Opinion
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OpinionConfessions of a benefits manager: Candid explores menopause support
Candid questions the role of benefits in a menopause support programme.
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OpinionNeil Goodwin: What are your reward and benefits priorities for 2025?
Wickes has continued to be guided by its total reward principles in 2024 to give it some stability in reward.
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OpinionGeorgina Reeves-Saad: What are your reward and benefits priorities for 2025?
In 2025, in terms of reward and benefits priorities, leaders should focus on fostering a workplace where colleagues feel valued, supported and appreciated for their contributions.
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OpinionNicola Smyrl: How employers should handle sickness absence
Source: Taylor Walton Solicitors Nicola Smyrl Managing sickness absence is a notoriously thorny issue for employers. As such, they must tread carefully as anything less than a sensitive and considered approach may expose them to potential claims for unfair dismissal or disability discrimination, where the sickness relates ...
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OpinionRaj Jones: How can employers break the taboo around menopause in the workplace?
Breaking the taboo around menopause in the workplace is crucial for creating an inclusive environment where all employees can thrive. Employers play a vital role in fostering a culture of openness, particularly when addressing health issues like menopause, which not only affects those experiencing it, but the ...
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OpinionJulie Cridland: How can employers break the taboo around menopause in the workplace?
Breaking down the stigma around menstrual health in the workplace is vital. Practical policies to support employees experiencing the menopause will have a limited impact without an inclusive culture where colleagues feel comfortable discussing their experiences. Workplaces can make a huge difference by providing good-quality information and ...
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OpinionEmma Smith: How can employers break the taboo around menopause in the workplace?
Considering menopause is something that will affect half the population at some point in their life, it is a strange subject to be taboo in modern Britain. Fortunately, that is changing at a growing number of workplaces, including Burness Paull. In 2021, we became the first independently ...
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OpinionJennifer Roberts: How can employers encourage staff to save money?
At Central Co-op, we recognise that helping our employees with their financial wellbeing is an essential part of our staff wellbeing programme, called ‘We’ve got you’. Encouraging employees to save begins with creating a culture that prioritises financial health. At Central Co-op, we leverage our Difference Maker ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: The importance of facilitating conversations around suicide
Trigger warning: This article discusses suicide. This week, rock star Jon Bon Jovi made headlines after he reportedly helped a woman in distress who was standing on the ledge of a bridge over the Cumberland River in Nashville, Tennessee. Along with others, Bon Jovi talked to the ...
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OpinionElouisa Crichton: What to expect from a right to disconnect
The UK government is exploring how to implement the new right to disconnect in practice. This follows moves by countries including France, Spain and Australia where similar policies have already been introduced. This proposed right is unlikely to become law in the statutory sense, but rather a ...
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OpinionLouise Lawrence: Legal implications and requirements of managing sickness absence
Managing sickness absence can be a daunting task for many employers to handle, as it often requires striking a fine balance of having a delicate approach in supporting employees, while considering business needs of minimising business disruption and costs. An October 2023 report from the Chartered Institute ...
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OpinionConfessions of a benefits manager: Candid reviews the reward strategy
It is always the way when Big Bad Boss comes back from a seminar; he gets a rush of enthusiasm for making changes. Well, not so much for making them, but for making me make them. This time he wants me to review the reward strategy. Now as it happens, ...
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OpinionSarah Tahamtani: Supporting and celebrating neurodiversity in the workplace
The Buckland Review of Autism Employment, published in February 2024, identified that autistic jobseekers often struggled due to generic job descriptions which they could not satisfy, interview questions and approaches which were not adapted to fit their needs and challenging sensory environments.What is clear, is that there is a significant ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Supporting staff through troubling times
Current unrest across the UK mean this is a worrying and frightening time for many. The violence and ongoing threat of further unrest is extremely unsettling, even for those that have not been identified as potential targets.Although the actions of anti-racism protestors and local communities which came together against the ...
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OpinionJemma Forrest: Domestic violence leave and why it is not coming to the UK
Ireland has introduced the right to five days of paid domestic violence leave annually, to help those affected by abuse access the medical visits, legal advice and counselling they may need.It is unusual for Ireland to lead the UK on employment law, but the UK government has since confirmed it ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Is there a disconnect around health and wellbeing?
Employee wellbeing is a top priority for many employers, but how many can say that their health and wellbeing provision is truly living up to its full potential?Two separate pieces of research published this week suggest that while employers are investing in supporting their workforces’ health and wellbeing, this often ...
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OpinionGeorgina Cameron: How can employers create a culture of fun?
As a B Corp, looking after the Lily’s Kitchen team is hugely important to us. Having fair and robust HR policies to support our employees is only part of the equation. We strive to enable and empower everyone on our team so that they feel able to work to the ...
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OpinionMaranda Ridgway: How can employers create a culture of fun?
The rapid pace of change and pressures to continually increase productivity have led to rising levels of mental health problems that have negatively impacted personal and working lives. One response that organisations have adopted to combat work-related mental health issues, such as stress and fatigue, is to ...
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OpinionKevin Gude: Why should employers consider a corporate healthcare trust?
Employer-funded healthcare trusts are an established, tax-efficient way to deliver the benefit of medical treatment to employees without having to buy employer-paid health insurance.Traditional insurance involves paying an insurance firm a premium, including 12% in tax, that reflects the insurer’s prediction that claims will be made by employees, as well ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Knowing when to throw in the towel
How unwell do you have to feel before you call in sick to work? Presenteeism has always presented something of a conundrum for employers, as it can be tricky to assess which individuals really should not be working when relying solely on their word.While all organisations want to build an ...