All Opinion articles – Page 47
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OpinionMatthew Smith: What have recent legal cases revealed about employment status?
Does it matter if someone is called an 'employee' or a 'worker' or 'self-employed'?The simple answer is yes, provided that label reflects the reality of the working relationship. An individual's status determines what workplace rights, if any, they have and it will also have implications for tax and national insurance ...
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OpinionTim Middleton: Effective communications can protect employees' pensions
Since their introduction in 2015, George Osborne’s freedom and choice reforms have allowed the public to consider a range of options for using their accrued pension savings. Commonly, this will involve transferring savings from one pension scheme to another as the original scheme does not offer the full range of ...
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OpinionJames Bingham: The Pensions Regulator's proposed new powers may impact employer opinion
There has been much recent discussion of The Pensions Regulator’s (TPR) new mantra ‘clearer, quicker, tougher’ and what this means for trustees, employers and members. The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) recent publication of a consultation entitled Protecting DB pension schemes: a stronger Pensions Regulator, on ...
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OpinionDr Holly Blake: Increasing engagement with nutrition programmes
The number of organisations offering employee wellbeing programmes is on the increase. Healthy eating and weight management initiatives can contribute to prevention and management of obesity, as well as encourage healthy lifestyle choices among workforces.Nationally, obesity rates have risen 15% since 1993, according to NHS Digital statistics published in April ...
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OpinionAndrew Cross: Employers must address role of AI in the future workforce now
We are on the cusp of an era where automated processes and machine learning will profoundly change how businesses operate.It is virtually impossible to underestimate the potential transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The ability of IT systems to process vast amounts of information, to 'think', infer meaning from ...
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OpinionAdesuwa Ajayi: Workplace diversity and the power of community-led platforms
Diversity conversations are taking centre stage in and out of the workplace, but when all the panel discussions are done and employees are fed what feels like yet another advertisement it is no surprise that many still feel invisible.Amid both external and internal pressures, organisations often turn their focus to ...
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OpinionMatthew Smith: What does the Pimlico Plumbers case mean for employers?
After almost seven years of litigation, the Supreme Court has upheld the decisions of the Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal that Gary Smith was a 'worker' and not 'self-employed' in the high-profile case Pimlico Plumbers Ltd v Smith. The Supreme Court found that the 'dominant feature' ...
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OpinionCharles Cotton: How can employees' personal finances impact on employers?
The Financial wellbeing: the employee view report, published by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) in January 2017, found that one in four UK employees believe that money worries have affected their performance at work.This proportion is even higher in certain regions, such as London, and within different ...
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OpinionChloe Chambraud: Employers need to include women and men in workplace gender equality
In June 2018, the government responded to a Women and Equalities Committee report on fathers in the workplace, rejecting many of their recommendations on paternity leave and pay, shared parental leave and flexible working.This response is disappointing, given the situation facing many working fathers in the UK today. Working Families ...
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OpinionDr Daniel Bailey: The impact of office life on employee health
Office life is often not good for our health. This is because our blood sugar levels, cholesterol and blood pressure can increase when sitting for extended periods, due to very limited muscle contractions, which help to control risk markers that lead to certain conditions.When sitting for long periods each day, ...
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OpinionRhiannon Jenkins: Should commuting count as working time?
Time spent commuting is not usually 'working time'. Employers do not generally have any control over an employee's activities until they reach the workplace, and have no say in where the employee lives or how long they spend commuting.However, the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) significant decision in Federacion de ...
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OpinionJo Brewis: How to start conversations around the menopause at work
The menopause is largely a taboo subject at work, especially compared to pregnancy and maternity. Still, our experiences of presenting on this issue suggest that many, many women, and large numbers of men, are very eager to learn more about it and to share their own stories. So, employers may ...
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OpinionHelen Smith: Managing the wellbeing needs of a multigenerational workforce
Demographic change is expected to profoundly affect the UK labour market over the next two decades, and organisations today often have five different generations working side by side.Research shows that focusing on health, wellbeing and flexibility will help employers to improve employee satisfaction. However, it is crucial for organisations to ...
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OpinionLiz Egan: Supporting employees with cancer to live the best life possible
An estimated one in three people living with cancer in the UK are of working age, and this figure is set to increase to more than one million people by 2030. With more people working for longer and retiring later, employers need to be aware of the growing numbers with ...
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OpinionNiki Pembroke: How to manage employee loss
As many as 10% of people in the workplace are grieving the death of someone at any one time, according to the Grief in the workplace, bereavement care report by Breffni McGuinness, published in 2009. Are employers aware of who is affected by grief in their organisation?Bereavement affects everyone sooner ...
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OpinionElaine Gibson: Data management challenges for payroll post-Brexit
Payroll professionals have to decipher and adapt what guidance is out there. When considering management of data transfer, Brexit is no exception.Data Protection Regulations have been around for a long time, and most organisations are compliant, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being an extension of existing regulations. When it ...
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OpinionPaul Burrin: Is AI and the human workforce a match made in heaven?
Too often, the conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) and the human workforce is about the threat to jobs. The truth, however, is that most roles will evolve to incorporate and coexist with AI.AI has the potential to take on mundane, repetitive tasks, freeing up employees' time to focus on doing ...
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OpinionNicola Butterworth: Employees' conduct is not a guaranteed agreement to new contractual terms
In the age of austerity, compounded by technological advances and the uncertainty of Brexit, many UK businesses continue to face tough challenges. With the biggest organisations announcing profit warnings, and other organisations struggling to make ends meet, faced with the need to cut operating costs, one option open to employers ...
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OpinionJonathan Swan: How flexible working can help close the gender pay gap
Many organisations are thinking about how they can close their gender pay gap. Fortunately for most, they have a powerful tool at hand in the shape of flexible working. Using flexibility strategically, as part of a wider approach to work-life balance, provides an opportunity to tackle some of the stubborn ...
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OpinionDavid Webb: What can employers do to support World Cup football fans at work?
Who would be a football manager? Well, like it or not, a lot of employees are planning to be one over the next few weeks during the World Cup, from 14 June to 15 July 2018.That includes employees being organised enough to ask their boss in good time for time ...