http://www.equality-ne.co.uk Equality North East is a comprehensive website offering fact sheets, a search facility, news items, best practice information relating to race, gender, disability and work-life balance. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:00:00 GMT http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10629 The majority of employers are in favour of introducing employment tribunal fees – nearly 80 per cent said that they thought it would reduce litigation. The findings from Eversheds also highlight that there is support for elevated charges for those who wish to pursue a claim above the GBP30,000 award cap. More than 60 per cent agreed that this measure would deter high-value cases. Geoffrey Mead, Partner at Eversheds, believes that the Coalition should be concerned about this finding as it may put off legitimate discrimination, whistle-blowing or equal pay claims. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10628 The number of women on UK boardrooms has reached an all-time high, suggesting a marked turnaround in attitudes to gender diversity at senior level. Figures from the Professional Boards Forum reveals that last year there were 98 female appointments to the FTSE 250, the largest number than in any other year. This now means that women represent 14.9 per cent of FTSE 100 directors, which is also a record. In 2010, women represented 12.5 per cent of FTSE 100 boards and this was only a rise from 12.2 per cent the year before. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10627 Staff at Harrow Council are to be asked their views on new terms and conditions to help reduce costs at the north west London authority. The authority has to find GBP62 million of savings over four years. To deliver savings without the blanket pay cuts or additional redundancies seen at other local authorities across the country, more modern, flexible working practices are being proposed in Harrow. On Thursday (19 January) the Council’s Cabinet approved the consultation after failing to reach collective agreement with the trade unions. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10626 Most of us were probably told as children that ‘Hard work never killed anyone’. Despite the saying, though, it is widely agreed – by academics, trade unions, EU legislators, health and safety experts and others – that it is desirable to limit the number of hours a week that people work. Japanese even has a word for ‘death from overwork’: karoshi. ‘Karoshi’ is a rare thing, but we all know that a long-hours culture leads to stress and disaffection. Nevertheless, workers feel pressure not to exit the office earlier than their peers. A recent survey by Regus found that almost half the workers in the UK work well over eight hours a day, and over a third put in nine to 11 hours. More than 40% take work home at least three evenings a week. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10625 UK middle managers are feeling the squeeze as a result of the economic downturn, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) quarterly Employee Outlook survey of 2,000 employees. Almost half (49%) of middle managers say they are under excessive pressure either everyday or once or twice a week, compared to a survey average of 37%. They are particularly unhappy with their work-life balance; just 44% agree they are satisfied with their work-life balance, compared to 70% among employees with no managerial responsibilities. In addition, middle managers worry most about their job security. One in three (29%) think it is likely they could lose their job as a result of the economic downturn, compared to 21% of employees with no managerial responsibility and 15% of senior managers. Perhaps not surprisingly given these findings, middle managers are the category of employees that are most likely to be looking for a new job with a different employer, with 29% looking to move organisations compared to a survey average of 21%. Ben Willmott, Head of Public Policy at the CIPD, said "Middle managers are often caught in the middle between delivering strategic objectives and managing under-pressure line managers. They can also be first in line when organisations look to reduce head count. While middle management will undoubtedly bear its share of job losses in organisations needing to reduce head count, it is also important to remember the crucial role these managers play in managing change, translating the objectives of senior managers into actions, and motivating others. "The CIPD’s Shaping the Future research project into sustainable organisation performance found that suitably skilled middle managers can play a key role in managing change and organisation transformation. As translators, they can facilitate two-way communications between leaders and the front line and, as transformers, they can bring change to life. Much of this can be lost if change simply involves "delayering" this middle-management tier, rather than refocusing, retraining and drawing on their skills and experiences. "It is also important that employers don’t ignore the health and wellbeing of their middle managers. With a fifth of middle managers saying they are under excessive pressure everyday they are particularly at risk of suffering from work-related stress and burnout." http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10624 An article in the Daily Mirror on Tuesday has raised the issue over the role of temporary staff in the NHS and within Government Departments. REC Healthcare has responded by highlighting the positive contribution that temporary and locum workers make and by underlining the benefits of flexible staffing arrangements. In the article, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham attacks the Department for Health for spending GBP3million on agency staff over the last three months. Although this is primarily focused on administration and civil servant roles, the REC has used this to re-emphasise the positive contribution that temporary workers make in both back-office and front-line roles. Full story..... