Opinion – Page 86
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Opinion
Jamie Fiveash: Use simple language for auto-enrolment
As providers, we can, and should, help by giving employers a variety of methods to communicate with staff.For example, we provide an employer toolkit that includes bespoke posters and a short animation explaining the basics about auto-enrolment, using simple, engaging everyday language. Some of our customers have a significant proportion ...
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Opinion
Julie Stothard: RPI decision means savings are lost
The cost of benefits fully linked to RPI could have fallen by one-fifth had RPI been fully realigned with the consumer prices index (CPI).For many schemes, the anomaly still exists that benefits could be linked to RPI or CPI, depending on the rules their deeds were written under.The failure of ...
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Opinion
Malcolm Reynolds: Key issues when selecting a provider
First, the employer should consider how well it thinks it can work with the service provider’s team and senior management. Also, look at the financial strength of the organisation and assess whether it could survive a further downturn.Employers should look at the provider’s strategic commitment to the market and how ...
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Opinion
Mark Baker: Steps to make auto-enrolment easier
First, decide early on a pension provider. Do not delay this decision because there are fears of a capacity crunch among providers in 2013 and 2014. If employers leave it too long, they will find it harder to negotiate contract terms and management fees, because providers will know they have ...
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Opinion
Gabriel Bernardino: Pan-European pension funds
Economies of scale may be achieved by centralising investment management, pension administration and actuarial support. This may benefit employers and employees in terms of lower contributions and higher benefits.A cross-border pension fund will also bring savings by simplifying governance. Employers will only have to deal with a single board of ...
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Opinion
Sally Hart: International PMI has its challenges
Employers must balance cost and benefits. International health insurance is expensive, and costs can be managed by introducing individual excess amounts or by limiting cover where appropriate.Size matters to providers. Organisations with more than a few expatriates may be able to have medical history disregarded; those with more than 100 ...
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Opinion
Teresa Rogers: Local support is key to health
In recent years, we have heard a lot about the UK’s evolving economic climate. It is no surprise that organisations, large and small, are considering new horizons for their manufacturing as well as their markets. So employers need a wider spectrum of benefits to support their employees overseas.Foreign assignments can ...
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Opinion
Alex Fricke: Voluntary benefits motivate parents
Some employers also run parents’ networks or seminars, offer maternity coaching and have a dedicated parent and child room on-site.Voluntary benefits such as these help employers to recruit, motivate and retain working parents. Childcare vouchers can be offered through a salary sacrifice arrangement, which affords advantages in tax and national ...
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Opinion
Malcolm Small: Employers will focus on total benefits offering
The jobs market will continue to improve, while unemployment will continue to fall. As automatic-enrolment into pension saving continues to be implemented, employers will start to focus on their total benefits packages once more.Flexible benefits packages will continue to grow in popularity. Sales of group life and sickness plans will ...
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Opinion
Susan Ball: iPads can be tax-free if you follow rules
Tax breaks under HCI ended in 2006, but several replacement schemes mean staff can benefit from discounts, thanks to their employer’s buying power, allowing them to pay for a computer over a fixed term, with costs deducted monthly from net salary.But as an employer-supplied product, it is still taxed as ...
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Opinion
Andrew Clark: Staff ownership boosts engagement
One size does not fit all and the debate on how organisations are structured in order to broaden the UK’s economic base and ensure better staff engagement means many alternative forms of corporate ownership are rightly now being explored.How a business engages with its staff has never been more crucial ...
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Opinion
Neil Morrison: Right language is the key to commercial HR
For example, if he is talking to his company’s publishers about recruiting different skillsets into the organisation, he will explain it in the context of digital publishing.“That is something our publishers understand,” he says. “If I was talking about competency based frameworks and diversification of skill base, they would probably ...
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Opinion
Michael D Haberman: How to achieve commercial HR
The external crisis is a long-held view by management and employees that HR is a necessary evil to be avoided at all costs. Fortunately, this situation is improving as the HR role evolves, but it will not be fully resolved until the internal identity crisis is solved. Quite simply, we ...
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Opinion
Katharine Moxham: New opportunities for the group risk market
Auto-enrolment, the response to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Health at work - An independent review of sickness absence, published in November 2011, the Treasury’s Sergeant Review of Simple Financial Products, published in July 2012, and the introduction of universal credit will give the group risk market unprecedented ...
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Opinion
Julian Foster: Working parents need more childcare help
There were also a few changes that may benefit businesses, including a cut in corporation tax.But it was disappointing to see no extra support for working families facing crippling childcare costs.The childcare voucher limit of £55 per week has remained unchanged since 2006 and would need to rise to £73 ...
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Opinion
Ben Black: Action needed on eldercare support
The truth is that in the future, far more of us will combine work with an eldercare responsibility for one or both of our parents. The stats are truly frightening.But will employers really start putting relevant benefits in place any time soon? I am not sure.With notable exceptions such as ...
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Opinion
Henry Tapper: Auto-enrolment will continue to dominate
Auto-enrolment will dominate the pensions market in 2013, but for the 550,000 people reaching what we used to call ‘normal’ retirement dates, the future looks bleak.There may be some easement in interest rates as the impact of quantitative easing wears off, but annuity rates are likely to remain at historic ...
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Opinion
Jonathan Watts-Lay: Increased retirement advice will be needed
As the baby boomers consider retirement, employers will need to do more to support them. Employees save for many years to fund their retirement income, but are often left without any guidance at the point of retirement. This is likely to change as we head into 2013. More organisations are ...
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Opinion
Will Aitken: Auto-enrolment will continue to dominate in 2013
Auto-enrolment will continue to dominate the UK pensions agenda in 2013. Opt out rates will dramatically undershoot the 30% estimates that have been estimated as inertia proves to be a strong force.Employers selecting pension providers in the second half of 2013 will find that it is no longer a buyers’ ...
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Opinion
Peter Reilly: Employers will stick with cost-effective spending
Dark clouds continue to hover over the UK, with the age of austerity set to continue into 2013 and beyond. Employers and benefits providers are likely to stick to the basics, which means cost-effective spending. With the vast majority of employees suffering real term deterioration in their standards of living, ...