All Employee Benefits articles in Web Issue – Page 234
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Article
Employees asked to pay back fares for flight that landed in New York's Hudson River
Bank of America employees travelling on the flight that landed in New York's Hudson River on 16 January were reportedly asked to refund the cost of their tickets.The 23 employees on board the US Airways flight 1549 were on their way to the bank's head quarters in North Carolina when ...
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Article
Local authority pension funds could be used to fund school building projects
The organisation responsible for delivering the government’s private finance initiative (PFI) school projects has indicated it wants to dip into local authorities’ pension funds to stump up extra cash for its £55 billion building programme.Addressing delegates at the Building Schools Exhibition and Conference (BSEC), Tim Byles, chief executive of Partnership ...
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Article
Debi O'Donovan, editor of Employee Benefits: Will recession lead to staff misunderstanding pension investment performance
For years advisers, pension providers and employers have wondered how to get the majority of staff interested in their pensions.Now many don’t want staff to get too interested - in case it drives up costs or causes staff to make poor choices in the current recession.We are seeing several different ...
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Article
Employers to cut travel and fringe benefits during recession says CIPD
Employers are reducing fringe benefits such as business travel and hospitality to cut costs during the recession.The latest quarterly research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development(CIPD) and KPMG shows that two-thirds of the 892 UK employers surveyed have either already experienced a budget cut or are about to.The ...
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Article
BP considers salary freezes for some employees
BP confirmed that salary freezes are being considered for some employees that make up its 95,000-strong workforce in the UK and abroad.The firm has denied it will be implementing a company-wide salary freeze but has admitted that the salaries of a number of senior management employees are expected not to ...
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Article
Atradius adds perks to voluntary benefits scheme
Credit management firm Atradius is to add experience days and private medical insurance (PMI) to its voluntary benefits scheme in March.The scheme has been structured so that staff can only select some benefits, such as PMI, during an annual election period, which will take place in March, before employees' choices ...
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Article
BOC offers discounts on company products
Specialist gas supplier BOC has launched a discount card for employees to use on its own products.Using the card, its 3,700 employees can purchase products, such as power tools and safety equipment, at a discount of up to 20%. Staff can apply for the card through the firm's voluntary benefits ...
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Article
Accor Services launches payroll-giving scheme for staff
Accor Services has launched a payroll-giving scheme and pledged to match its employees' contributions as part of its commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR).The perk enables employees to make donations to a charity of their choice tax-efficiently direct from salary. This means the charity receives the donation, as well as ...
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Article
Microsoft admits blunder over severance pay
Microsoft has admitted it made a mistake after asking 25 former employees to repay part of their redundancy pay.The software giant wrote to the US-based employees following a round of redundancies to say an accounting error meant they had been paid too much severance money.Despite initially asking for the cash ...
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Article
Royal Mail must be privatised to save pension, says trustee chairman
Royal Mail pension scheme members have been warned that their retirement savings could be halved if the plan to privatise part of the business does not go ahead.Royal Mail pensions trustees chairman, Jane Newell, has said that if the recommendations made in the Hooper report were not implemented it would ...
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Article
Northern Rock awards bonuses despite GBP1.4bn losses
Northern Rock is to pay out bonuses to several hundred employees despite the fact the nationalised bank expects to report losses of £1.4 billion for 2008.Around 400 junior management employees, subject to qualifying criteria, with an average annual salary of £21,000 will receive a 10% deferred bonus. A 10% bonus ...
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Article
Many employers unprepared for 2012 pension changes
Many UK companies are unprepared for the pension reforms in 2012 and will need to make significant changes to their existing scheme to meet the new legal requirements.According to research conducted by Watson Wyatt, nearly a third of FTSE100 firms had not considered the implications of 2012 and the introduction ...
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Article
BSkyB gives staff 100 free shares each
BSkyB is awarding each its 16,000 permanent employees free shares worth a total of £7.2 million as part of its 20th anniversary celebrations.The broadcaster will provide each employee with 100 shares with a total value £452.50 (according to the share price on 24 February). Employees will hold the shares for ...
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Article
Former RBS chief receives GBP693,000 pension a year
Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), is receiving a pension of £693,000 a year.Goodwin stepped down from his position four months ago, soon after RBS was bailed out by the government with the help of £20billion of public money. News of ...
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Analysis
News analysis: Will lower-paid workers be worse of in 2012?
Some lower-paid workers could be worse off when the new pension reforms come into effect in 2012Low-paid staff may not all benefit from changes set to come into effect under 2012 pensions reform legislation due to the impact of auto-enrolment on means-tested benefits. But, despite this, pensions experts have largely ...
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Article
Goodwin defiant over pension
Sir Fred Goodwin is refusing to hand back any of his £693,000-a-year pension despite calls from government ministers for him to do so, and claims that ministers were aware of the arrangements some months ago.Goodwin left Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) as chief executive last October, soon after it ...
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Article
Benefits at Dallas hardware store fail to entice George W Bush
Former US president George W Bush reportedly turned down a job at Dallas-based hardware store Elliots despite the fact the firm promised his role would be a lot less stressful than his last job and would also include a generous employee benefits package.If the former president had taken on the ...
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Article
Permira staff complain about food during luxury week away
Permira employees on their annual week away were served up burgers at a five-star hotel on the request of the private equity firm's chairman Damon Buffini after one of them complained about the food.Buffini asked for the burgers to be dished up for the high-paid workers, who were staying at ...
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Article
Financial Services Authority urges employers to defer two thirds of every large bonus
Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) code of practice on remuneration polices, published on 26 February, said that those setting bonuses in the banking sector should ensure remuneration policies are based on staffs' contribution to the financial performance of the company and responsible attitudes towards risk.Although the code of practice recognised the ...
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Article
Buyer's guide to car manufacturers (March 2009)
Corporate car sales have not fallen as much as retail sales, but the entire motor industry has been hit hard by the recession, says Nicola SullivanA number of economic and fiscal factors are currently shaping the development of the UK's company car manufacturing industry. Overall, 2008 was particularly challenging for ...