Opinion – Page 27
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OpinionMichelle Last: The long-term career risks for mothers working from home
Employers need to be realistic about the effects of increased working from home for working mothers in order to maintain and improve on equality gains achieved pre-Covid-19 (Coronavirus).Government guidance that people should work from home over the last year has enabled many families to reduce their reliance on costly childcare ...
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OpinionAlison Pay: We are at a critical junction for workplace mental health
Over the course of the last year the signs are that we’ve become more comfortable to talk about our mental health at work. The pandemic has impacted most people and both the shock and discomfort of finding ourselves in lockdown, on furlough or working virtually prompted many employers to either ...
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OpinionChris Brooks: Changes are needed to help women save more for retirement
In our increasingly uncertain world, building a future income by saving into a pension is very important. Auto-enrolment has helped many people to do this, with more than 10 million new savers since its inception, which is the start of building a platform for people’s later life.However, women are still ...
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OpinionSarah Henderson: What pension scheme employers should be prioritising in terms of GDPR
Pension scheme employers and trustees spent many hours getting ready for the revamped data protection regime that came into force on 25 May 2018. What’s new in the data protection landscape and what should pension scheme employers and trustees be prioritising three years later?First, mapping your data footprint remains a ...
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OpinionAmmer Malik: Employees' financial wellbeing should be a top priority
Balancing the wellbeing of employees with the devastating economic impacts of Covid-19 (Coronavirus) has been an unparalleled challenge for many employers over the last year. With Covid impacting the incomes of people across the country, both directly and indirectly, helping restore employees’ financial wellbeing should be at the top of ...
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OpinionKaren Holden: Why aren’t all employees offered paid leave after miscarriages?
When an employee has a miscarriage, they have a number of options in terms of leave. They can be signed off sick by their doctor, however, that may only allow them statutory sick pay, depending on their contract. Unpaid leave may be negotiated, or they may be able to use ...
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OpinionDavid Phillips: Talent engagement and retention will require new training opportunities
As restrictions begin to ease, we can expect to see employers across the UK beginning to scale up recruitment once again. However, the pandemic has brought huge changes in the way we work which employers will need to adapt to in order to secure highly sought-after skills.In sectors where skills ...
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OpinionSophie Sinclair: Personal resilience is a critical factor for organisational success
Since the start of the pandemic, my colleagues at the University of Birmingham and across Higher Education (HE) have been working under the most exceptional circumstances that the majority of us have ever known. While past crises also required a swift organisational response and change, nothing in recent history has ...
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OpinionVictoria von Wachter: Employers need to be vigilant of the symptoms of long Covid
Long Covid refers to symptoms of Covid-19 (Coronavirus) that persist for weeks or even months, in excess of 12 weeks according to the health watchdog National Insititute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). Latest figures suggest that one in five people who test positive for Covid-19 continue to experience symptoms ...
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OpinionLouise Aston: The pandemic has taught us to adapt to new ways of working
The Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic has brought mental health and wellbeing to the fore, elevating it to the top of the agenda for CEOs and leadership boards. Overnight, the crisis transformed the way we work, but it has also presented an exciting opportunity to reimagine ways of working.As we transition ...
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OpinionAvneet Kaur: A roadmap to success: The key factors to building a resilient workforce
A word map of the past 18 months would show two strong recurring themes. The champion, without doubt, would be the phrase 'you’re on mute'. But the close runner-up would probably be the word ‘resilience’.It’s not just a buzzword; it’s a concept, embedded into company culture and the beating heart ...
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OpinionProfessor Sir Cary Cooper: A strong sense of purpose can build resilient organisations
These have been very difficult times, with the triple unprecedented events of the pandemic, Brexit and the ensuing recession once government financial support for employers/employees disappears.The mental health of all employees has taken a severe tumble as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) wellbeing survey, published in June 2020, found ...
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OpinionMichael Paulin: It is not too late to look at the IR35 rules
The coming-into-force of the Off-Payroll (IR35) rules for the private sector on 6 April 2021 was, as was expected by many, diminished, due to more or less all business owners having to focus on maintaining their businesses and livelihoods in light of the calamity of the pandemic.In real terms this ...
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OpinionStephen Perkins: Informed and thoughtful innovation is needed to keep benefits relevant
In an article published in autumn 2018, The overlooked essentials of employee wellbeing, McKinsey drew attention to what’s an often-overlooked form of ‘reward’ for employees - namely the benefit of giving people more influence over their work life. Flexibility in devolving control from employer to employee was said to foster ...
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OpinionDr Vanessa Beck: There is still a long way to go to normalise menopause conversations in the workplace
Menopause in the workplace has become a much more common subject of public discussion, but what has not yet been established is whether this makes any difference to individuals and their workplaces. Drawing on three surveys conducted with the general public between June and July 2018 as a baseline survey; ...
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OpinionEmma Swan: Vaccine passports could prove more than a customer problem for hospitality
Requiring customers to produce vaccine passports could create employment law problems for hospitality businesses.If hospitality and leisure venues such as pubs, restaurants and cinemas request customers to produce a vaccine certificate, there’s also a reasonable argument that they should require the same of employees. Staff at these venues will be ...
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OpinionStuart O'Brien: Sustainably-invested pensions are firmly in the spotlight
As we all try to move towards a greener lifestyle, the environmental credentials of our pensions are increasingly under the spotlight. In part this is due to employees taking a greater interest in how their pensions are invested. But there is also a growing recognition that a more sustainably invested ...
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OpinionRhona Darbyshire: Employers should review their remote working policies
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is planning to conduct a public consultation later this year on strengthening workers’ rights in relation to flexible and remote working, according to a recent report in The Times.This news comes as the Work after lockdown research project, published by the ...
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OpinionHayat Rafique-Fayez: Employers must follow regulations when collecting employee health data
Employers must make sure they are acting in line with the Data Protection Act 2018, which incorporates the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), when collecting any data from their employees.Gathering information on an employee’s health would be considered as ‘sensitive data’ and lawfully allowed if it is for ...
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OpinionJoanne Frew: How employers can stay focused on pay equality in the current climate
The pandemic has forced most employers into crisis management mode, focusing on contingency planning. Issues like technology for remote working and making the workplace Covid-secure have understandably been prioritised. It is however crucial that gender pay does not slip down the agenda.Recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports, published in ...