All Employee Benefits articles in Web Issue – Page 599
-
Article
New occupational health report aims to improve return to work
Allied health professionals, such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, chiropodists and podiatrists, could play a greater role in helping ill or injured employees return to work following the publication of a new assessment report.The Allied Health Professions (AHP) Advisory Fitness for Work Report, which has been developed by The Chartered Society ...
-
Article
HMRC warns employers about RTI
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is reminding employers about real-time information (RTI) reporting, one month before the legislation takes effect on 6 April.From that date, employers will be required to move to a new way of reporting pay-as-you-earn (PAYE), doing so each time employees are paid rather than annually.HMRC suggests ...
-
Article
RBS to pay out £607 million in bonuses
The Royal Bank of Scotland is to pay out £607 million in variable compensation.According to the bank’s Annual Results 2012:Its total variable compensation stood at £607 million in 2012, down from £789 million in 2011.£215 million of this amount has been allocated to investment bankers, down from £360 million in ...
-
Article
Serco boosts take-up ahead of auto-enrolment
EXCLUSIVE: Serco Group has increased take-up of its stakeholder pension scheme by communicating auto-enrolment four months ahead of its staging date.The international services organisation sent letters to its 30,000 UK employees in January 2013. It has since seen a 2% rise in take-up of the scheme, in advance of the ...
-
Supplier article
Health Shield performs 'Harlem Shake' to raise funds for Comic Relief
Jonathan Burton, chief executive of Health Shield, takes centre stage in the 40-second video, entitled ‘The Health Shield Shake’. Donning a sumo wrestler suit and matching helmet, the Friendly Society fundraiser is joined by an entourage of employees in the humorous internet meme.For every view of the YouTube video, Health ...
-
Article
Pay for low-skilled workers highest in western Europe
Pay for low-skilled business functions in western Europe is more than 50% higher than their counterparts in the UK, according to research by Towers Watson.The Towers Watson General industry compensation report focused on four core business functions that are commonly moved across borders in order for organisations to take advantage ...
-
Article
GlaxoSmithKline lowers exec bonuses by £1.781 million
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) lowered annual bonuses for executive directors by £1.781 million in 2012.According to the pharmaceutical firm’s Annual Report 2012, the group’s executive directors received £2.131 million in annual bonuses for 2012, compared to £3.912 million in 2011.However, GSK’s remuneration committee decided to increase annual salaries for executive directors’ by ...
-
Article
Admiral Group awards shares for performance
Admiral Group is rewarding its 6,500 employees with shares worth £3,000 each following strong end-of-year results.According to its Preliminary Results 2012, staff were awarded £1,500-worth of shares on 3 September 2012 based on the organisation’s performance in the first half of 2012. Employees will receive a further £1,500-worth of shares ...
-
Article
Wolseley to close DB pension scheme
Wolseley is consulting with staff about proposals to close its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme to future accrual on 31 December 2013.Under the terms of the plumbing organisation’s proposals, the pension benefits staff have already built up within the scheme will be protected and there will be no changes to ...
-
Article
John Lewis staff share £210.8m in profit
Employees at John Lewis and Waitrose will share £210.8 million in profit.Each of the John Lewis Partnership’s 84,000 employees will receive the same percentage of annual pay as a cash bonus. This represent 17% of each employee’s annual salary, equivalent to nearly nine weeks’ pay.According to the retailer’s results for ...
-
Article
Balfour Beatty to close DB pension scheme
Balfour Beatty is consulting with staff about closing its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme to future accrual.Its proposals would affect around 2,500 active pension scheme members, which represents about 10% of its workforce.The consultation will end in May and the scheme closure will take effect from September.In its Full year ...
-
Article
Virtual windscreen ends work woes
Something for the weekend …Field-based employees or those who travel frequently on business may well be used to making do with whatever facilities they can find to conduct business while on the road or between meetings. But this could be set to change thanks to new interactive windscreen technology, which ...
-
Article
British workers experienced sharpest wage fall in developed world
Employees in the UK have experienced a bigger fall in real wages than any other workforce in the world’s top ten developed economies, according to research by trade union Trades Union Congress (TUC).Its Global race report found that real wages fell by 4.5% in the UK between 2007 and 2011, ...
-
Article
Employer support essential on musculoskeletal issues
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) account for 50% of all workplace absences lasting more than three days in Europe, according to research by The Work Foundation for Fit for Work Europe.The Fit for work patient survey, found that two-thirds of people living with MSDs are primary earners in their families, yet many ...
-
Case Studies
Home Group builds salary sacrifice car scheme
The social housing provider replaced its company car benefit with a cash payment, which staff can use to pay for a car through a salary sacrifice arrangement.Available to all permanent and fixed-term contract employees, the scheme offers a choice of cars that have a fixed emissions cap of 155g/km of ...
-
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. ...
-
Article
SMEs unprepared for pensions auto-enrolment
Fewer than half (42%) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) surveyed have taken concrete steps towards auto-enrolment implementation, according to research by Jelf Employee Benefits.The Jelf Employee Benefits Auto-enrolment tracker, which surveyed 124 SMEs, found that just 29% of respondents are aware of their staging date.This compares to 38% in ...
-
Article
Employees want government to incentivise flexible working policies
The majority (82%) of employee respondents said the government must do more to incentivise organisations to implement flexible working policies, according to research commissioned by Plantronics and conducted by OnePoll.The research, The state of the flexible working nation, surveyed 2,000 UK employees to gain understanding of the UK’s changing working ...
-
Article
Bombardier Transportation appoints Mercer
Rail engineer Bombardier Transportation has appointed Mercer to provide pension scheme actuarial services to the trustees of its three defined benefit (DB) plans across seven schemes, with combined assets of around £1 billion in the UK.The organisation has more than 26,000 employees across Europe and has yearly revenues of $6.275 ...
-
Article
HMRC wins legal battle against NAPF
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has won a legal battle against the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and Wheels Common Investment Fund (WCIF) over the payment of VAT by defined benefit (DB) schemes.The Court of Justice of European Union (CJEU) ruled that the DB schemes are not special investment ...