Labour market confidence surges to nine year high, claims CIPD

Labour market confidence surges to nine year high, claims CIPD

labour market looks upEmployers are indicating strong employment intentions for the third quarter of 2021, with confidence surpassing pre-pandemic levels to hit a nine year high. This is the key finding of the latest quarterly CIPD Labour Market Outlook (LMO) survey, involving more than 2,000 employers and covering all sectors of the economy. The survey claims that its net employment intentions figure, which measures the difference between the proportion of employers expecting to add jobs and those planning to cut them, has risen for the fourth consecutive quarter. The figure now sits at +32, up from +27 last quarter, marking the strongest employer intentions seen since tracking began in Winter 2012/13. More →

Earned wage access partnership between Sage and Flexearn helps people take control of their salary

Earned wage access partnership between Sage and Flexearn helps people take control of their salary

earned wage accessEarnings on demand company, FlexEarn has agreed a partnership with payroll technology leader, Sage, to provide a new Earned Wage Access service to UK businesses using Sage Payroll software, supporting responsible financial wellbeing for employees. Available now via Sage Business Cloud Marketplace, the app allows employees to withdraw a portion of their salary in advance of their regular salary payment date, helping them budget more easily and with less stress. More →

Firms continue to underestimate employee turnover threat, study claims

Firms continue to underestimate employee turnover threat, study claims

employee turnoverA new study from communications agency Zeno Group claims that businesses continue to underestimate the chances of an increase in employee turnover as a result of changing attitudes towards work. According to the survey, while companies often focus on addressing their disengaged or disgruntled groups, the study finds that 58 percent of satisfied employees in the UK now report being open to new opportunities, with many actively searching. In addition, those surveyed report their employers do not recognize this reality, with just 20 percent of respondents saying their employers think many workers are looking for new roles elsewhere. More →

Plans for a new single status for workers don’t cover everyone, says lobby group

Plans for a new single status for workers don’t cover everyone, says lobby group

IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed) has responded to the UK Labour Party’s proposal for a single worker status saying that although it is welcome the party is attempting to clear the confusion around worker rights, the party’s proposals fail to grasp the nettle of employment status. The comment comes after Labour announced it would create a single worker status to “replace the three existing employment categories” of employee, worker and dependent contractor. Labour said the category would encompass “all but the genuinely self-employed”. More →

HRIS software sets out on a people-centric future

HRIS software sets out on a people-centric future

HRISIn the past, Human Resources Information System (HRIS) software was largely created with the needs of HR professionals and system administrators in mind. The future of HRIS however, is an employee-centric system which has been come to be known as an Employee Experience Platform (EXP). PeopleSpheres is an EXP that centralizes all HR functions within a single portal. With this tool, employees and HR teams alike can seamlessly navigate between the different HR applications within their organisation while being confident that they have the best tools on the market to manage each part of the employee life cycle. More →

Onboarding experiences during the pandemic short of the mark for some

Onboarding experiences during the pandemic short of the mark for some

onboardingResearch from Totem has highlighted the major difficulties faced by people who switched jobs during the pandemic, with only 15 percent of respondents stating that they had an excellent onboarding experience when joining their new company. Almost a third (29 percent) said that their onboarding experience was ‘average’. More →

The most critical HR topics of the post-pandemic era

The most critical HR topics of the post-pandemic era

HRHR leaders trying to navigate a rapidly changing workplace environment now have a clear set of objectives to focus on: digitisation, talent, and the future of work. That is the central finding of a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the World Federation of People Management Associations (WFPMA). The report is titled Creating People Advantage 2021: The Future of People Management Priorities. More →

The rise of the loveable leader: pandemic inspires new generation of compassionate leadership

The rise of the loveable leader: pandemic inspires new generation of compassionate leadership

leaderHeralding the age of a more compassionate type of leader, almost eight in ten (76 percent) UK business leaders consider their employees to be friends, not just colleagues, with three quarters (74 percent) admitting they want their employees to like them, claims new research from Michael Page. More →

HR should play a more strategic role in business resilience

HR should play a more strategic role in business resilience

HR and resilienceAlmost every organisation now knows it must become more resilient as the economy emerges from the pandemic. As well as coping with crises and global events, organisations must excel in the face of the many less high-profile disruptions that hit an organisation – from supply chain bottlenecks to shifts in demand and sudden skills shortages. HR departments have a major role to play in this but to do so successfully requires a change of mindset, taking a step back from traditional administrative functions and reviewing the entire business as if they were an outsider. More →

HR professionals believe the war for talent has become more competitive

HR professionals believe the war for talent has become more competitive

talentAccording to its latest whitepaper ‘Recruitment, retention, and culture: assessing the pandemic’s impact’, Cendex claims that 81 percent of HR professionals believe the war for talent has become more competitive over the last 12 months – this is likely to be a result of businesses looking to bounce back post-pandemic, upping their recruitment thus giving employees the pick of the market. More →

Real Estate, HR and Technology leaders must collaborate to create a future of work fit for the 21st Century

Real Estate, HR and Technology leaders must collaborate to create a future of work fit for the 21st Century

An office that depicts the future of workHR leaders, heads of real estate and IT decision-makers have not always spent huge amounts of time working together – their roles and responsibilities have often been siloed. But in the new world of work, that’s all changing. These three groups of senior leaders are being asked to collaborate on one of the biggest challenges corporate occupiers, as they try to figure out when and how to return to office-based working and shape the future of work. Failure to collaborate will increase the probability of workplaces having low occupancy rates, low employee engagement and decreased productivity. More →

New artificial intelligence regulations have important implications for the workplace

New artificial intelligence regulations have important implications for the workplace

artificial intelligence The European Commission recently announced its proposal for the regulation of artificial intelligence, looking to ban “unacceptable” uses of artificial intelligence. Up until now, the challenges for businesses getting AI ‘wrong’ were bad press, reputation damage, loss of trust and market share, and most importantly for sensitive applications, harm to individuals. But with these new rules, two new consequences are arising: plain interdiction of certain AI systems, and GDPR-like fines. More →