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10623 The Commission used the first two age discrimination cases heard by the UK’s Supreme Court on the 17 January 2012 to argue that an exception to the law banning age discrimination in employment is in urgent need of clarification. Both cases seek clarity from the UK’s highest court on the interpretation of the rule that allows employers to justify age discrimination if they can prove it is a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’. Default retirement age was scrapped in April 2011, however, an employer can still force an employee to retire using if it can show that the policy is justifiable as a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’. For this reason, the Supreme Court’s clarification of the test has wide implications for all retirement situations. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10622 New research study shows the root causes and impact of stress as well as how leaders and HR teams can target the right stress-reducing initiatives at the right people - Workplace stress is at a four-year high, according to a new report which reveals that 35 percent of UK employees are now experiencing an unreasonable level of stress at work. A four-year study of 60,000 workers in six countries by the Kenexa High Performance Institute – a division of Kenexa (NYSE: KNXA), a global provider of business solutions for human resources – shows that the UK’s stress level has risen by 10 percentage points since 2008, making it the highest out of the countries surveyed: the UK, the United States, Germany, China, Brazil and India. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10621 Workplace stress is increasingly leading to cases of exhaustion as a result of conditions such as insomnia, according to health consultancy Health@Work. They say an increasingly large proportion of people contacting them for advice are reporting sleep troubles – an effect of workplace stress that is affecting at least one fifth of callers in Merseyside struggling with their jobs Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10620 Only 26 per cent of participants will get back to work, NAO predicts The government has vastly over-estimated the numbers of unemployed people who can be helped back to work through the Work Programme, according to a National Audit Office report. The spending watchdog said today that the flagship welfare-to-work programme is likely to help 26 per cent of jobseekers aged over 25 back into work, compared to Department for Work and Pensions estimates of 40 per cent. The discrepancy means that many of the private sector providers delivering the programme could face "serious financial difficulty", warned the report. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10619 Staff at Harrow Council are to be asked their views on new terms and conditions to help reduce costs at the north west London authority. The authority has to find GBP62 million of savings over four years. To deliver savings without the blanket pay cuts or additional redundancies seen at other local authorities across the country, more modern, flexible working practices are being proposed in Harrow. On Thursday (19 January) the Council’s Cabinet approved the consultation after failing to reach collective agreement with the trade unions. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10618 The figures don’t lie. Last year there were a staggering 218,000 employment tribunal claims. And individual claims cost each business on average GBP4,000 to defend themselves. It cost the taxpayer GBP84 million to run employment tribunals last year. The whole process ties businesses, their managers and HR professionals within these organisations, up in red tape. And what can’t be accounted for is the hidden cost that a claim can involve for business - in particular SMEs - when the impact on other employees, productivity and stress is taken into account. And that is in addition to the disruption that dealing with a claim causes when every business is all hands to pump at the moment. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10617 As ministers talk tough on top pay as bank bonus season gets underway, the TUC is today (Monday) setting out five reasons why the government should introduce worker representation onto remuneration committees as a way of tackling the widening pay gap between top directors and the rest of the workforce. The TUC believes that employee reps would break the closed shop on remuneration committees and offer a healthy dose of economic reality when discussing pay and bonuses. The ratio of top executive pay to average employee pay has increased from 47:1 in 2000 to 102:1 in 2011. Unless action is taken pay inequality will get worse, says the TUC. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10616 The Government has confirmed that it is to postpone the extension of the right to unpaid parental leave until 2013 due to the ongoing development of its Modern Workplaces policy. Under the Parental Leave Directive, the parents of a child under the age of five will each have the right to take up to 18 weeks' unpaid parental leave, an extension of five weeks from the current provisions. The Directive from the European Council comes into force on 8 March 2012 but the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has told XpertHR that the Government intends to use a grace period that allows member states to delay implementation of the changes by one year "to take account of particular difficulties". Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/10615 According to Greenwoods Solicitors, when the qualifying period for unfair dismissal rises to two years in April 2012, this change will only affect employees who begin employment on or after 6 April 2012. It is planned that those already in employment on 6 April 2012 will retain the right to bring a claim for unfair dismissal with one year’s continuous service. In October 2011 Business Secretary, Vince Cable, and Chancellor, George Osborne, announced that the qualification period for the right to claim unfair dismissal will be extended from one to two years. The move, which Ministers said could save British businesses GBP6m a year, followed the ‘Resolving Workplace Disputes’ consultation published in January 2011, which also proposed measures to encourage early resolution of disputes, the speeding up of the Tribunal process and measures to tackle weak and vexatious claims. The Government claims these combined proposals should see the number of unfair dismissal claims drop by around 2,000 a year, but the proposed changes have dismayed many trade unions and employees, who see the change as unfairly biased in favour of the employer. Full story....