Rojgar Job News

Mental health is clearly an important concern for all employers who wish to promote the wellbeing of their employees. UK employers are now facing costs of up to £45 billion per year because of their employees’ poor mental health, making this an important area for investment. This figure was revealed in the “Mental health and employers: Refreshing the case for investment” report published earlier this year by Deloitte and mental health charity Mind. The price paid by employers resulting from inadequate mental health support has been increasing over the past few years. For employees aged 18 – 29 years old, employers lose the equivalent of 8.3% of their salaries through the costs associated with their poor mental health. There are also other indirect effects which the Report identifies, such as the adverse impact on creativity, innovation and other employees. What causes these costs? Deloitte and Mind have identified two main contributing factors: not even the...

You can’t escape the panic spreading through mass and social media regarding the 2020 Wuhan Novel Coronavirus, a virus that has resulted in fatalities in China and infected thousands worldwide. Symptoms mimic that of influenza (fever, cough), but can include difficulty breathing, pneumonia, kidney failure, and death in severe cases. Despite the panic, there are only a handful of confirmed cases in the U.S., but this has done little to quell paranoia. With fear of the bug’s spread, many employers are bracing themselves the possibility of employee absences, either due to illness or fear of contagion in congested workplaces. Employers and human resources professionals can immunize themselves against some risk by implementing steps in advance. Familiarize yourself with state and local paid sick leave laws. Many U.S. states and municipalities now require that employers provide paid time off to employees to address their own illnesses or that of their family members. If you have...

Hot on the heels of my piece about the inevitable build-up of holiday entitlements thwarted by the Coronavirus comes the announcement by the Government that the Working Time Regulations are to be amended to allow the carry‑forward of up to four weeks holiday from 2020 to be taken over the following two years. The Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 are a gallant attempt to defuse the tension between strict Government instructions to stay home and shut everything on the one hand, and the WTR prohibition on carrying forward much of your minimum holiday on the other. It seeks to mitigate the pressure to cram all one’s accrued leave into the last months of 2020 to the immediate and obvious cost of an economy then hopefully on the path back to a semblance of good health. The intended regulations do certainly mean that employers can now take a slightly firmer view on rejecting holiday requests over that period, because the employee is no longer in the same dang...

New Coronavirus measures seem to arrive every day, but some old-fashioned issues still rock along underneath them, including just what happens when travel restrictions and the closure of everything fun put an immediate brake on your employees’ holiday plans. The obvious answer is that they defer the break until the world restarts, but by that time a substantial number of your staff will have the thick end of a full year’s holidays to take in what might be only three or four months, so your available staff numbers go off the proverbial just at the time when you are most likely to need them all back on deck to meet the pent-up demand for your services or products shelved during lockdown. Options for employers Use your contractual right to refuse holidays at times which are inconvenient to the business – this is legally OK but will simply defer the problem into the following year or (if that contravenes your own rules about holiday carry-over and you are not prepared to r...

What a difference a week makes. By now, businesses, offices and families all across the United Kingdom are coming to terms with the recommendation that (where possible) people self-isolate as the UK Government seeks to “spread the peak” of the Coronavirus pandemic. Ignoring the seismic impact this has had upon businesses and industries, there is a fundamental, human impact to this. This can be seen most easily in the form of deserted streets, train carriages, pubs, restaurants, shops and the like. But what about the people who are self-isolating? I am one of the lucky ones – I work from home once a week and have an office at home which is set up to mirror as closely as possible my office at work (with some added children). However, others are unable to work from home or, if they do work from home, have to do so using a laptop, sharing space with flatmates or partners and without the same calm working atmosphere they would otherwise have in a professional office. There ...