At a glance: reward and benefits headlines this week 5-11 October 2018

The headlines you might have missed between 5-11 October.

Malcolm McLean: Why this could be the year of the pension tax relief raid
Money Marketing: Rumours suggest the Budget will see Philip Hammond finally get his hands on the billions tied up in it. Read story

43% offer flexible working to support male employees with caring responsibilities
Employee Benefits: More than two-fifths (43%) of respondents offer male employees flexible working opportunities in order to support them with caring responsibilities. Read story

Behavioural science around power is key to preventing sexual harassment
Employee Benefits: Understanding behavioural science around power and authority is key to preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. Read story

Building an inclusive culture must start from the top
Employee Benefits: Building a diverse and inclusive culture requires full understanding and buy-in from the organisation’s leadership. Read story

Employers need to improve employee experience around digital transformation
Employee Benefits: Employers need to improve the employee experience around the constantly evolving digital transformation, to help mitigate career disruption for employees and avoid potential skills shortages. Read story

Mundipharma offers choice and convenience with new flexible benefits strategy
Employee Benefits: Pharmaceutical organisation Mundipharma’s overhauled flexible benefits package offers wider choice to employees. Read story

Rolls-Royce’s Roomes says focus on performance to make business case for wellbeing
Employee Benefits: To make the business case for wellbeing to the board of an organisation, HR leaders should focus on performance. Read story

Stephens Scown charts successful employee engagement journey
Employee Benefits: Law firm Stephens Scown has implemented an employee engagement strategy that has seen it ranked for the last four years in the Sunday Times Best 100 companies to work for. Read story

eBay’s Hooper-Campbell says employers must break convention to celebrate diversity
Employee Benefits: Employers must stop looking for a quick solution, and instead work on breaking conventions to truly celebrate and promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Read story

Govt urged to take action on net pay anomaly as experts sign letter to chancellor
Professional Pensions: Industry heavyweights have urged chancellor Philip Hammond to take action on the net pay pensions tax relief anomaly which affects lower-paid earners. Read story

Green Party calls for a 'Free Time Index' to measure wellbeing
HR Magazine: GDP should be replaced as a measure of national wellbeing by an index showing how much free time people have to enjoy, according to the party. Read story

Nearly half of zero-hours workers want regular shifts
Personnel Today: Almost half of people on zero-hours contracts want to work more hours and in a more regular shift pattern, but almost the same proportion are satisfied with the hours they work. Read story

Police Federation takes legal action over ‘derisory’ pay offer
Personnel Today: The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) is set to launch legal action over what it has called the government’s latest “derisory” pay offer. Read story

Nortel scheme secures PPF-plus benefits in £2.4bn buyout with L&G
Professional Pensions: The beleaguered Nortel Networks UK Pension Plan has entered into a £2.4bn buyout with Legal & General (L&G), insuring members' benefits nearly a decade after its sponsor collapsed. Read story

Two-fifths of employers provide financial education because it is a valued employee benefit
Employee Benefits: Two-fifths (40%) of employer respondents provide financial education to their workforce because it is viewed as a valued employee benefit, according to research by financial planning and investment organisation Close Brothers Asset Management. Read story

Cisco adopts wide family-centric organisational culture to support staff wellbeing
Employee Benefits: Multinational technology organisation Cisco has embraced and promoted a family-centric organisational culture, and corresponding customisable benefits, in order to support the wellbeing of its 73,400 global employees and enable them to better manage the integration between their personal and professional lives. Read story

Heineken South Africa, Microsoft and Nestle recognised as 2019’s top employers in South Africa
Employee Benefits: Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages, Heineken South Africa, Microsoft, Nestle and Unilever South Africa are among the organisations recognised on the Top Employers 2019 for South Africa list, compiled by independent HR certification organisation the Top Employers Institute. Read story

Employers should rethink DC pension scheme design
HR Magazine: Employers should re-evaluate their approach to default design for DC pension schemes, to ensure that they are helping members retire comfortably, according to BlackRock. Read story

UK pensions well-placed to weather Brexit storms
Corporate Adviser: Brexit poses a bigger risk to European pension funds than UK-based schemes. Read story

ESG “essential” for default pensions say corporate advisers
Corporate Adviser: Almost six out of 10 advisers now believe that it is essential for default funds in workplace pensions to have an ESG tilt. Read story

Civil partner LGPS survivor benefits set to match widows
Pensions Expert: Survivors of same-sex civil partnerships and same-sex marriage will receive the same survivor benefits as those provided to widows under new proposals for the Local Government Pension Scheme. Read story 

John Lawson: Don’t let Brexit noise derail auto-enrolment
Money Marketing: More needs to be done to communicate the outcome of having minimum contributions rise twice in one year. Read story

More than half of workplaces do not encourage employees to exercise
Employee Benefits: Three in five (57%) workplaces do not offer benefits or programmes to encourage employees to exercise, according to Opinium research. Read story

Two-thirds of managers put organisation above staff wellbeing
Employee Benefits: Although 61% of employees have experienced a mental health issue due to work, or in which work was a contributing factor, 64% of managers put their organisation’s interests above staff wellbeing at some point, and 12% do so every day, according to a workplace mental health report by Business in the Community (BITC). Read story

Uber drivers set for 24-hour strike over workers’ rights
Employee Benefits: Uber drivers in London, Birmingham and Nottingham are to stage a 24-hour strike over worker’s rights from 1pm today and will hold protests outside the organisation’s offices in each of the three cities. Read story

SPPA asks Scottish government for £18.4m after Capita IT project cancelled
Professional Pensions: The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) has requested £18.4m from the Scottish government over the next five years in order to deliver a replacement IT project after a Capita project was cancelled. Read story

