All Opinion articles – Page 74

  • Opinion

    Paula Hargaden: Healthcare trusts have key attractions

    2014-01-20T05:00:00Z

    A trust can be employer-branded and can cover treatment that might be prohibitively expensive to obtain from an insured solution. Alternatively, the healthcare benefit can be packaged to mimic an existing insured solution, for example to ease the transition from insured to trust-based arrangements, so that, from the employee’s perspective, ...

  • Opinion

    Kuljit Kaur: Staff motivation and morale issues in the NHS

    2014-01-16T05:00:00Z

    HR professionals in the NHS must examine how to get the best value out of their employee benefits and incentive budgets to deliver tangible results.While pay hits the headlines, studies show that the main reason employees leave an organisation is lack of recognition, with our recent NHS Employee survey finding ...

  • Opinion

    Online opinion only - Trevor Rutter: Feel, as well as hear, in benefits communication

    2014-01-13T16:31:00Z

    I think it’s important to add that, as with all benefits communication, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of concentrating all our efforts on communicating the features of what is on offer.Yes, we all need to understand the facts: what we need to do and when. ...

  • Opinion

    Barbara Allen: The new disclosure regime for executive remuneration

    2014-01-08T05:00:00Z

    Under the new format, remuneration reports must include a letter from the chairman of the remuneration committee outlining any significant changes during the reporting year, a forward-looking policy report and an annual report on remuneration setting out how the organisation’s remuneration policy was implemented during the year.The policy report, which ...

  • Simon Chinnery
    Opinion

    Simon Chinnery: The evolution of default funds

    2014-01-06T05:28:00Z

    There are many different types and designs of default fund, resulting from more than a decade of market developments, but they can be broadly categorised as old style, lifestyle and alternative style. Old-style default funds are often single funds, and the old-style approach has been used for over 20 years, ...

  • Bethany Powell senior consultant Towers Watson
    Opinion

    Bethany Powell: Employers need transparent reward policies

    2014-01-06T05:00:00Z

    This is largely driven by three factors: the skills and competencies required for the role; the degree of accountability and impact on the overall performance of the organisation; and the relative supply and demand for the role. Once a market rate of pay is established, organisations will then assess factors ...

  • Nick Bacon
    Opinion

    Nick Bacon: Health cash plans can help support staff in an economic downturn

    2014-01-06T00:00:00Z

    Workplace schemes to improve health and wellbeing, such as smoking cessation and healthy eating, are good for staff and organisational performance: a genuine win-win.Effective health and wellbeing strategies require managerial commitment to develop and deliver an integrated plan of action to improve health and wellbeing. Action plans should be developed ...

  • Opinion

    Ian Hodson: Financial education will be key in 2014

    2014-01-06T00:00:00Z

    One thing that has become critical is the provision of financial education in the workplace and ensuring that the right offering is there to ensure that financial planning will underpin employees’ career and retirement planning. This is becoming even more important when looking at the pensions landscape, the demographic changes ...

  • Opinion

    Malcolm Hurlston: Changing times for EBTs

    2013-12-23T05:00:00Z

    Last month, the UK signed inter-governmental agreements with Jersey and Guernsey, and prime minister David Cameron confirmed a new ‘British Isles’ approach, as advocated by the Employee Share Ownership (ESOP) Centre.This follows the careful work by the Channel Islands and HM Revenue and Customs to prevent the misuse of trusts ...

  • Opinion

    Jeff Archer: How to balance healthcare education and interventions

    2013-12-17T05:00:00Z

    Where busy employees often struggle is with the important question of why they should invest in making changes to their food routine or healthy lifestyle in general when they are already busy enough with day-to-day living. What is clear, however, and we’ve all seen this happen, is that once any ...

  • Ian Curry
    Opinion

    Ian Curry: How to communicate with opted-out employees

    2013-12-11T05:30:00Z

    After this busy three-month period, millions of employees will have been brought into pension saving under the new pensions regime and, once the enrolment process is complete, employers will, hopefully, return to business as usual.But an ongoing employer duty that could take up plenty of valuable administration time is managing ...

  • Opinion

    John Lionis: Going back to basics on wellbeing

    2013-12-11T05:00:00Z

    However, there is an aspect of wellbeing that is often overlooked when discussing strategies, collecting key facts or coming up with specific interventions (see Health and wellbeing supplement, November 2013): the relationship employees have with their line managers.This is perhaps the single most important aspect of employee wellbeing. A positive ...

  • Simon Chinnery
    Opinion

    Simon Chinnery: Plenty of guidance on good governance

    2013-12-04T05:30:00Z

    Evidence points to the majority of savers wanting someone to take responsibility for their investment decisions, so figures of 70-85% of scheme members opting for the default strategy are the norm. The millions of new savers entering DC for the first time as a result of auto-enrolment is likely to ...

  • Bela Gor
    Opinion

    Bela Gor: Employers can benefits from older workers

    2013-12-02T06:30:00Z

    Employers might think older employees are more likely to have a disability, and so present greater challenges, but this is not the case.In England and Wales, the largest proportion of disabled people (25%) are in the 50 to 64 age group. Among 65 to 74-year-olds, only 20% say they have ...

  • Peter Reilly
    Opinion

    Peter Reilly: Universal benefits trend set to continue in 2014

    2013-11-25T06:30:00Z

    It is also important, when focusing on the future, to consider the extent to which we will see a surge in benefits take-up as employers become more profitable and the labour market tightens. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s Annual survey report 2013, Reward management, published in May 2013, ...

  • Opinion

    Helena Davies: Employer duties surrounding disability and sickness absence

    2013-11-25T00:00:00Z

    The claimant in HMRC v Whiteley suffered from asthma and had taken 15 days of sickness absence during a 10-month period, 14 of which were for viral and/or chest infections. The employer’s absence management policy was triggered because, even allowing for three days of absence discounted by the employer, she ...

  • Opinion

    Suzanne Hughes: Embedding wellbeing and engagement in the workplace

    2013-11-22T14:30:00Z

    EXCLUSIVE: As a major employer in the UK, understanding levels of employee engagement and wellbeing at Santander is critical. It’s well known that better engaged people are happier people, and the bonus is that the research tells us happier people are more productive too.To help us continue to track and ...

  • Opinion

    Colin Hodgson: Don't underestimate role of pre-paid cards in global recognition

    2013-11-20T16:02:00Z

    The first is the way we talk about reward and recognition. It is important for us all to remember that recognition is what employees want and what organisations need to give.Recognition does not always have to be associated with reward, but where it is, the reward reinforces the act of ...

  • Jain-Aditya-UniversityofNottingham-201_305
    Opinion

    Doctor Stavroula Leka and Aditya Jain: Tools to measure workplace stress

    2013-11-18T15:15:00Z

    Work-related stress is widespread and is not confined to particular sectors, jobs or industries.It is a significant cause of illness and is known to have a link to high levels of sickness absence, staff turnover and other issues, such as human error that can lead to accidents. Therefore, it is ...

  • David Batman
    Opinion

    David Batman: How to create a successful health and wellbeing strategy

    2013-11-18T05:32:00Z

    Healthy, resilient and high-performing organisations are typically supported by healthy, resilient and high-performing employees, and all tend to take a long-term, strategic approach to employee wellbeing.They also embrace employee wellbeing within their existing business objectives and processes, and clearly understand the background of any employee health-related issues and the risks ...