Opinion – Page 85
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Opinion
Liz Hunter: Online portals are a must-have
This doesn’t seem to reflect the trend among businesses large and small towards online communication with their staff, and certainly doesn’t fit with our experience at RM2, which indicates interest in branded web portals for share plans is rising.Allowing staff to access their benefits on one comprehensive intranet or microsite ...
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Opinion
Jenna Poon: Legal pitfalls of changing a benefits strategy
Employers need to ensure that the benefits being replaced do not form part of an employee’s terms and conditions, that they are not cemented in contracts of employment. If this is the case, an employee’s consent will be required in order to change those benefits.When examining employment contracts, any collective ...
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Opinion
Steve Wade: Five steps to prepare for RTI reporting
There are five practical steps for employers to follow to be ready.First, they need to know their start date. The 6 April is a Saturday, so an employer’s first RTI submission may be its second payroll run. Read more here.Second, employers must know their new starter process. After their start ...
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Opinion
Mel Duffield: Staff need support when buying an annuity
This is the point at which the employee’s pension pot is at its largest and when they stand to lose the most, both from their own and their employer’s pension contributions, by making a poor decision or simply failing to act. Reaching retirement and purchasing an annuity is a one-off ...
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Opinion
Jane Fenwick: Opinion divided on open-referral PMI
Others are cynical, but accepting.Much of the challenge for us has been in communicating the reasons for its introduction. We invested a lot of time and energy in member communications, even offering personal meetings with a senior clinical director from our insurer for those who felt particularly aggrieved. Member perceptions ...
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Opinion
Paul Quartly: Shared parental leave a big step forward
Employers should embrace this as a progressive change, but be aware that it brings new challenges in communication, organisation and trust.It’s important for the individual and the business that care is taken to develop a successful handover, ensuring any concerns are brought into the open, resources allocated appropriately and disruption ...
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Opinion
Wayne Pontin: Healthcare strategies need good data
The technological world we live in is all about communicating quickly and accurately, but who instigates the communication? Who produces the products and goods? Who services the communication and computer technology? Who delivers the productivity and so controls the profitability? People.So it becomes increasingly obvious that the health and wellbeing ...
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Opinion
Mark Polson: Slow take-up for workplace savings platforms
Nonetheless, attitudes have hardened to corporate platforms. One major employee benefits consultant told us recently: “I am not sure we have written a single workplace savings platform scheme.”There are four main reasons for the slow take-up of workplace savings platforms. First, auto-enrolment is crowding all thoughts of shiny new things ...
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Opinion
Peter Cooke: Reducing fleet costs
The challenge is to identify the opportunities, take them and then continue to take them, while showing a real cost saving.Essentially, opportunities split into short-term and strategic issues.Short-term fleet cost-management opportunities are typically associated with best practice and are a matter of driver practice, perhaps enhanced if motivated by management. ...
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Opinion
Ant Donaldson: Summit provided wealth of knowledge
For anyone involved at the sharp end, it was full of thought-provoking and informative sessions on everything from the Department for Work and Pensions’ policy agenda to how to review your default fund strategy.It was especially interesting to hear how initial experience is that auto-enrolment opt-outs have been lower than ...
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Opinion
Karen Reid: Staff wellness plays role in engagement
When planning our wellness week, as well as being a ‘fun week’, we were conscious of the important role it should play in employee engagement. Our objective was to encourage staff to take steps towards a healthier lifestyle and set personal goals for the whole year.The week proved extremely successful. ...
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Opinion
Ian McKenna: Online tools will increase benefits understanding
These fall into various categories. Some tools are designed to help employees better understand their own attitudes to investment and help them reach decisions about the investments in their pension. These would include: risk-profi ling tools to help members understand their attitude to risk; portfolio modelling tools to help explore ...
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Opinion
Barbara Allen: Disclosure will aid pay transparency
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, now passing through Parliament, includes a requirement for quoted UK companies to produce a new forward-looking remuneration policy report and a backward-looking implementation report.The forward-looking report will set out the key elements of an employer’s policy on remuneration, including performance measures used, and the ...
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Opinion
Stuart Bailey: Target younger staff with financial education
The growth of flexible benefits schemes has been mirrored by a significant increase in the number of employers offering some form of financial education to their employees. More than 17% of employers now do so, according to Workplace financial education, a survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, ...
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Opinion
Jonathan Watts-Lay: Employees need pensions education
Pension regulations seem to change constantly, whether it is the removal of the default retirement age or options available for generating income at retirement. As more employees retire from defined contribution (DC) pension schemes, or perhaps a combination of many different pension types, it is more important than ever to ...
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Opinion
Nora Smith: Shared parental leave fit for modern family
The new system suits the modern working family, allowing parents to decide how to spend the first year of their child’s life. Employers can also benefit by retaining talented female staff.But the government must ensure the changes can be easily administered by employers.The extension of the right to request ?exible ...
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Opinion
Amanda Solomon: Share schemes can motivate staff
In such a tough environment, it is more important than ever for employers to be able to retain and incentivise staff. There are a number of share schemes that can help achieve this, including HM Revenue and Customs-approved plans.Incentives such as the share incentive plan (Sip) and the enterprise management ...
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Opinion
Louise Aston: Mental health must be taken seriously
We are working in really tough times, which look set to continue. Across the UK, people are putting in longer hours, are more stressed and feel anxious about the future. Indeed, with one in four people experiencing a mental health problem within their lifetime, it is now more important than ...
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Opinion
Susan Ball: In pursuit of trivial benefits
When can a benefit be exempt from tax? When HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) decides it’s trivial enough not to pursue, is the answer. But be warned. The term ‘trivial’ can be subjective because there is no statutory limit below which benefits are not taxable. You need to consider if ...
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Opinion
Adam Brooke: Staff need support on health
This is beneficial for employer and employee, and helps to develop a culture of engagement.Wellness programmes should be reviewed to ensure personal goal-setting is included. But it is all too easy to then move on to the next wellness theme, so employers must remain mindful of providing a joined-up programme ...