All Opinion articles – Page 40
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OpinionIan McKenna: Gamified apps help employees engage with benefits
Smartphones are embedded in the vast majority of consumers’ lives. This should make providing access to employee benefits and health interventions via an app a hygiene factor for any organisation, but is simply enabling an app enough to drive engagement?Phones are littered with applications that have been downloaded with enthusiasm ...
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OpinionKaren Archer-Burton: The importance of aligning values with recognition
At Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals, employees are the lifeblood of the organisation; to ensure we attract and retain the very best talent, it is vital that they are recognised and feel valued.That is why we are currently reviewing our employee engagement strategy as a whole. As part of that ...
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OpinionLiza Andersin: The importance of boosting employee morale
The way people work has changed dramatically over the last five to 10 years, and is predicted to continue shifting rapidly as we move into the future. Employers are having to compete to attract and retain the best talent in this ever-changing space, in addition to focusing on business outcomes. ...
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OpinionGurdeep Boparai: UK proposes to extend redundancy protection for new parents
In January 2019, the government launched a consultation detailing plans to extend existing legal protections against redundancy for pregnant women and new parents upon their return to work.The consultation forms part of the government’s response to the Taylor Review and follows concerns raised by the Pregnancy and maternity discrimination report, ...
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OpinionCharles Cotton: Maximising value when investing in employee benefits
The cost of some benefits is rising, driven in part by legislative changes. For instance, the minimum employer contribution to a workplace pension increased from 1% to 2% in April 2018, and to 3% a year later. While 3% may not seem much, for some employers, this rise, coupled ...
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OpinionYvonne Gallagher: Hermes is not making a concession for self-employed couriers
Parcel delivery organisation Hermes and trade union GMB announced in February 2019 details of what has been described as a ‘groundbreaking deal’ relating to Hermes' self-employed courier workforce.In June 2018, a group of couriers contracting on a self-employed basis with Hermes were successful in their claim in the Employment Tribunal ...
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OpinionSheri Hughes: Agile working is the key to empowering parents
Bring Your Child to Work Day, typically held in April, is intended to give children an insight into the world of work and, as a one-off annual event, it can be a real tonic for employees across the board. At Michael Page, we make a day of it. In previous ...
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OpinionLisa Wallis: Are redundancy protections part of the parenting puzzle?
In January 2019, the government launched a consultation on extending protection from redundancy for mothers and new parents.Currently, those absent on maternity leave should receive preferential treatment in redundancy situations; for example, being offered a suitable alternative vacancy above those not on maternity leave. The consultation proposes to extend this ...
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OpinionDiane Lightfoot: Why talking about disability is vital for health and wellbeing strategies
Often, when people think of disability, they imagine a wheelchair user, and consider it to be something present from birth. In reality, the majority of conditions are not immediately visible, and most are acquired.As the likelihood of acquiring a disability increases with age, an ageing workforce means that more people ...
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OpinionKaren Holden: Tackling harassment of LGBT persons in the workplace
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is subjected to bullying and harassment in the workplace on a devastating scale. A survey of more than 5,000 LGBT people in the UK, published by Stonewell in April 2018, found that more than a third hid their sexuality for fear of ...
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OpinionDr Rea Prouska: Non-financial strategies are viable alternatives to financial rewards
Total reward strategies include all types of financial and non-financial, direct and indirect, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, and play a crucial role in attracting new employees, eliciting strong performance and maintaining engagement. The application of such strategies contributes to employee wellbeing, satisfaction and productivity.However, economic turbulence, such as the global ...
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OpinionNicholas Stretch: Preparing for new reporting obligations on engagement and pay
This year sees the implementation of several corporate governance developments which reward managers, among others, need to get to grips with. Although newspaper headlines continue to focus on executive pay levels, a number of other reward-related changes, which have received far less publicity, need to be considered.For 2019 onward, so ...
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OpinionNichola Hawden: How will auto-enrolment increases impact reward?
When auto-enrolment was first introduced in October 2012, the minimum total contribution rate for a workplace pension was a modest 2%, with employers contributing a minimum 1%. From 6 April 2018, the total minimum contribution rate increased to 5%, with 2% contributed by the employer, and from 6 April 2019, ...
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OpinionJenn Sutherland-Miller: Staying connected is vital for remote organisations
At Tortuga, 'on your terms' is not just a snappy, feel-good corporate slogan, it is a way of life. With a team of 10 fully remote employees across three countries, two continents, and four time-zones, staying connected is both challenging and vital. Tortuga’s culture is one of trust and outcome-based ...
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OpinionBrad O’Neil: Use the right communication technology to connect remote staff
The rapid growth of remote working is a mark of the changing world of the current century; this is a trend that cannot be ignored by employers.Organisations are evolving to offer employees the benefits of working remotely, but are often left with concerns about how to keep these individuals engaged ...
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OpinionLiza Andersin: Why employee wellness should be a priority
Employee wellness should be a core focus for any employee management strategy. In the age of flexible and ever-changing employment options, it is becoming ever more apparent that organisations need to demonstrate a point of difference, and not just via a pay packet.Unfortunately, many businesses approach employee wellness from a ...
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OpinionLesley Alexander: The pensions employee experience
At The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association’s (PLSA) conference this year, the key theme centred on engaging employees with their workplace pensions.Outside of the interested few, this can undoubtedly be an uphill struggle. However, if we do not address the under-saving culture in the UK, we will be faced with ...
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OpinionJane Hannon: Employers must be aware of new payslip requirements
With the ever-increasing focus on Brexit, employers could be forgiven for losing track of some important domestic reforms to employment law, quickly looming on the horizon. One of these, a requirement to provide payslips to workers and not just employees, comes into force on 6 April 2019 and applies to ...
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OpinionJo Moffatt: Benefits packages need engaging communications to be a success
Spending time and money setting up a great benefits package, designed with the needs of an employee audience in mind, is just the beginning. Fail to communicate it properly, and employers might as well not have bothered.Poor communications mean wasted money, wasted time, and not to mention a singularly wasted ...
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OpinionClare Gregory: 2019's gender pay gap reporting deadline approaches
The requirement for large employers to publish information annually on their gender pay gap came into force in 2017, and the deadline for publishing the second round of reports, 5 April 2019, is now fast approaching.DLA Piper's analysis of organisations' gender pay gap reports submitted as at mid-February 2019 shows ...