Industry news
Algorithms mistrusted A SURVEY conducted in the wake of the UK exams crisis by the British Computer Society (BCS), the chartered institute for IT, reveals that 53% of UK adults have no faith in any organisation to use algorithms when making judgements about them, in issues ranging from education to welfare decisions (https://bit.ly/2ZDlatF). Older people are less trusting about the general use of algorithms in public life, with 63% of over-55s saying they felt
negative about this, compared with 42% of 18–24-year-olds. Dr Bill Mitchell, director of policy at BCS, said that “more and more algorithms decide whether we’ll be offered a job interview, or by our employers to decide whether we’re working hard enough”, adding that “we need a professionalised data science industry…and a better understanding of AI and algorithms by the policymakers who give them sign-off.”
‘The API’ launched A RENTABLE version of the text generation tool GPT-3 has been launched by research company OpenAI which was founded in 2015 “to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity”. ‘The API’ is OpenAI’s general purpose text generation new service which businesses can directly access. The company wants to put the API to further commercial uses such as coding and data entry. Digital distractions ACCORDING TO the Modern worklife report (https://bit.ly/3jVKuCw) British workers are struggling to keep on top of distracting and confusing digital communication tools, causing them to miss important work emails or messages. The report by Sigma, a leading user experience agency, reveals that a quarter of all workers in medium–large businesses are losing around an hour a day of productivity due to difficult-to-use, inefficient or difficult-to-understand digital tools. The average worker in these businesses loses 28 minutes every day which for a full-time employee works out at 560 minutes (9.3 hours) per month (112 hours per year). Of those surveyed, 86% said that their organisation’s digital communication processes could be improved in some way in order to save time and make them more productive. Asked why they were most likely to miss important work emails or messages, 32% said they struggled to keep on top of the volume of emails received, with 16% blaming so many different systems and tools. A third said it’s quicker to have a face-to-face conversation; 30% said tools crash or don’t work properly; and 25% said training to use different tools was time-consuming. Hilary Stephenson, managing director at Sigma UK, observed that there is beginning to be “an impact on staff productivity and mental health”, adding that “the volume of digital messages coming from multiple channels, particularly during the pandemic, is now leading to frustrations for employees and employers alike”. WORKLIFE PARTNERS WITH SMART PENSION WORKLIFE, A new employee benefits service powered by online money manager, OpenMoney, has partnered with Smart Pension to add workplace pensions at a preferential rate to the suite of products on its digital platform. The WorkLife platform normally costs companies £2 per employee per month but is available free of charge for the rest of 2020 to help smaller businesses struggling in the wake of the pandemic. AE enforcement THE BRIEFING note – Enrol up! The case for strengthening auto-enrolment enforcement (https://bit.ly/33j8Tvr) – published by the Resolution Foundation considers the extent of non-compliance with auto-enrolment (AE), and whether there are hotspots that require closer scrutiny. Key findings are as follows. ● An estimated 3% of eligible employees are not enrolled in a pension scheme by their employers and have not opted-out. ● Part-time and temporary workers are more than twice as likely not to be in a workplace pension than their full-time and permanent counterparts, and more than one-tenth of agency workers have not been auto-enrolled. Likewise, non-enrolment is more prevalent in lower- paying sectors where other labour market violations are often found. ● It is estimated that in 2019 between 1.6% and 1.7% of workers who were enrolled in a workplace pension were not receiving the appropriate level of employer contributions. Again, contingent workers are disproportionately affected, while workers in the hospitality and administration sectors are among those most likely to receive less than the minimum contribution rate. ● Women, temporary workers, and those working in micro-businesses, are most likely to be ineligible for AE. Future plans to extend eligibility to younger and lower-paid workers will bring into scope more of those workers who are at the highest risk of being short-changed. Recommendations are as follows. ● The Pensions Regulator should shift to undertake more proactive enforcement of the AE rules. ● Ongoing enforcement activity should focus on the types of businesses and workers identified as most vulnerable to enforcement challenges: sectors such as agriculture and hospitality, contingent workers, and the smallest businesses, for example. ● Employers that are investigated for another form of labour market violation, e.g. minimum wage underpayment, should be prioritised for investigation for AE non-compliance. ● While it is right to continue to focus on supporting businesses to comply in the first instance, the time may have come for The Pensions Regulator to get tougher, quicker when anomalies are detected.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | October 2020 | Issue 64 34
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