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True value of company perks lost on British workforce |
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Date: 16/06/2008 |
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98 per cent of British workers underestimate the true amount that employers spend on benefits, according to new research released today by Aon Consulting, a leading pension, benefits and HR consulting firm. The findings reveal a large gap between perception and reality.
In Aon's national survey of 1300 working adults, when asked how much they think their company spends on their benefits as a percentage of their individual salary, over two thirds (69 per cent) said they thought it was no more than 10 per cent. Almost half (46 per cent) believed that just 5 per cent or less of their pay was put towards their benefits. Almost a quarter (23 per cent) put the figure at between 6 and 10 per cent of salary.
In reality, British companies are much more generous, typically contributing between 20 and up to 40 per cent of salary in additional benefits. Only 2 per cent of those surveyed by Aon believed that their employer spent at least 20 per cent of their salary on benefits.
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Employees to be given the right to request training |
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Date: 29/05/2008 |
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The government has introduced plans to allow employees the legal right to request time to train from their employers. In a further announcement, apprenticeships will receive a boost under new legislation to unlock the potential of individuals and businesses.
The government will now consult on how workers can be legally empowered to request time to undertake training that will benefit them and their employer. The practical arrangements which employers would follow would be modelled on the existing right to request flexible working.
By introducing a new right to ask for time for training, employees will be able to talk to employers about their training needs, and employers will become more aware of the public funds available to support training. Employers will be legally obliged to seriously consider requests for training they receive but could refuse a request where there was a good business reason to do so.
Employers will not be obliged to meet the salary or training costs to enable a request for time to train but it is expected that many will choose to do so, recognising the opportunity to invest in their business.
Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills John Denham said, "If the job prospects of our workforce are to improve and the country is to succeed internationally, we have to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to rise as far as their abilities can take them. Learning starts before school and it should not stop when you leave. While it is right that we consult on this proposal, I believe that skills development has to become an integral part of working life for everyone. A right to request training will help ensure this becomes a reality. It will allow millions of employees to start a conversation with their employer about how they can become a more productive member of staff and in turn will encourage employers to better tap into some of the major Government supported training programmes available to them."
The plan has already drawn criticism from the EEF. Martin Temple, EEF Chairman, said, "Businesses will find it difficult to understand why government is adopting such a bullish approach to better regulation, whilst at the same time introducing yet more regulatory requirements which will inevitably create practical problems. It will increasingly require employers to adopt the judgement of Solomon in deciding who has time off for training."
Richard Lambert of the CBI commented, "Employers will be pleased that the government has ruled out compelling them to train staff irrespective of their circumstances and opted to introduce the right to request instead. The most effective spur for training is the mutual benefit derived by both employer and employee, not regulation."
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Portal Resource Consulting |
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Date: 27/05/2008 |
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Portal Resource Consulting has been taking big strides in the recruitment world since its launch in 2006.
The company aims to deliver a portfolio of consulting and resourcing services that can help to transform an organisation's ability to identify, attract, select, retain and manage their talent.
Karl Whelpdale, CEO commented: "Many organisations, particularly SMEs, struggle to meet the challenges of defining and operating an effective resourcing strategy, and as a result fail to attract high-calibre individuals to their organisation, or retain those they have. "To help solve this problem, in addition to providing some of the more established solutions including Neutral Vend and RPO, Portal offers a comprehensive range of consulting options aimed at addressing specific aspects of the resourcing cycle, from attraction through selection to induction".
With over 20 years' experience in the global recruitment market, as both a procurer and provider of resourcing solutions, Karl's aim is to utilise the considerable corporate experience of his team to assist SMEs in thinking more strategically about how they resource and how they are perceived by the candidate market.
Portal recently commissioned a report, entitled Analysing the Contribution of the Human Resource Management Function to the Attainment of Strategic Corporate Objectives. Authored by Susan Marlow, Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship HRM at De Montfort University, the study explores the extent to which the HR function operates as a 'business partner' in the development and articulation of business strategy. "The study was carried out across a variety of regionally based SMEs and public sector organisations from a number of market sectors, and involved a series of in-depth interviews with senior board and HR professionals," says Karl. "The findings should significantly improve our ability to understand and address the key issues facing employers in the region today".
