Opinion – Page 38
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OpinionMini Setty: Guidelines for home working during Coronavirus
Coronavirus has wrought immediate and enormous changes to working practices across the UK. As the government advises businesses and workplaces to encourage staff to work from home wherever possible, employees and employers alike are understandably rushing to ensure they understand their rights and responsibilities under law.Employers have to take reasonable ...
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OpinionMark Hodgkinson: Government reforms must support disabled employees in crisis
Chancellor Rishi Sunak and prime minister Boris Johnson have unveiled a £350 billion emergency measures bill to support those in dire financial straits due to the Coronavirus crisis. Included in the bill are measures to pay statutory sick pay from day one, rather than day four, for people affected by ...
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OpinionCharles Pitt: Protecting wellbeing and mental health during Coronavirus
Since the start of the Coronavirus crisis, the British Safety Council has put in place a plan to protect its people and its customers. Supporting our employees' wellbeing and mental health is just as important to us as limiting the spread of the virus. Much of what we have done ...
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OpinionDiane Lightfoot: Coronavirus and disability – keeping employees safe
As the number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus grows, employers are rightly concerned about the impact that the virus could have on their workforce.Some employees may be more susceptible to catching infections than others. This includes those with certain disabilities or conditions, and those who may be taking medication which ...
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OpinionKatherine Neal: The loan charge – finally some good news for tax payers
On 20 January 2020, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) published updated guidance following the Sir Amyas Morse independent review of the loan charge. Draft legislation was published on the same day.By way of background, the 'loan charge' was introduced by the UK Finance Act 2016 as an anti-avoidance measure to ...
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OpinionMalcolm Hurlston: Share schemes must present attractive returns to engage younger employees
If early assessments of Generation Z are on the money, they will be like chalk to the Millennial cheese, leaving employers with the most interesting communications challenge they have ever faced with young people.Gen Z appear to be old before their time, the first generation ever to be thinking about ...
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OpinionZoe Denny-Thomas: Engaging younger staff with share plans should be a key goal
Engaging the different generations in the workplace is always a hot topic, and there is increasing evidence that take-up of share plans among younger employees is disproportionately lower than their older colleagues. However, this is not necessarily a sign of disengagement with their employer. In 2017, Proshare produced a report, ...
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OpinionAmanda Lathia: Employment law changes from 6 April 2020
Following the Taylor Review in February 2018, the government published the Good work plan on 17 December 2018, introducing the most significant workplace reforms that we have seen for over 20 years.Holiday pay for irregular and vulnerable workersHoliday pay for irregular workers and vulnerable workers will change as of 6 ...
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OpinionTony Pugh: Delegate to accumulate – how to win back time by changing pension schemes
If you asked most employers what their biggest business priorities are for this year, I am confident that ‘spending more time on the pension scheme’ would not feature very highly.In fact, Aon’s UK DC pension survey 2020, published in February 2020, showed that 35% of employers with their own trust-based ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: How will Coronavirus affect business?
Over the last week, the UK’s preparations for dealing with Coronavirus seem to have moved on at a significant pace. As consumers have emptied retailers’ shelves of anti-bacterial hand gel and begun stockpiling food, the government has set out its plans to tackle the virus in the coming weeks and ...
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OpinionPhillip Richardson: Jack’s Law - new parental bereavement leave rules
The introduction of Jack’s Law means parents who lose a child under the age of 18 have a statutory right to a minimum of two weeks paid time off work, irrespective of how long they have worked for an employer. The UK is the first country to offer this right. ...
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OpinionHelen Smith: Improving engagement when launching a health and wellbeing strategy
When launching a new health and wellbeing strategy, employers need to be proactive in the way they publicise it. After all, staff will not access benefits if they do not know they exist.Invite employees to helpHow do you encourage employees to feel part of the strategy from the outset?A good ...
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OpinionJess Young: Is employee engagement missing the little things?
Several years ago, I was responsible for implementing a new benefits package at a large university. Take-up was on par with others in the sector, and the initial outlay was relatively small. Management were delighted, but I couldn’t help feeling I’d missed something.Despite sharing plenty of case studies in the ...
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OpinionGavin Willis: Matching profit and purpose to boost staff engagement
When I founded digital marketing agency Search Seven in 2011, I was clear that I wanted to make money and do something positive at the same time. That is why I began the business with the simple pledge that we would match up to 7% of our annual profits as ...
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OpinionPaul McGlone: Government priority should be to better look after pension savers
Consensus is often difficult to come by, but in a recent Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) poll on what the government's pension priorities should be in 2020, agreement was not hard to find. Based on what our members said, the priority is ultimately to better look after pension savers.We asked ...
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OpinionJulie Hodges: Employee engagement and organisational change
Change is happening all around us, at a pace and level of complexity which is higher than we have ever experienced before. The challenge for businesses is to keep up and adapt, otherwise they may find themselves in a situation like that facing the retail sector, where stores are closing ...
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OpinionMelanie Wilkes: What will the future of work mean for employee engagement?
Employee engagement is fundamental to good work, and is a driver of business performance. As we think about how to maximise the opportunities of the changing economy and labour market over the coming decade, it should be at the front of our minds.In 2009, the McLeod Review found that a ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Where does the employer's duty towards staff end?
Since news of the death of television presenter Caroline Flack broke over the weekend, the issue of mental health has barely left the headlines. Among the numerous tributes, attributions of blame and calls for an end to online bullying and trolling, I read a couple of articles stating that, as ...
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OpinionAlice Honeywill: The value of additional contributions in closing the gender pension gap
While we await government reforms on pension policy and wider industry change to tackle the gender pension gap, I find myself asking one question: what action can be taken right now?More specifically, what steps can employers be taking to make small, yet potentially effective, changes?The most widely discussed initiative is ...
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OpinionKate Gardner: What does the landmark veganism ruling mean for employers?
In a major step forward in employment law, a tribunal has ruled that ethical veganism is a philosophical belief, meaning that an employee could rely upon veganism as one of the nine protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act 2010.While this is great news for employees, how will it affect ...