All articles by Tom Washington – Page 28
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Buckingham Palace to build gym for staff
Buckingham Palace is installing a gym onsite to provide 'big company benefits' for its 450 staff.Set to be ready in spring 2009, the 'royal fitness suite' will be located at the Royal Mews, currently home to the monarch's horses and state coaches.The gym will be filled with modern fitness equipment ...
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Auto-enrolment should be focus in 2012 pension reforms, says Tim Jones
Auto-enrolment should be the ‘centre-piece’ in the pensions reform in 2012, not the introduction of the new personal accounts scheme, according to Tim Jones, chief executive of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority.Speaking at Punter Southall's London Pensions Conference on 25 September 2008, he called for greater emphasis on the changing ...
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Wragge & Co reviews employee assistance programme
Wragge & Co is reviewing its employee assistance programme (EAP) after a period of five years with the same provider. Three firms, including the existing provider, will pitch for the contract, which is due for renewal this month.Amanda Pridmore-Wood, benefits and travel manager at the law firm, which has 1,184 ...
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The Big Lottery Fund to introduce voluntary benefits
The Big Lottery Fund is to introduce a voluntary benefits scheme for its 1,000 UK employees in November. The organisation, which is responsible for giving away half the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery, is launching the scheme as a result of feedback from its employee union ...
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Legal & General looks to cap DB pension liabilities
Legal & General is attempting to limit its growing final salary pension liabilities by proposing that only the first 2% of an annual pay rise should be taken into account when determining pensionable salary.The insurance group, which closed its defined benefit (DB) scheme to new recruits 10 years ago, has ...
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Staff use holiday entitlement to cover up sickness
One-in-five employees have used up some of the annual holiday entitlement to cover up the fact they are ill.Of this group, nearly a third (32%) said that they did so because they do not get paid for taking sick days, while 26% said they were afraid their sickness absence record ...
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Employees look for alternative plans to pensions
Pensions are now less attractive to some employees than alternative saving options, according to delegates at Mercer's latest pension forum events.Employer-sponsored alternative savings plans are an additional way for employers to encourage employees to save, offering more flexibility than a conventional pension plan. Nearly a third of attendees expressed an ...
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John Lewis Partnership extends defined benefit scheme
The John Lewis Partnership has extended its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme to an additional 12,000 employees, raising the total deficit by £8million, according to its interim results.From 1 October, the retailer will reduce the waiting period for membership to its DB final salary scheme from five years to three ...
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British executives earn lowest real pay in Western Europe
Senior managers in UK firms have among the lowest levels of disposable income in the world.The World Pay Report 2008 by management consultancy Hay Group, placed UK executives as 47th in the real pay stakes, which take in the true purchasing power of executive salaries, out of the 51 economies ...
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Pension funding deficits increase by £13bn on 'Meltdown Monday'
Total UK pension funding deficits increased by approximately £13billion to around £60billion after equity market falls of 4% yesterday, according to estimates by PricewaterhouseCoopers.Deficits have tripled from £20billion at the start of the year. PWC's estimates are made on a scheme funding basis, the measure used by trustees to drive ...
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TUC urges pensions minister to resist pressure over qualifying earnings
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged pensions minister Mike O'Brien to resist pressure to water down the test that will be used to determine if a scheme can be exempted from the system of personal accounts due to come into effect in 2012.†Employers seeking to gain exemption must show ...
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Flexible working on the increase, says CBI report
Almost half (46%) of all UK employers now offer their staff the option of working from home, according to the latest CBI/Pertemps Employment Trends Survey released today. This is a significant increase from 14% that did so two years ago and the 11% in 2004. The CBI’s survey of 513 ...
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G4S Security to offer subsidised judo lessons to employees’ families
G4S Security Services (UK) is to offer subsidised judo lessons to employees' families in an attempt to improve their health and fitness.The lessons will be provided as part of a partnership with the British Judo Association (BJA). The security firm has agreed to invest £1m in promoting judo over the ...
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Financial education needed to encourage staff to save
Nearly a third (31%) of UK employees have little or no savings to rely on if they were made redundant.More than half (56%) of employees have less than four months salary saved, according to a survey of 2,103 employees working in companies with 10 or more employees by Jardine Lloyd ...