Portal has also recently secured one of the largest recruitment outsourcing contracts with Transport for London (TfL). Portal will provide high-response recruitment to TfL's business operations, placing over 2,000 customer service, operations and support staff each year. Sharon Syal, head of resourcing for TfL said: "We chose Portal above other outsourcing providers because they were consistently able to respond positively to our tender requirements."
"In our opinion, their key areas of strength were strong account management, continuous improvement, service efficiencies and candidate experience".
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The Agency Workers' Equal Treatment Bill |
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Date: 23/05/2008 |
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The Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill proposed by Andrew Miller was withdrawn yesterday following an announcement at Prime Minister's Questions. The death of the Bill was inevitable following yesterday's announcement that there had been an agreement between business organisations including the REC and the trade unions.
Attention will now revert to agreeing a workable Agency Workers Directive in Brussels. Anne Fairweather, the REC's Head of Public Policy said: "The Private Members Bill was so broad and far-reaching that it would have been disastrous for the recruitment industry. The fact that it has now been abandoned is a welcome development".
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Sickies and long-term absence give employees a headache |
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Date: 14/05/2008 |
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Gap between public and private sector absence rates hits new high.
Absence from work cost the UK economy £13.2 billion last year as the average employee took almost seven (6.7) days off sick, while the gulf between absence rates in the public sector and the private sector grew to a record level, new research revealed today (Wednesday).
The latest CBI / AXA Absence Survey showed that average absence levels across the public sector stood at nine days, which is 55% higher than the 5.8 day average of the private sector. The private sector improved its absence levels over 2007, while the public sector stood still. £1.4bn of taxpayers' money could be saved if public sector organisations matched the private sector average.
The survey also revealed that of the 172 million days lost to absence in 2007, more than one in ten (12%) are thought to be non-genuine. These 21 million "sickies" cost the economy £1.6bn and two-thirds (65%) of employers think that some staff are using them to extend weekends. 60% said that fake sickness was used to extend holiday, and a third of employers (34%) suspect that sickies are used for special events like birthdays and major football games.
Long-term absence (20 days or more) also continued to be a serious concern for firms. Although only 5% of absence spells became long-term, they accounted for a massive 40% of all time lost, costing £5.3bn. Long-term absence accounted for half (50%) of all time lost in the public sector, but under a third (31%) in the private sector.
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Communicating your employer branding & recruitment proposition via your websites |
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Date: 09/05/2008 |
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The following are some of the key factors to consider in specifying and implementing your careers website:
- Articulate your employer proposition and obtain 'sign-off' for the proposition from your organisation ensuring consistency with your organisation's existing brand proposition / statement. Ensure that your employer proposition can be adapted to online and offline concepts.
- Provide the website designers with appropriate access to your organisation so they can capture the salient messages when they design your careers website.
- Consider what candidates will need, what will lead to appropriate self selection, how do you engage them, how to make them stay, how to make them come back to your career homepages, how to make them invite others, how to convert them from a browser to an applicant to someone you can hire?
- When applying innovative technology make sure the site remains user-friendly and accessible by candidates.
- Balance ease of use with depth of information.
- Design your careers website to enable regular updating.
- Signpost your careers website prominently within your organisation's website.
- Define a "go live" starting point and vision for your careers website.
- Ensure you factor in a section where candidates can provide their feedback either on the pages or on the recruitment process and consider how you are going to deal with this feedback and respond to questions.
- Ensure your website complies with data protection, equal opportunities, age discrimination and accessibility legislation and is secure, resilient and speedy.
- Metrics - measuring success: monitor the number of visitors to your careers website, what has been of interest in the different sections, monitor which advertisements are working, and conduct online satisfaction surveys.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications.aspx
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Technology is cool in the playground but not in the careers centre! |
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Date: 06/05/2008 |
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Research launched today by Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry® Women & Technology Awards, reveals that nearly 90 per cent of girls aged 11-16 think using technology is cool and regularly talk to their friends about it. Just over a third (38 per cent) of them chat about the latest technology on a daily basis - anything from social networking to online gaming and mobile downloads. Despite this love of technology, only a quarter (28 per cent) of girls have considered a career in technology compared to more than half (52 per cent) of boys.
