All Opinion articles – Page 49
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OpinionSusan Ball: Employers need to review optional remuneration arrangements now
Many employers remain unaware of the change in rules covering flexible benefits and salary sacrifice, or cash alternative arrangements from 6 April 2017. With many questions unanswered, correct filing of 2017-2018 P11Ds is going to be difficult.Under the new rules, where a benefit is selected, a tax and national insurance ...
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OpinionKaren Holden: What should employers consider when distinguishing self-employed workers?
Recent media attention has raised the question: 'Are you an employee or genuinely a self-employed contractor?' BBC presenter Christa Ackroyd was held liable for tax in excess of £400,000 because the courts considered her to be an employee of the BBC, despite her services being paid through a separate limited ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Should pay be enhanced for shared parental leave?
On Wednesday (11 April), the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled that paying a male employee on shared parental leave a different rate of pay to a female employee on maternity leave does not amount to sex discrimination.This followed a previous Employment Tribunal decision, which found that a male employee, Madasar ...
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OpinionRita Trehan: How the gender pay gap harms engagement and productivity
In spite of the dedication and work of many, the majority of medium-sized and large organisations pay higher wage rates to men than women. That was the conclusion drawn from The Gender Pay Gap briefing paper, published by the House of Commons in April 2018, which found that at 78% ...
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OpinionSarah Henderson: What do pension trustees need to consider for GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduces more stringent requirements for contracts between data controllers and data processors than are currently in place. Pension trustees are data controllers of the personal data they hold and use to run their schemes. To be fully compliant with the GDPR, trustees will need ...
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OpinionDr Heejung Chung: Flexible working is crucial in addressing work-life balance
In March 2018, the Women and Equalities Committee proposed a range of policies that aims to support fathers to play a larger role in a child’s life. In it, the committee recommends that all jobs be advertised as flexible from day one, unless there are business reasons not to.Strengthening the ...
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OpinionAnnelise Tracy Phillips: How can employers address potential stigma around male staff taking shared parental leave?
Since 2015, new parents have been able to take advantage of shared parental leave. Mothers can convert up to 50 weeks of maternity leave and 37 weeks of maternity pay into shared parental leave and shared parental pay. They can then share it with a second parent.Research by Working Families, ...
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OpinionTim Reay: Multinational employers need to adopt key global benefits
More and more people are being sent by their employers to work in other countries; some estimates show that there are up to 50 million expatriates within multinational employers, which represents a 25% increase in the last decade.The old way of keeping an expatriate on home country terms, with all ...
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OpinionLucy Lewis: Is shared parental leave as effective as it could be?
According to statistics from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), published in February 2018, around 285,000 couples every year qualify for shared parental leave, but take-up could be as low as 2%.Shared parental leave (SPL) was first introduced in 2015, billed as being part of the government’s ...
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OpinionMark Brill: Working smarter with artificial intelligence
There is a lot of talk, even hype, about artificial intelligence (AI) and how it will take over the world. We are understandably concerned about how this technology might disrupt work or take jobs away. Some, including the late Stephen Hawking, who spoke openly about AI in an interview with ...
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OpinionVlatka Hlupic: New learning shared among employees can increase creativity and innovation
Employers can build personal learning and development opportunities into a total reward strategy in order to impact employee motivation.Opportunities for learning, development and personal growth form a major part of the shift in individual mindsets that would lead to higher levels of motivation, engagement and performance. This is particularly important ...
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OpinionLuke Menzies: Are organisations playing by the gender pay gap reporting rules?
As employers’ 2017 gender pay gap statistics slowly drip in to the government’s website, I and my fellow gender pay gap nerds are reading the reports with interest. With only around 1,600 reports in so far and approximately 8,000 left to go, with only a few days until the deadline, ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Is government backtracking on tax-free childcare?
On Tuesday (13 March), the government announced that it is to delay the closure of workplace childcare voucher schemes by six months, extending the April deadline for employees to sign up to a scheme.Since it was announced that childcare vouchers would be phased out to make way for the government’s ...
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OpinionSarah Kaiser: Gender pay gap reporting has to be a whole business focus
With annual milestones such as International Women’s Day, Girls in ICT Day and Ada Lovelace Day now featuring as regular diary fixtures, one thing is clear; we are getting much better at celebrating the achievements of women, as well as proactively increasing the profiles of girls and women in underrepresented ...
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OpinionSarah Thompson: Employers must prepare for no grace period post GDPR implementation
Everyone knows what is at stake regarding fines relating to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) non-compliance; up to €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is greater, but what will really happen on 26 May 2018 if organisations are not compliant?There have been comparisons between the GDPR and ...
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OpinionDr Amy Armstrong: The importance of people-centred cultures
Last month, the Sunday Times announced its Best Companies to Work For list for 2018. One factor that appears to remain constant in organisations that achieve the highest levels of employee motivation and engagement is the importance they place on creating people-centred cultures.If we see engagement as a climate in ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Equal pay claims gather pace
Is it just me, or does it seem rather apt that in the same week as International Women’s Day (8 March) several equal pay claims were brought by current and former female employees against well-known UK brands?Earlier this week, law firms representing the claimants announced they would be bringing claims ...
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OpinionAmy Richardson: Tesco is in the firing line over equal pay claims
It seems like a week cannot go by without gender pay being in the news, and this time it is the turn of Tesco to be in the firing line.The huge equal pay claim that Tesco is facing will look at a comparison between shop employees, who are predominantly female ...
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OpinionJames Walsh: UK should take a leaf out of Australia's book to increase pensions understanding
The pensions sector needs to think afresh about how best to communicate with savers, especially women. A Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) survey, published in May 2017, showed that millennial women feel more financially anxious than their male peers. If even this group, which has the smallest male-female pay ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Is your workforce fit for the future?
What does the future workforce look like in your organisation?Is it likely to be more diverse than ever, with up to five generations now present in many workforces? Is it likely to include more millennials than ever, with the new expectations that they bring? Or will it comprise older employees ...