All articles by Jennifer Paterson – Page 88
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Article
BT's pension deficit increases to £3.1bn
BT Group’s final salary pension scheme deficit has increased from £1.9 billion to £3.1 billion since March 2012.The telecommunications firm published the figure in its financial results for the second quarter and half year to 30 September 2012.The higher deficit reflects the impact on liabilities of a reduction in the ...
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Article
JLT to take over Aegon’s DB pension portfolio
JLT Benefit Solutions will take over the ongoing provision of services to Aegon’s portfolio of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes.The portfolios have an asset value of £710 million and contain 25,000 members.The partnership will see 100 Aegon staff transfer to JLT in early 2013.Duncan Howorth, chief executive at JLT Benefit ...
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Article
GE Healthcare wins award for staff healthcare
GE Healthcare has been awarded the UK’s Royal Society of Public Health’s Health promotion and community wellbeing award 2012 for its employee health and wellness programme.GE has offered the programme, HealthAhead, to its 300,000 employees worldwide since 2010. It is available to GE Healthcare’s 46,000 employees.The programme covers issues such ...
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Article
Patterson Associates appoints vice president
Remuneration consultancy Patterson Associates has appointed Sue Bartlett vice president.Bartlett has more than 20 years’ experience advising organisations on executive pay, remuneration strategy, short- and long-term incentives, pensions and corporate governance.Prior to joining the organisation, Bartlett held the role of director in consulting services at Towers Watson, specialising in executive ...
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Article
A third of respondents are not saving
More than one-third (35%) of respondents do not contribute to any kind of savings vehicle, according to research by Now: Pensions.The research, which was carried out through an online survey of 2,033 UK adults, found that one in four (27%) respondents said they will face a shortfall in their pensions ...
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ArticleLow-paid workers have poorer pensions provision
Low-paid workers are less likely to belong to a workplace pension scheme, and those that do have lower employer contribution rates, according to research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).The TUC Pensions scorecard report, which examined the membership, contribution rates and governance of workplace pensions across the UK, found that ...
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Article
MP requests review of share plan limits
Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick has called on treasury secretary David Gauke to review the savings limits for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)-approved share plans.In a letter, Fitzpatrick asked Gauke to review the issue in light of a tabled early day motion (EDM), as well as views by the Office for ...
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Article
Projected worth of pensions to fall sharply
Employees who are members of personal pension plans will see the projected worth of their pension pots fall sharply from 2014.The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is to reduce the projected annual growth rates from April 2014, which will affect plans such as self-invested personal pensions (Sipps) and stakeholder pension schemes. ...
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Article
Plantronics increases staff engagement
EXCLUSIVE: Audio electronics firm Plantronics has increased its employee engagement levels by more than 20% since it launched a flexible working initiative in 2011.The flexible working initiative, which is open to all 300 employees, allows them to amend their hours to better fit work around their personal lives, such as ...
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Article
Ellipse launches new income protection product
Ellipse has launched a second group income protection plan.The plan, Interact, offers employers a 10% reduction in their premium if absences are notified promptly, or if no employee is absent for more than four consecutive weeks during a year.It has also added single life policies to its group life product ...
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Article
Flexible working could challenge pay strategy
Proposals to reform flexible working and parental leave could raise questions on how to fairly compensate an employee working flexibly.The standard approach of apportioning pay might need to be reviewed and replaced by organisations rewarding flexible workers more closely based on their outputs and productivity levels, said Dawn Nicholson, HR ...
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Video
VIDEO: Charlotte Sweeney: Needs of carers must be taken seriously
Employers must take the needs of carers more seriously, said Charlotte Sweeney, diversity and wellbeing specialist.During an interview with Debi O’Donovan, editor of Employee Benefits, at Employee Benefits Live at the end of September, Sweeney said that the change in employee demographic means that far more people in the workplace ...
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Article
PQM awarded to three more employers
Three more employers have been awarded the Pension Quality Mark (PQM), which recognises good quality defined contribution (DC) pension schemes.Global biopharmaceutical firm Bristol-Myers Squibb was recognised with the PQM for its group personal pension (GPP) plan. Controls and process automation firm Koso Kent Introl and national charity Motability were awarded ...
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Article
Shell wins award for international share plan
Royal Dutch Shell has been awarded the title best employee share ownership plan worldwide at the Employee Share Ownership Centre (Esop Centre) awards.The multinational oil and gas company had previously won the award in 2010. Since then it has increased its communications and introduced a dedicated website for its share ...
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Article
Asda saves with company car scheme
EXCLUSIVE: Asda has seen cost savings of around £950,000 a year since it switched from a cash allowance to a company car scheme in 2010.Asda has used the savings to improve the choice and specification of the cars available through the scheme.The grocery retailer had 1,500 employees eligible to take ...
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Article
Health cash plans among employees' preferred benefits
A third (35%) of respondents ranked health cash plans among their top-three preferred benefits, according to research by PMI Health Group.The research, conducted with global research consultancy TNS, found that, among this 35% of full-time employees, 11% ranked cash plans as their most valued benefit overall, behind contributory pensions (25%), ...
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Article
Government plans defined ambition pension
The government has set out proposals to rebuild confidence and trust in workplace pensions.Its paper, Reinvigorating workplace pensions, contains new ideas for sharing the risks more equally between employer and employee, and for helping UK workers get the most out of what they save in a pension.The report includes more ...
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Article
ALD Automotive expands reach to Asia Pacific
ALD Automotive and its North American partner Wheels have formed a partnership with Australian-based fleet management organisation FleetPartners.The partnership will offer support to ALD Automotive’s international employer clients with operations in the Asia-Pacific region.FleetPartners has more than 60,000 cars under management in Australian and New Zealand. The partnership with ALD ...
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Article
AIB asks former directors to reduce pensions
Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has written to its former senior executives to request they voluntarily reduce their pensions as part of its plans to lower its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme deficit.The bank first announced its plans in the AIB 2012 Half yearly financial report, which was published on 31 ...
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Article
Aegon launches range of lifestyle funds
Aegon has launched a range of core lifestyle funds, which aim to provide more certainty about the size of annuity investors can buy as they near retirement.The seven Core Risk Profile Lifestyle Portfolios, which have been designed in conjunction with Morningstar OBSR, each have a different risk profile. The funds ...