Over two thirds (73 per cent) of girls aged 11-16 believe that there is a gap between the playground and careers centre because the UK lacks smart female role models in the technology industry who they long to emulate. Over half (55 per cent) also think that there should be fewer celebrity role models and more inspirational business role models. This becomes more pertinent with age, with 71 per cent of 14-16 year old girls thinking this. Other key findings include:
- 43 per cent of young people didn't consider a career in technology because it was 'not exciting'.
- 30 per cent of young people deemed a career in technology as 'too geeky'.
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Internet job board popularity continues to grow |
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Date: 25/04/2008 |
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The following data compiled during March 2008* by comscore represent UK unique visitors (000) to the top 5 job boards:
Jobcentreplus - 2,704
Fish4jobs - 1,795
Totaljobs - 1,631
Monster - 1,418
Reed - 1,108
Total UK Internet audience - 33,761
Total visiting job related web-sites - 11,099
* Survey excludes users less than 15 years old and people using public computers
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reed.co.uk advertising campaign goes regional |
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Date: 25/04/2008 |
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reed.co.uk has launched its first regional advertising campaign as it continues to build awareness of the reed.co.uk brand.
Initially focusing on Greater Manchester, Bristol, Bath and Swindon, the latest burst of activity follows the hugely successful launch of reed.co.uk's 'Love Mondays' campaign in London earlier this year. The current burst features a variety of media, including radio, outdoor and press advertising and a repeat of activities across the capital.
reed.co.uk has the most responsive jobseeker audience in the UK, with an ABCE audited figure of over 1 million job seeker applications per month and more than 4.4 million job applications already in 2008. The current investment aims to boost awareness of the reed.co.uk brand and ensure reed.co.uk continues to deliver for all of its clients.
Also launched this month is a branded online campaign to complement existing digital marketing activity. 'Love Mondays' themed advertising, using a range of formats, is running across social networking and other premium websites. The 'Love Mondays' campaign is supported by reed.co.uk's continued investment in advertising across search engines, directories and portal sites.
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Talent Management to become key differentiator for companies competing in global marketplace |
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Date: 22/04/2008 |
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Finding, developing and keeping talent will be the new role of Human Resources (HR) management in the future. This "talent management" - the assessment and long-term planning of a company's workforce needs - rather than the traditional filling of vacancies, will become a key differentiator for companies competing in the global marketplace. "This new role of HR management comes as a consequence of three trends converging: globalization, demographic change and skills shortages", says Donna Murphy, Managing Director of the Adecco Institute, referring to the result of a study based on interviews with 5,000 HR professionals.
Globalization in developed countries increases the demand for skilled and highly qualified labour, while the demand for unskilled work shrinks. This increased demand for a qualified workforce is compounded by demographic effects: older workers already comprise the fastest growing workforce segment in most developed countries. Older, more qualified workers are retiring and fewer young people are replacing them. Due to years of falling birth-rates, the majority of people in Europe in the next ten years will, for the first time ever, be older than 40. In the United States the number of workers in the 55-and-older group is projected to grow by 47 percent in the next eight years - approximately 5.5 times the 8.5 percent growth of the labour force overall.
These developments lead to an increasing shortage of skilled workers. While global demand is growing, the supply is shrinking. As a consequence, companies are facing more and more competition for the best talent.
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Private equity firms playing a 'bigger role in recruitment' as economy turns |
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Date: 22/04/2008 |
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Private equity firms are taking an increasing role in the recruitment process of the companies they back, say executive recruitment experts.
Adrian Hitchenor, CEO of Hitchenor Wakeford, said:
"There has been a dramatic increase in the number of private equity firms getting involved in the recruitment process. Private equity firms that have backed companies in the region are increasingly reviewing the management teams they have backed. In many cases they are adding additional management to their companies or in some cases replacing people or changing roles and responsibilities within the existing management team.
