All Employee Benefits articles in Web Issue – Page 352
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FTSE 350 defined benefit pension deficits fall by £12 billion
The total deficit in the defined benefit (DB) pension schemes of the FTSE 350 stood at £90 billion at the end of June, according to research from Pension Capital Strategies.This represents an improvement of £12 billion on the position a year ago.Pension Capital Strategies' report The FTSE 350 and their ...
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Edenred gives cardholders free online access to discounts
Edenred has granted Incentive Award cardholders free access to its Advantages online platform.The Advantages platform gives cardholders the chance to save money on shopping, days out and holidays.The open-loop Incentive Award Card, which is used for employee recognition and reward and incentive programmes, is available as US dollars, euros and ...
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Public sector staff get greater total reward than private
The total reward for public sector workers is greater than their counterparts in the private sector, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).However, this is only true when only those workers with pension provisions are taken into account, otherwise the opposite is the case.September’s Economic and ...
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Close enhances pensions platform
Close is introducing new technologies to boost its services in the offshore pensions and retirement marketplace.Its new developments include a workflow system to enhance the processing and administering of schemes and a new extranet to allow both advisers and employers secure access to their plans.These are the first steps in ...
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Grant Thornton launches employee benefits consultancy
Grant Thornton is launching an employee benefits consultancy.Grant Thornton Employee Benefits Consultancy will provide employee remuneration and pension advice, and arrangements to larger pension funds, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and professional firms.The consultancy will design benefit and reward structures, pension scheme restructuring, the harmonisation of cross-border benefits including qualifying ...
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Romanian fortune tellers given income tax reprieve
Superstition appears to have influenced fiscal policy in Romania where politicians have dropped plans to tax fortunetellers and witches amid fears they will be cursed.The country’s senate rejected a law drafted by officials that demanded tax from psychics and outlined measures to ensure they were held liable for flawed predictions.According ...
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Sodexo’s health and wellbeing programme celebrates 25 years
Sodexo staff are celebrating 25 years of ‘Healthwise’, the organisation’s health and wellbeing programme.The celebration, held on the HMS Belfast, hosted over 60 guests including Dr Dorian Dugmore, director of wellness international and wellness coach at Adidas UK, who presented a keynote address on the impact of health and wellness ...
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Increased demand for pension scheme buyouts
There has been an increase in demand for insuring the defined benefit (DB) obligations of occupational pension schemes in 2010 compared to 2009.According to data from consultancy Mercer, £3.2 billion of business was written in the first half of 2010 compared with £3.7 billion of business written during the whole ...
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Unite takes BMI to court for breach of pay deal
Union Unite is taking BMI to the high court for breaking a pay deal worth up to £6 million, promised to more than 3,000 employees.Unite is accusing the airline of failing to uphold a three-year pay deal that was agreed in 2007.Unite entered the pay agreement with BMI, which provided ...
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Lloydspharmacy launches discounted flu vaccination service
Lloydspharmacy has launched a discounted flu vaccination service for employers to help lessen the impact on staff productivity.The pharmacy chain is providing employers with 10% discount vouchers that staff can redeem on flu vaccinations in over 200 pharmacies nationwide.Flu can cause three to five sick days for each person affected, ...
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DWP research: Only 28% of private sector firms offer a pension
Only 28% of private sector organisations offered some form of pension provision for their employees in 2009, down from 41% in 2007.According to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Employers’ Pension Provision Survey 2009, which it polled 2,519 private sector employers, most of the decline in overall provision was ...
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CIPD awarded the Pension Quality Mark Plus
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has been awarded the Pension Quality Mark Plus for its staff pension scheme.The standard is given to employers which provide high-quality defined contribution (DC) schemes to their employees.The Pension Quality Mark (PQM) was launched by the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) ...
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Thomsons Online Benefits launches new benefits service
Thomsons Online Benefits has added a new service to its employee benefits software platform.The addition, Darwin Dashboard 2.0, provides a visual and statistical breakdown of each element of an organisation’s benefits package, including how many staff logged on in the last month, have taken up childcare vouchers or have added ...
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BHSF staff raise money for charity
BHSF's executives and staff have taken part in a 28-mile walk to raise money for the youth homelessness charity St Basils.Two teams of six from the healthcare insurer spent nearly 12 hours on the road as part of St Basils’ Cotswold challenge, and raised £3,356.The charity, which helps homeless young ...
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Europe faces colossal pensions gap
Employees in Europe face a seriously reduced standard of living once they retire unless they increase their pension savings, according to Aviva's research Mind the gap - Qualifying the pensions gap in Europe.In its assessment of the £1.6 trillion gap between the savings that people retiring in 27 EU member ...
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Half of pension schemes fail to review member data
Less than half (45%) of pension schemes have failed to review of their member data for the last two years, according to research by JLT Benefit Solutions and the Pensions Management Institute (PMI).The research surveyed 350 respondents to evaluate their compliance with the final guidance on pension scheme member record ...
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Falls in corporate bond yields increases pension scheme liabilities
The accounting measures of the liabilities of defined benefit (DB) schemes in most developed economies have seen marked increases in liabilities due to declining corporate bond yields, according to research by Mercer.The consultancy's research found equity values in most countries with developed financial markets have been volatile throughout 2010, although ...
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Royal Mail employees to be given 10% of shares
Business secretary Vince Cable has announced that Royal Mail employees will be offered reduced or free shares as part of the government's plans to privatise the organisation.In his speech to the Liberal Democrat conference, Cable said the postal service would benefit from the largest employee share scheme resulting from any ...
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Rightmove to manage its executive share plans in-house
Rightmove, the house-hunting website, is managing its executive share plans in-house by using Centive, the share plan administration software from Killik Employee Services (KES).The software caters to all executive share option and share-based plans, as well as all-employee plans such as share incentive plans (Sip) and save as you earn.Peter ...
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Employers uncertain in light of pensions higher-rate tax hike
The majority (64%) of UK organisations have yet to decide if they would change their pension scheme in light of the pensions tax changes for those earning more than £150,000 a year.A snapshot poll by Mercer of 350 HR and pension managers and compensation and benefit specialists also found that ...