Union urges Uber users not to cross ‘digital picket line’
Personnel Today: The IWGB union has a called a 24-hour strike against Uber and is urging the public not use the taxi-hailing app from 1:00pm today. Read story

Morrisons payroll data breach reaches Court of Appeal
Personnel Today: The class action case against Morrisons by staff who had their payroll data leaked online by a disgruntled employee has reached the Court of Appeal today. Read story

Companies must ‘lead from top’ to improve mental health in workplace
Corporate Adviser: Insurers and advisers look at what needs to be done to drive up standards ahead of World Mental Health Day (October 10). Read story

FIRED! Women struggle to recoup previous levels of pay after the sack
HR Grapevine: Women have a harder time than men returning to previous levels of pay if they have been fired. Read story

Financial worries causing stress and fatigue among UK workers
Health Insurance Daily: Seven in 10 managers say there are barriers to supporting staff wellbeing. Read story

55% do not measure sickness absence cost
Employee Benefits: More than half (55%) of respondents either do not know or do not record the percentage of payroll represented by sickness absence cost per annum, according to research by Employee Benefits and Health Shield. Read story

Industrial Tribunal awards £3,000 to man told he was too ‘too old’ to apply for job
Employee Benefits: An Industrial Tribunal has awarded £3,000 to a 63-year-old man from Antrim who was told he was too old to apply for a job as a store person and van driver by Spring and Airbrake Ireland. Read story

ACCA launches mental health resilience workshops for wellbeing champions
Employee Benefits: Global professional accountancy body ACCA has launched pilot mental health resilience workshops for selected staff in London and Glasgow. Read story

Court of Appeal hearing set for Asda shop-floor workers’ pay claim rulings
Employee Benefits: A Court of Appeal hearing will begin on 10 October over Employment Tribunal (ET) and Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) pay claim rulings that Asda shop-floor workers have comparable roles to their colleagues in the supermarket’s distribution centres. Read story

Sky launches Frazzled Cafe meetings for 7,500 UK employees
Employee Benefits: Television and broadband organisation Sky has launched a programme of meetings through which employees can share stories and discuss issues affecting their mental wellbeing in partnership with the charity Frazzled Cafe. Read story

HMRC 'looking at opportunities' to address net-pay tax anomaly
Professional Pensions: The government is set to review an anomaly which sees lower-paid workers in the majority of master trusts lose out on tax relief, it has confirmed. Read story

One in eight FTSE 100 DB schemes 'still in worry zone’
Professional Pensions: The aggregate risk across defined benefit (DB) schemes in the FTSE 100 has fallen by almost a quarter since 2017 but 12.5% are still at risk of failure, research suggests. Read story

Average auto-enrolment fund worth £3,353
Corporate Adviser: Six years after auto-enrolment started, the average employee now has a pension pot worth £3,353. Read story

Six in 10 women consider gender pay gap when job hunting
Personnel Today: Nearly two-thirds (61%) of women would take an organisation’s gender pay gap into consideration when looking for a new job, suggesting that those with larger pay gaps could be missing out on talent. Read story

Mental health presenteeism on the rise
Personnel Today: People are more likely to turn up to work despite a mental health problem according to an annual survey of employees’ attitudes to sickness absence. Read story

Ignoring calls for flexible working could be costing the economy £12 BILLION
HR Grapevine: The UK could be risking £12 billion a year in economic output if employers do not fully embrace flexibility within five years, a new study has revealed. Read story

Thin red lines: FCA fires final shots on DB pension transfers
Money Marketing: Regulator takes aim at suitability reports and qualifications but avoids ban on contingent charging in shake-up of transfer rules. Read story

A fifth of employees attended work while suffering mental health issues last year
Employee Benefits: More than a fifth (22%) of employees went into work when feeling mentally unwell last year, according to research by Canada Life Group Insurance. Read story

Aramark launches campaign encouraging staff to take 15-minute stress-free breaks
Employee Benefits: Food services organisation Aramark Northern Europe has launched a month-long mental wellbeing campaign encouraging employers and employees to take 15-minute breaks during their working day. Read story

JLT Group launches holistic wellbeing programme for UK employees
Employee Benefits: Benefits provider JLT Group has launched a wellness programme focusing on the mental, physical and financial wellbeing of its 3,900 employees in the UK. Read story

Government launches race at work charter to tackle ethnic workplace disparities
Employee Benefits: The government has announced a ‘race at work charter’ containing a series of measures to tackle ethnic disparities in the workplace. Read story

TPR fines Salvus Master Trust trustees for failing to invest £1.4m of savings promptly
Professional Pensions: Four trustees of the Salvus Master Trust have been fined by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) for failing to promptly invest £1.4m of member contributions. Read story

80pc increase in firms looking to change pension provider
Corporate Adviser: There has been an significant increase in the number of businesses looking to switch their workplace pension provider over the past year, according to new figures. Read story

Ethnicity pay gap reporting could become mandatory
Personnel Today: Employers may be required to publish their ethnicity pay gap under plans to improve career progression for ethnic minority groups. Read story

Harnessing social care funding reform to enhance employee benefits
HR Magazine: Adult social care vouchers would empower working-age people to save for their future care needs. Read story

60% of leaders feel they can't open up about mental health concerns
HR Grapevine: More than six in 10 senior business leaders have suffered from mental health conditions, yet feel it is harder to speak about their issues because of their position. Read story

“Start small but think big” to achieve recognition success, say Sainsbury’s & Xexec
Incentive and Motivation: The little things can make a big difference and at a macro level, employee recognition initiatives that increase engagement could make a huge difference to operational performance, suggested Meir Adler, Head of Organisational Effectiveness at Sainsbury’s at a recent Xexec event. Read story