With such large sums of money at stake it makes commercial sense for them to take a proactive position during the recruitment process as it is these appointments that will generate their return on investment.
There is a real need for private equity firms to ensure the company they are investing in employ a strong management team. Track record is increasingly important and executive teams who have performed successful exits are in high demand and can command significant packages.
It's the quality of the executives and non-executives that improve the probability of generating a good return on the initial investment made and reduce the risk of business failure. In a market environment that is more competitive private equity firms require stronger people to run the companies."
Already this year, the company has placed people in businesses backed by leading private equity players. Hitchenor Wakeford also boasts a client list including ASDA, Manchester United, United Utilities, UMBRO, Jet2.com, RBS and KPMG.
Outside of the Square Mile, Manchester and Leeds have the largest private equity communities in the UK. Top players Montagu, 3i, ECI, LDC, Altium, Zeus Capital, Barclays Private Equity, Aberdeen Murray Johnstone, ISIS, Gresham, Endless LLP and Phoenix are all located in the cities.
According to the BVCA (British Venture Capital Association) The UK private equity industry has invested over £80 billion (over £60 billion in the UK) in around 29,500 companies since 1983. £21.9 billion was invested in 2006, in over 1,600 companies, of which over £10.2 billion was invested in over 1,300 companies in the UK.
It is estimated that firms backed by private equity employ around 1.1 million people (8% of the private sector workforce).
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Writing for the Web |
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Date: 08/04/2008 |
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In what ways does 'writing for the web' differ from writing brochure / promotional copy?
People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites it was found that 79 percent of test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. A good rule of thumb is web text should be half the word count (or less) than conventional writing.
Be seen
Highlight your keywords - get your point across fast. Hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting, typeface variations and colour are others.
Write only one idea per paragraph
Web pages need to be concise and to-the-point. People don't read web pages, they scan them, so having short, meaty paragraphs is better than long rambling ones.
Put conclusions at the beginning
Think of an inverted pyramid when you write. Get to the point in the first paragraph, then expand upon it.
Use action words
Tell your readers what to do. Avoid writing in a passive voice. Keep the flow of your pages moving.
Format
Use lists instead of paragraphs. Lists are easier to scan than paragraphs, especially if you keep them short.
Limit list items to 7 words
Studies have shown that people can only reliably remember 7-10 things at a time. By keeping your list items short, it helps your readers remember them. Bullet points are a great way to emphasize lists.
Write short sentences
Sentences should be as concise as you can make them. Use only the words you need to get the essential information across.
Include internal sub-headings
Sub-headings make the text more scannable. Your readers will move to the section of the document that is most useful for them, and internal cues make it easier for them to do this.
Make your links part of the copy
Links are another way Web readers scan pages. They stand out from normal text, and provide more cues as to what the page is about.
Always proofread your work!
Typos and spelling errors will send people away from your pages. Make sure you proofread everything you post to the Web. Most website packages will not contain a spell-checker and spelling errors will be an instant turn-off to visitors.
Nikki Perry
Creative Media Manager - REC
http://www.rec.uk.com
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UK businesses fail to take age discrimination seriously |
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Date: 03/04/2008 |
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Despite being illegal, age discrimination remains rife in the UK workplace according to the latest findings from the Recruitment Confidence Index (RCI), produced by Cranfield School of Management. Respondents which included HR professionals and senior managers admitted to still having stereotypical views of older and younger workers. Older workers were seen as having wide experience, being loyal, having better time keeping and being interested in having a work-life balance. Younger workers were seen as open to new ideas and ambitious but inexperienced and not likely to stay in the job long.
The latest research found that a quarter of respondents were aware of a current policy or practice within their organisation that could be perceived as discriminating on the basis of age.
The support of the Board or CEO was seen as the most important factor in eliminating age discrimination at work, followed by the awareness of issues, policies and lastly, education or training. Generally all of these four factors were seen as important or very important by the majority of respondents. A fifth of respondents believed that their Board or senior management remained uncommitted to eliminating age discrimination at work.
In most organisations the elimination of age discrimination was sponsored by the HR department (61%), followed by the Board or CEO (27%). Only a fifth of responding organisations had a project or task group on age.
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