDebi O’Donovan: Benefits and HR managers should join the pensions debate
Over in the pensions industry, the talk is all about how incoming choices around pension savings at retirement will affect retirees. They are also discussing how the government will deliver the face-to-face guidance needed to support these wider choices.While I am sure there are a few practitioners in benefits and ...
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ArticleEmployee Benefits digital magazine – July 2014
Many employee benefits providers are rethinking their service proposition, branching out into new areas and products. Read why in Fresh pickings (page 18)British Sugar’s previously disjointed benefits have been reshaped into a total reward offering that staff enjoy. Read how the sugar manufacturer did it in Making life sweeter (page ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: Summer treats cause a stir
Yesterday morning the news flew through our offices that free ice creams were on offer outside in the hot summer sunshine.Staff vacated their desks at such speed there was a danger of being crushed in the rush. It certainly did not mirror the reluctant dispersal in the fire drill earlier ...
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AnalysisHow group risk insurances must adapt to an ageing workforce
If you read nothing else, read this…The group risk market needs to consider insuring staff that are willing and able to work past the state pension age.Employers should adapt their workplace for older staff and educate younger employees to mitigate the future impact of ageing.Group risk insurances only have to ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: New world order for working policies
For some months I have been using the term ‘age management’ to describe a new discipline creeping into human resources strategies.Now that staff can work for as long as they want to (or have to), HR professionals are taking stock of their workforce planning strategies, their wellbeing initiatives and how ...
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Article
DOD's blog: Talent management has changed
Talk turned to talent in a major way this week.Not least because both the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and The Economist ran (different) talent conferences in the past few days. In the CIPD’s case the last time it ran such an event was five years ago.Clearly there ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: The World Cup is getting to me
I am finding myself being slowly drawn in to the competition, even though I get bored stiff at the thought of spending 90-plus minutes watching 22 men run around a field for just a couple of goals (if they are lucky) for all their efforts. I am about as interested ...
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ArticleEmployee Benefits digital magazine – June 2014
(Please note: owing to large image sizes on page 24/25 this page will take a few minutes to load).Read Employee Benefits digital editionGathering data can help HR to justify benefits decisions and target perks to meet employees’ needs. Read how in Riding the data wave will energise reward (page 22)Employees ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: Old is the new young
How many of you have sat in a meeting where some bright young thing (usually from marketing, in my experience) produces a printout of some vital spreadsheet on which the letters and numbers are so small only an ant could read them?“Not just ants”, they cry, “we can see six ...
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ArticleDOD’s blog: The inspiration of Finding Mike
Last week I had the privilege of being invited to the film premiere of Finding Mike by one of its sponsors, Legal and General. This documentary tracks how Jonny tried to find the stranger who stopped him jumping off Westminster Bridge eight years previously.While the film was compelling viewing, it ...