All Employee Benefits articles in Web Issue – Page 704
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AnalysisAverage price paid for health cash plans
Read the digital version of our Health cash plan supplement 2014 in full.
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Article
BBC restructures pay processes for presenters
The BBC is restructuring how it pays some employees.The broadcaster has applied a new employment test to all staff, including its well-known presenters, that it has previously employed as freelancers.Where individuals were hired on a freelance basis, they were paid through personal service companies, which can enable high earners to ...
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Article
Astellas Pharma appoints Julia Watts
She moves to the organisation from her role as compensation and benefits manager, Europe, Middle East and Africa at Hess Corporation.Previous interim roles include global remuneration manager at Tata Global Beverages, reward consultant at New Look and reward partner at Hays.Watts’ other roles include director and reward consultant at Alston ...
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Article
Ford Retail promotes Sharon Ashcroft
She will be responsible for overseeing the organisation’s HR function, which includes pay and reward, learning and development, and health and safety.Ashcroft has worked at Ford Retail for eight years in a range of roles, including head of HR and HR manager.Her previous jobs include senior HR consultant at Coda ...
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Article
University staff strike over pay
University staff across the UK are taking further strike action over proposed pay increases on Thursday 23 January.Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will walk out for two hours in protest of a proposed 1% pay rise.These include staff at academic institutions, such as: Oxford Brookes University; Nottingham ...
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Article
Willis restructures global benefits practice
Willis Group is creating a new human capital and benefits practice which will combine its existing employee benefits and related consulting practices. The global risk adviser, insurer and reinsurer is to make the move in order to develop and execute a co-ordinated global strategy. These businesses include: pensions and retirement ...
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Article
Government confirms delay to pension charges cap
Pensions minister Steve Webb has confirmed that the introduction of a pensions charge cap will be delayed by a year until April 2015.The charges cap was due to be introduced in April 2014. A ban on active member discounts and defined contribution reforms on governance and transparency will also be ...
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Article
Top 10 most read stories this week
The top 10 most read articles on employeebenefits.co.uk from 16-23 January:1. BBC restructures pay processes for presenters2. Government to delay pension charges cap3. Reed Smith staff move to online savings platform4. Aberdeen Asset Management increases staff pay by 4%5. How should employers communicate default funds?6. Government confirms delay to pension ...
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Article
Overseas holidays boost promotion chances
Something for the weekend…Employees looking to get ahead at work may not consider buying more holiday through a holiday trading scheme or taking advantage of workplace travel discounts as the obvious way to do so.But new research by travel agency sunshine.co.uk has found a link between the number of overseas ...
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Article
DOD’s blog: Three little pigs blow up the pensions numbers
A great infographic from Schroders and the Policy Exchange caught my eye this week. (View The UK is sitting on a pensions time-bomb as people are failing to save enough graphic).It shows three pigs each of a different size. Using an average salary of £27,000 the Policy Exchange worked out ...
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Article
Allianz launches global benefits practice
Allianz has launched a global benefits unit to address the needs of multinational organisations. Allianz Global Benefits will co-operate with Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty and Allianz global Investors. Its focus will be on benefits such as: corporate life; pensions and health products.Combing global and local approaches, Allianz Global Benefits ...
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Article
Win an iPad mini by completing flexible benefits survey
Employee Benefits’ annual survey is designed to help employers benchmark their organisation’s flexible benefits plan with those of competitors. To have your say and gain an insight into how your flex plan compares with those of your peers’, please participate in this short survey by 31 January 2014.As a thank ...
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ArticleBuyer's guide to flexible benefits technology 2014
THE FACTSWhat is flexible benefits technology?It is a technology system, operating in-house or from cloud-based servers, that provides a platform to deliver a flexible benefits scheme. Increasingly, systems are designed to interface with other elements of benefits and reward, including pensions, and often have interactive and data-modelling tools that can ...
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ArticleBuyer's guide to bikes-for-work schemes 2014
One of the main attractions of the scheme is the tax and national insurance (NI) breaks it offers employees and employers.Employees can reduce their tax and NI liability when they buy a bike for their commute to work through a salary sacrifice arrangement. The typical saving for a standard-rate taxpayer ...
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Case StudiesAtkins engineers a family-friendly environment for staff
Benefits offered by Atkins that are popular among working families include flexible working, extra holiday entitlement, childcare vouchers and informal employee assistance programmes, such as networks for working families to interact with each another. The organisation won Workingmums.co.uk’s Innovation in Flexible Working Award in December 2013, and was named top ...
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Video
VIDEO: John Hayhurst: How to communicate benefits to a diverse workforce
Hayhurst says: “We are such a diverse workforce, spread over hundreds of miles, from the north of Scotland all the way down to London.”The biggest challenge is getting a consistent message and consistent reward and benefits packages that fit both Scottish employees, Yorkshire employees, etc.”East Coast Mainline revamped its voluntary ...
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AnalysisA quick guide to employee benefits tax
Tax-efficient benefits offered through a salary sacrifice arrangement are exempt from income tax, employer’s NI and employee’s NI. This is so because a benefit offered in this way reduces an employee’s pay, so less tax and national insurance is due and the employer will not have to pay NI contributions ...
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ArticleJeremy Mindell: Will the increase in share scheme limits boost scheme numbers?
While most governments in Europe have been cutting back on tax-advantaged schemes, the UK’s increase in tax-free limits is a pleasant contrast.Given that all three major political parties favour wider share ownership, the tax relief is unlikely to be reversed in the foreseeable future. This should give organisations confidence to ...
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Article
John Collison: Will the increase in share scheme limits boost scheme members?
IFS Proshare was delighted to learn that Chancellor George Osborne is to increase investment limits on sharesave plans to £500 a month and on share incentive plans (Sips) to £1,800 a month.Although no one can say for certain whether increasing the limits will immediately result in more organisations launching employee ...
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Article
Court rules how to handle ill-health dismissals
Clarification has been given on how employers should handle an employee dismissal following an extended period of absence due to ill-health.In the case of BS v Dundee City Council, BS had been off sick for 272 days with stress and depression. During his absence, he was signed off sick by ...