Industry news
Blink THE SMART employee app, Blink, was launched in May by Super Smashing Ltd. The app, which has already been deployed since early 2019 in partnership with leading organisations including Stagecoach, Domino’s and the NHS, allows companies to push out information (such as wellbeing and compliance messages) to employees’ personal phones. Employees can also access rosters, complete digital forms for leave, absence and accidents, access digital payslips and give feedback in real-time to managers on issues and concerns impacting them. Sean Nolan, chief executive officer, Blink, comments: “We started Blink to make it easy to empower workers wherever they are; with information at their fingertips but also have a voice in improving day-to-day operations. We believe if you empower and equip those on the frontline, they are best positioned to make a difference. The organisations that will survive and thrive in the next decade will be those [that] put their frontline first.” Reopening workplaces A SURVEY conducted late May, by employment specialists XpertHR, found that: ● of those organisations currently using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, almost 43% hope to reduce the proportion of their workforce on furlough by bringing them back into the workplace over the next two months, and ● among the measures being taken to protect employees as workplaces reopen: 70.2% are limiting numbers of workplace visitors; 64% are staggering start and finish times and breaks; and 56.4% are ending hotdesking or equipment sharing. The range of problems anticipated by human resources (HR) professionals as they ask people to return from home-working or furlough arrangements, include: ● 72.4% expecting employees to be unable to return due to child/family care responsibilities ● 66.5% thinking employees will be reluctant to return to the workplace ● 46.9% saying there will be problems balancing annual leave requests with business needs, as many employees have built up a substantial backlog of holiday entitlement that would normally have been taken over Easter and the May bank holiday weekends. Mark Crail, XpertHR content director, comments: “HR has shone throughout this crisis and continues to do so. But even as workplaces tentatively reopen, their expertise will be crucial in reassuring workers that it is safe to come to work, and helping them to deal with other problems that arise – from a shortage of childcare to a possible slump in morale as redundancies inevitably take effect.”
Changes to benefits programmes ACCORDING TO a study by Willis Towers Watson, two-fifths (42%) of companies have made or are planning to make significant changes to their benefit programmes as a result of the pandemic and the impact it has had on the way people work. A third of employers are also likely to revise their healthcare strategies for 2021. The survey of UK employers also found that many are anticipating significant cost increases in the benefits they provide to employees: ● nearly half (44%) are expecting sick leave costs to increase, ● over a third (34%) think that group life assurance and dependent pension costs will also rise ● a quarter (25%) are expecting an increase in healthcare costs and group income protection, and ● more than one in three (37%) are planning to review the way their medical benefit plans are designed. For those employers that have had to furlough some staff, almost all – between 87–98% depending on the individual benefit – are maintaining existing benefits for furloughed employees. Smarterly investment SMARTERLY, THE digital wealth platform for the workplace, has secured £7,000,000 investment to support its continued growth as it brings innovation to workplace savings, allowing people to save and invest directly through payroll.
Flexible working MORE THAN nine in ten working parents and carers want their workplace to retain flexible working beyond the pandemic according to a survey conducted recently by work-life balance charity Working Families. Although only 65% of respondents had flexible working opportunities before the pandemic, 84% are now working flexibly. Of the parents and carers surveyed who weren’t working flexibly before lockdown, 20% intend to put in a formal request to work from home more in the future, with 11% planning to formally request changes to their working hours and patterns. The survey also showed that some employers are already thinking about making changes to their ways of working. Of those surveyed, 28% said their employer plans to allow more working from home after the lockdown, and 10% said their employer plans to support staff to flex their hours across the working week. The charity is calling on the government to, amongst other things, review and strengthen the statutory right to request flexible working, including reviewing the length of time employers currently have to consider requests. Jane van Zyl, chief executive of Working Families, said: “Whilst the kind of flexible working parents have experienced during lockdown is far from ideal, what it has done is prove that flexibility can be unlocked in many more jobs than previously thought. We simply can’t go back to a time where long hours and being the last person in the office are seen as a mark of success.”
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | July/August 2020 | Issue 62 46
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