May 22, 2019
Nearly three quarter (70 percent) of employment law experts have seen an increase in women claiming they were fired when on maternity leave; the use of ‘gagging orders’ following pregnancy and maternity related disputes and an increase in men claiming harassment by their employer for taking paternity leave.
May 21, 2019
City & Guilds Group is calling on Government to urgently rethink how skills and education policy in the UK is designed and delivered, in light of a new report launched by the Group today. Sense and Instability 2019 finds that important lessons from the implementation of skills policy over several decades have not been learned, meaning badly-needed training and education programmes are not fit for purpose or delivering the right results for people, businesses and the economy.
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May 16, 2019
EU member States must require employers to set up a system to measure daily working hours for each employee, according to a new ruling from the European Court of Justice. The decision came following a case brought by the Spanish trade union, Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) which initially brought an action before the Audiencia Nacional (National High Court, Spain), seeking a judgement declaring Deutsche Bank SAE to be under an obligation to set up a system for recording the time worked each day by its members of staff. The union considered that such a system would make it possible to verify compliance with the stipulated working times and the obligation, laid down in national law, to provide union representatives with information on overtime worked each month.
May 15, 2019
Digital disruption has led to a rise in the number of FTSE 100 CEOs with a background in technology, but age, education and gender diversity remain stagnant, claim the results of the annual Robert Half FTSE 100 CEO Tracker. It shows that the proportion of FTSE 100 CEOs with a background in technology has increased by 27 percent in the last year, with 14 percent of CEOs now having a background in the sector. More →
May 15, 2019
The number of non-EU born workers in employment has increased over the past 12 months due to a tightening labour market, according to statistics published this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Figures show that just over a third of the 364, 000 net annual increase in the number of people in work over the past year has gone to people from outside the European Union, although the number of EU-born citizens in work has also risen. The number of non-EU born citizens in employment has increased by 123, 000 during the past year, while there has been a notable quarterly increase of more than 117,000 EU-born citizens.
April 11, 2019
Following the TUC’s recent call for an overhaul of shared parental leave rights, a new interactive study created by Red Letter Days claims to display just how many babies are born every minute in 169 countries and what each has to offer its citizens when they become a parent, such as maternity and paternity leave as well as outlining the benefits of having both maternity and paternity leave in place. Estonia tops the list as one of the best countries for maternity leave, offering 62 weeks for new mums, while the United States remains at the bottom with zero weeks of guaranteed leave. More →
April 8, 2019
This year is set to be a busy year for HR and employment law. From post-Brexit immigration rule changes and gender pay gap reporting, to age discrimination at work, employers are faced with amended employment laws and new deadlines for their organisation to meet. These are ten important areas of the law that HR professionals and business owners need to be aware of. More →
April 1, 2019
New service charge rules which aim to ensure there are no hidden costs and clarity around disputes, come in to force today (1 April 2019) and are mandatory for RICS professionals. ‘Service charges in commercial property’ has been developed with industry leaders, including major property organisations and professional bodies to secure transparent, upfront and fair costs for businesses as part of the maintenance and upkeep of their building. Amongst the rules, any charges incurred by the tenant must be explained fully at the outset and in accordance with the terms of the occupational lease, whilst any upkeep costs not specifically mentioned or explained in a lease must be made irrecoverable from the tenant.
March 1, 2019
The government is being encouraged to implement mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting when it announces the outcome of its ‘Ethnicity pay reporting’ consultation, which closed in January. Pre-empting that, fifteen companies have signed a commitment today to work towards mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting. Signatories include the Bank of England, Deloitte, KPMG, WPP, Santander and EY. The commitment, driven by membership organisation INvolve, aims to get more businesses voluntarily reporting on their ethnicity pay gap. In 2018 The Resolution Foundation estimated the ethnicity pay gap at £3.2bn. A report from INvolve also showed that white people earn on average between £67 and £209 more per week compared to similarly qualified individuals of a different ethnic background, and that the most ethnically diverse workplaces are 35 percentage points more likely to financially outperform industry averages.
February 22, 2019
Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of UK employers admit they would be less likely to hire someone with a disability, new data from disability charity Leonard Cheshire shows, and over two thirds (66 percent) of managers cite the cost of workplace adjustments as the barrier to employing a disabled person, up from 60 percent in 2017. Seventeen percent of disabled candidates that had applied for a job in the past five years said the employer withdrew the job offer as a result of their disability. Attitudinal barriers continually featured in the latest research. Of the employers across the UK that said they were less likely to employ someone because they were disabled, 60 percent were concerned that a disabled person wouldn’t be able to do the job. Of the disabled people in the UK who applied for a job in the last five years, 30 percent said they felt like the employer had not taken them seriously as a candidate.
February 21, 2019
Although official figures from the ONS show a decline in consumer spending throughout much of 2018, optimism amongst small businesses remains high, with UK SMEs hoping to grow their headcount by an average of 21 percent over the next 12 months. The new research from Opus Energy claims that half (51 percent) intend to grow their business in terms of people, with some even predicting they’ll increase their workforce by 50 percent. IT (39 percent), health (33 percent) and financial services (28 percent) were the sectors expecting the most growth. Even in the worst affected sectors, growth was still predicted. Half (50 percent) of retailers still expected to grow in 2019, at an average of 19 percent. 65 percent of food and beverage producers predicted an average headcount increase of 18 percent and 69 percent of manufacturers expected to grow at an average of 14 percent; despite facing the uncertainty of Brexit and the “death of the high street”.
March 8, 2019
On International Woman’s Day – why advancing women is still not a business priority
by Sara Bean • Comment, Legal news, News, Workplace
It has probably not escaped your notice that today is International Woman’s Day, which for Workplace Insight means a plethora of studies on the topic of women/jobs/salaries and ways women might work differently to men. We’ve decided not to waste anyone’s time and ignored most of them (particularly the patronizing ones on how ladies are so intuitive) but managed to find a few kernels of information. First, the good news that women have doubled their share of top jobs at technology companies, pulling in higher salaries than men last year, according to executive search firm Odgers Berndtson. More →