Opinion – Page 45
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OpinionRuth Christy: Changes to the statement of employment particulars
Some of the finer details of the new rules for written statements of employment particulars have gone under the radar.Under the Good Work Plan, published in December 2018, from 6 April 2020 every new employee and worker will have the right to the current statement of written particulars from day ...
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OpinionSian Evans: Why financial wellbeing should be part of an employer's duty of care for staff
Employers have many duties towards staff, but there is one that is rarely mentioned: a duty of care towards employees' financial wellbeing.Why is financial wellbeing potentially awkward to discuss? Perhaps employers feel that offering financial assistance represents too much involvement in an individual's life. Or maybe employees feel that if ...
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OpinionCarrie Pairman: Mental health first aid is a must for businesses to fully support their staff
It is estimated that a quarter of us will experience a mental health problem each year. In fact, evidence published by Office of National Statistics in July 2016 suggests that 12.7% of all sickness days in the UK can be attributed to mental health conditions.Thankfully, the stigma surrounding mental health ...
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OpinionKaren Holden: What are employers' legal responsibilities for keeping staff safe?
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 is the primary piece of legislation which governs health and safety laws in the workplace. It places responsibility on both the employer and employee; employers are responsible for providing a safe environment, and employees are responsible for the safety of themselves and ...
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OpinionElaine Rossall: Workplaces that encourage activity can improve employee wellbeing
Once, the office was a fairly uniform place. We turned up in similar outfits, working in similar grey offices and then we would head home. Working life was largely sedentary, and for many it still is.However, the very best modern offices not only look and feel different to those of ...
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OpinionHelen Smith: Workplace mental health - how to be caring, not just compliant
The average person today is said to spend roughly a third of their life at work, so it is no surprise that the environment we work in can have a huge impact on our wellbeing. In fact, the World Health Organisation stated in May 2019 that negative work environments can ...
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OpinionDr Alison Carter: Mindfulness can help support good mental health
With mental and physical health sharing different sides of the same wellbeing coin, it is perhaps unsurprising that organisations ranging from primary schools to the Royal Navy are exploring the potential benefits of mindfulness.There would seem to be an opportunity to create a culture of mindful awareness within organisations aiming ...
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OpinionDeborah Casale: Unconscious bias needs to be addressed to impact gender pay gap
It is hard to imagine how life will look in 100 years, but at the current rate of progress, we can expect that the UK will only just be closing its gender pay gap.Organisations with more than 250 employees have been required to publish its gender pay gaps annually since ...
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OpinionAnnelise Tracy Phillips: Implementing a global wellbeing strategy
A good wellbeing strategy reflects organisational values and culture. It has consistent messaging and is a coherent whole, rather being than a series of one-off interventions. However, a global wellbeing strategy also needs to be flexible enough to account for local attitudes to the employment relationship, different views of the ...
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OpinionLindsey Hunt: Can an employer ban working from home?
In March 2019, city bank BNY Mellon came under fire for announcing it was putting a stop to working from home. Its employees vented that this was a huge step backwards, with issues such as mental health and childcare among the key concerns. The backlash led to the bank retracting ...
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OpinionNicola Critchley: Nurturing talent is vital to closing gender gaps
It may come as no surprise that the issue of gender diversity and equality in the legal industry is on a par with the experiences that women face in most traditionally male-orientated sectors.However, data published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in February 2018, based on information from 180,000 people working ...
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OpinionJonathan Pears: Encouraging staff to walk more can boost wellbeing
According to figures from the Association of Accounting Technicians published in September 2018, over our lifetime, we will spend 3,507 days on our careers and 14,053 hours getting to and from work. In addition, the Department for Transport's Road investment strategy for the 2015/16-2019/20 road period report, published in 2015, ...
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OpinionDavid Mendel: Clear guidelines are needed for wearable technology in the workplace
In an increasingly digital environment, more and more employers are exploring the use of wearable devices in the workplace to enhance employees’ health and wellbeing. However, if data is not used in a transparent way, it can raise a number of legal and practical issues such as data protection and ...
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OpinionNigel Morris: IR35 consultation presents over-complicated legislation and little time
The latest IR35 consultation, which opened on 5 March 2019, highlights some of the complexities of rolling out the proposed changes to off-payroll working rules to the private sector. The government’s intention to exclude small private sector businesses from the new rules has been known for some time, but there ...
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OpinionMichael Kind: Tech platforms help engage employees with their pensions
Could technology be the answer to pensions engagement? To some extent, yes. PensionBee and Smart Pension being integrated into Yolt and Alexa, respectively, increases the points at which they are visible, and makes employees’ user journey smoother. Simpler touches, such as using educational videos rather than long reams of text, ...
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OpinionColin Barnes: Could mHealth technology transform wellbeing?
Transforming employee health and wellbeing is a challenge, with many programmes failing to deliver the desired results.It is easy to see why traditional health and wellbeing programmes do not always work. A one-size-fits-all approach is great for some employees, but can potentially alienate others. Similarly, offering a wide range of ...
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OpinionIan McKenna: Gamified apps help employees engage with benefits
Smartphones are embedded in the vast majority of consumers’ lives. This should make providing access to employee benefits and health interventions via an app a hygiene factor for any organisation, but is simply enabling an app enough to drive engagement?Phones are littered with applications that have been downloaded with enthusiasm ...
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OpinionKaren Archer-Burton: The importance of aligning values with recognition
At Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals, employees are the lifeblood of the organisation; to ensure we attract and retain the very best talent, it is vital that they are recognised and feel valued.That is why we are currently reviewing our employee engagement strategy as a whole. As part of that ...
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OpinionLiza Andersin: The importance of boosting employee morale
The way people work has changed dramatically over the last five to 10 years, and is predicted to continue shifting rapidly as we move into the future. Employers are having to compete to attract and retain the best talent in this ever-changing space, in addition to focusing on business outcomes. ...
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OpinionGurdeep Boparai: UK proposes to extend redundancy protection for new parents
In January 2019, the government launched a consultation detailing plans to extend existing legal protections against redundancy for pregnant women and new parents upon their return to work.The consultation forms part of the government’s response to the Taylor Review and follows concerns raised by the Pregnancy and maternity discrimination report, ...