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05 Feb 2021
by Annie Makoff

At a glance: reward and benefits headlines this week 29 January - 4 February 2021

Your quick-read round up of the reward and benefits stories appearing in the press in the past seven days.

 

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The headlines you might have missed between 29 January - 4 February 2021.

HR must do more to help progression of BAME talent, report warns
HR Review: New research finds that businesses are failing to collectively address and act upon racial disparity in the workplace, leading to calls of utilising HR data to take action.  A new report released by the Black British Business Awards in partnership with J.P Morgan has shown that ethnic minority professionals face many challenges to advance from middle management to senior management. Read Story.

Menstruation: nine in 10 experience stress and anxiety while working
Personnel Today: Nine in 10 (89%) employees who menstruate have experienced anxiety or stress while working while on their period. According to research by menstrual wellbeing charity Bloody Good Period, 27% of workers who menstruate have never feel supported by their employers, with 4% stating they do not even have free access to toilets and breaks. Read Story.

New Analysis by KangoGift Shows Substantial Increase in Employee Recognition During 2020
Incentive & Motivation:  KangoGift, the leading employee engagement and recognition solutions provider, released today an analysis of its proprietary data which demonstrated a substantial increase in recognition and rewards within organizations for accomplishments and achievements. Read Story.

People crave a return to “normality”, and some even miss commuting
Workplace Insight: While workers in the UK have been working from home, if they can, for almost a year, a third say they miss commuting, claims research from recruiter Randstad UK. The HR services company asked workers, having worked remotely for almost a year due to the pandemic, how they viewed commuting and physical meetings in retrospect. Read Story.

One in eight workers furloughed in December
Personnel Today: Around 13% of UK workers were furloughed, whether fully or partly, at the end of December according to figures released by HM Revenue and Customs. Throughout the last month of 2020, as the four governments of the UK increased restrictions before entering the current lockdown, an average of 3.85 million employments were furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). Read Story.

Covid: Data shows outbreaks in England's offices in lockdown
BBC: More than 60 suspected Covid outbreaks in offices were recorded in the first two weeks of the current lockdown in England, a BBC investigation has found. Under England's lockdown rules, in force since 6 January, people should work from home if they can. Public Health England figures, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, suggests offices have had more outbreaks compared to other workplaces. Read Story.

Increase in number of people accessing secondary NHS mental health services
Healthcare & Protection: There has been a comparatively small but significant increase in the number of people coming into contact with “secondary” mental health services in England, official figures show. Read Story.

Millions ‘putting long-term eyesight at risk’ due to poor home working practices
Healthcare & Protection: Millions of people across the country could be at risk of doing long-term damage to their eyesight due to the effects of working from home through the winter. Eye care specialists say that as natural light fades in the daytime, adults will be putting excess strain on their eyes. Read Story.

Half of reports to health and safety regulator raise workplace social distancing concerns, analysis reveals
Almost half of Covid whistleblower reports to the UK’s independent health and safety regulator have related to the failures of employers to implement social distancing rules, analysis of official figures has found. Analysis by law firm GQ Littler revealed that of the 5,585 reports about coronavirus risks received by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) since March 2020, 48 per cent raised concerns about social distancing at work. Read Story.

Big increase in demand for employee benefits
Corporate Adviser: There has been a significant increase in employee demand for all insurance benefits in the wake of the Covid crisis, according to new research. Drewberry’s 2021 Employee Benefits Survey — which polled over 2,000 SME workers — found a 14 per cent increase in demand for life insurance cover, a 17 per cent increase for income protection and a 39 per cent increase for critical illness cover when compared to last year’s survey. Read Story.

Eight in 10 say employers have supported them well during pandemic
Occupational Health & Wellbeing: Eight in 10 workers (81%) say their employer has done a good job of supporting them over the past year, but many have reported a decline in their job satisfaction and work-life balance. Read Story.

Almost half of employees have no access to flexible working, CIPD study finds
People Management: Nearly half (46 per cent) of employees say they do not have flexible working arrangements, such as flexi-time, part-time working, compressed hours or job shares in their current role, according to new research. Read Story.

Gender pay gap submissions down 50% on last year
Employee Benefits: With just 56 days to go before qualifying organisations need to submit their gender pay gap reporting, new figures have revealed that submissions are barely 50% what they were this time last year – and some are blaming confusing government advice as the reason.  Read Story.

COVID has Increased Burnout by up to 81 Per Cent
HR News: Worldwide research into how COVID is impacting workers found that during the first lockdown, COVID increased rates of burnout by 15 per cent globally, increasing to an incredible 81 per cent in ‘non-thriving’ company cultures. These are the findings from O.C. Tanner’s 2021 Global Culture Report which surveyed 40,000 employees and leaders across the world including over 1,600 from the UK. Read Story.

IOSH: Don’t ignore work cancer risks during pandemic
Occupational Health & Wellbeing: Employers should not lose sight of the risks posed by carcinogens at work while they focus on minimising Covid-19 risks, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has urged. Read Story.

