What's New

In a move that recognises rising living costs and the competitive recruitment market, one of the UK’s largest professional services firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), is to make what it describes as its most significant increases to staff pay for a decade.

KPMG and the University of Cambridge have unveiled a new partnership which, they said, would reimagine the world of work by examining the big issues affecting the modern workforce and offering practical, research-backed solutions to employers.

The use of codes of conduct is causing problems for the Prime Minister and his Government at the moment, but the Institute of Directors (IoD) is in no doubt that they are a good idea and has put forward a proposal that a voluntary code for directors should be prepared.

It is just over four years since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force and every business and organisation in the UK was rushing to get their procedures in place to ensure compliance.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has said that a change in the law will enable businesses to supply skilled agency workers to plug staffing gaps during industrial action.

Cost of living increases are leading most news bulletins with the emphasis on fuel, food and energy. Now the TUC has put the spotlight on another rising cost — childcare — with the warning that many parents with pre-school children are caught in a “catch 22”.

We reported in October 2021 on a Government inquiry into the menopause and the workplace, which had been launched in advance of World Menopause Day 2021 (see Supportive workplaces needed to help menopausal women).

There are no doubt some politicians who will be unhappy at the news, but a new survey by Acas has shown that 60% of employers have seen an increase in hybrid working for staff compared to before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reacting to the latest labour market statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said that record job vacancies and buoyant employment figures were defying the economy’s slowing growth.

One in three workers say that surveillance by their employers is having a negative impact on their mental health, according to a GMB poll.