Frontline workers’ wellbeing should be ‘national priority’
Occupational Health & Wellbeing: Leading mental health organisations have said the mental and physical health of frontline staff should be a national priority going forward, and have stressed that the efforts many employers have given to supporting wellbeing has not been a ‘universal experience’. Read Story.

Coronavirus pandemic makes leaders open to change
HR Magazine: Business leaders are more adaptable and open to further skills development than they used to be due to the coronavirus pandemic and its unpredictability, according to MD of marketing and digital at Direct Line Mark Evans. Read Story.

‘Businesses need awareness of remote working dangers’
Personnel Today: The lockdown could significantly hinder the career prospects of certain groups of employees working remotely even if they have stable work in sectors not economically stricken by the pandemic. According to business consultancy Gartner, which continually researches the issue, at least three broadly drawn groups of workers are experiencing “unfair” career consequences whatever their productivity when working from home. Read Story.

Staff mental health identified as key challenge in 2021
Workplace Insight: As a new year comes into view, many SMEs in the UK are concerned about the mental health of their staff as much as their ability to drive revenue, new research claims. The new survey conducted by Hiscox, asked 1,000 SME business decision-makers from across the UK about their experiences during 2020 and their subsequent outlook into 2021. Read Story.

Most DC pension schemes neglecting climate change, TPR warns
The Actuary: The majority of defined contribution (DC) pension schemes in the UK are not paying proper attention to the risks and opportunities of climate change, the Pensions Regulator (TPR) has warned today. The regulator's annual survey of DC schemes found that, although the proportion of trustees considering climate change in their investment strategies has doubled since 2019, it still stands at just 43%. Read Story.

Millions worried about medical treatment access
Cover magazine: As many as 6.8 million adults (13%) are worried that they won't be able to get medical treatment they need during lockdown, with people aged over 55 particularly concerned, the LV= Wealth and Wellbeing Monitor has revealed. Read Story.

Stress-related leave for HR rose by 70 per cent in 2020
HR Review: New research highlights the various professions which are struggling with stress at work. Most notably, HR professionals were impacted by rising stress levels, with stress-related leave rising by 70 per cent last year amongst this group. e-days, a global absence management software, tracked different professions and their rate of stress-related absence over the last year. Read Story.

Only one in six workers know how their skills could be transferred to others jobs
HR Review: A new report finds that a third of UK workers would be interested in changing careers but the majority of the workforce do not know how their skillsets could be utilised in other professions.  Read Story.

People with mental health issues worried about returning to office post-lockdown
The Independent: New data shows people living with mental health problems are more likely to be concerned about returning to the office once coronavirus restrictions ease.  The survey of over 2,000 workers showed that more than four in 10 (43 per cent) people with mental health problems said they are worried about returning to their normal working arrangements after lockdown, compared with less than one in three of the wider workforce, according to the Mental Health and Income Commission. Read Story.

Older executives are coping with WFH challenges better than younger leaders
Workplace Insight: Senior executives aged 55+ have fared better than ‘millennial’ leaders (aged under 35) during the global pandemic. ABBYY’s COVID-19 Technology and Business Process Report claims that since the pandemic, executives of all ages have experienced huge challenges – in the UK alone, 81 percent of senior decision-makers struggled, particularly with collaborating with colleagues remotely (37 percent), motivation to work (29 percent) and productivity (26 percent). Read Story.

Number of black FTSE 100 leaders drops to zero due to "vanilla boys' club" of senior leaders
HR Magazine: The number of black people at the top of Britain's biggest companies has fallen to zero, as new research has found that there are fewer black people at the top of FTSE 100 firms than ever before. Read Story.

EXCLUSIVE: Employer relationships weakened by Covid-19
Employee Benefits: Covid-19 (Coronavirus) has permanently changed employer-employee relationships, including employee attitudes to benefits, according to research by MetLife exclusively shared with Employee Benefits. Read Story.

C-Suite suffers most from mental health issues
Employee Benefits: Global research looking into mental health and resilience has found it is the C-suite that is suffering the most – although all employees say they want their company to do more to support them. Data compiled by Oracle and Workplace Intelligence revealed 53% of executives are struggling with mental health issues, compared to 45% in the wider workforce. Read Story.

Acas: mental health ‘enlightenment’ a pandemic silver lining
Personnel Today: To coincide with Time to Talk Day, Acas has published a policy paper showcasing how three organisations are building employee resilience and responding proactively to wellbeing challenges. Adrian Wakeling looks at some of the key take aways. Read Story.

Line managers are the unsung heroes of white-collar work
HR News: How good your line manager is makes the difference between an employee coping or struggling in lockdown. But too often line managers’ heroic efforts are not noticed by their employers. These are just two findings from a major new report, titled Working under Covid-19 Lockdown: Transitions and Tensions, published this week. Read Story.