Editors Blog

Pressure mounts on CIPD boss Jackie Orme to hand bonus back

Pressure has been building on CIPD chief executive Jackie Orme ever since Personnel Today revealed she has been paid a hefty bonus while her employees have suffered a pay freeze, bonus ban, redundancies and cuts to other benefits.Now others in...

Posted by Mike Berry on October 1, 2009 3:35 PM

CIPD publishes executive pay and bonuses guidance

The phrase ' shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted' springs to mind, but the CIPD has published what it calls "general principles" on executive pay.They have been designed to act as a framework to help HR directors...

Posted by Mike Berry on September 10, 2009 4:06 PM

Public sector HR must brace itself for storm ahead

After escaping virtually unscathed by the worst of the recession so far, HR teams in the public sector must now brace themselves for a storm heading their way.Official labour market figures show that public sector employment actually increased by 250,000,...

Posted by Mike Berry on June 19, 2009 10:20 AM

Swine fever: could you pay your staff in a flu pandemic?

As I am about to organise an HR conference on business contingencies for a flu pandemic, I listened to a webinar by the HR and pay consultancy Mercer this afternoon. A lot of the basic stuff about swine fever preparations has...

Posted by Noel O'Reilly on May 5, 2009 4:03 PM

Zero RPI inflation means short-term pain for workers

With figures out today that show inflation stands at zero (surely, that should just be 'flation' now?), workers across the public and private sectors have to face the fact that pay freezes or cuts are likely. Up until now it's...

Posted by Mike Berry on March 24, 2009 10:49 AM

Women 'must not be sent back to the kitchen' in the recession

Women's equal rights group the Fawcett Society is calling on the government to adopt its five-point recovery plan to help women through, what it calls, is a 'man-made recession'. It is also calling on the government to introduce quotas for...

Posted by Mike Berry on March 6, 2009 8:21 AM

Councils must reveal what they pay top staff

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has published guidance which says senior public officials' salary bands should be publicly available as a matter of routine. The guidance, When should salaries be disclosed?, explains that salary details, bonuses and performance related pay...

Posted by Mike Berry on February 24, 2009 8:30 AM

RPI inflation drop means pay freezes on horizon

With the Retail Prices Index falling to just 0.1% in January, now is the time for the government to consider freezing the pay of public sector workers. That's according to John Philpott, chief economist at the CIPD. A controversial view...

Posted by Mike Berry on February 17, 2009 1:57 PM

City pay and bonuses is balancing act for HR

Executive pay is firmly under fire again, with the prime minister and most of the country angered by the 'morally and economically outrageous' decision by RBS to even consider paying £1bn in bonuses after taking billions of public money. And...

Posted by Dawn Spalding on February 16, 2009 12:01 PM

Job cuts and pay freezes - as well as snow - piling up on HR's doorstep

The UK's beleaguered workforce, having suffered the misery and disruption of last week's blizzards, now faces being hit by a double whammy of rapidly increasing job cuts and a squeeze on pay. Quarterly CIPD research of employers' recruitment and redundancy...

Posted by Mike Berry on February 9, 2009 7:58 AM

Redundancy increasingly based on individual performance

At the time of writing, Personnel Today's redundancy tracker - regularly updated on www.personneltoday.com  -  shows that over 90,000 UK jobs now face the chop. As more employers get pushed into this situation, it seems the basis for making redundancies is...

Posted by Helen Williams on February 2, 2009 8:00 AM

Statutory redundancy pay and unfair dismissal awards rise

The limits on payments and awards made to workers by employment tribunals in certain employment rights cases will rise from today (1 February). The increased limits affect:* statutory redundancy payments* the basic and compensatory awards for unfair dismissal* the limit...

Posted by Mike Berry on February 1, 2009 8:48 AM

Pay trends for employers in 2009

My colleagues at XpertHR - the leading online information provider - have been busy recording a series of short videos which look at the labour market, economic and employment law outlook for HR professionals in 2009. In the latest video, XpertHR's...

Posted by Mike Berry on January 13, 2009 11:35 AM

Equality | Some light bedtime reading...

The government has published its response to the consultation it held before drafting the Equality Bill. The document can be downloaded here. Be warned - it's a weighty piece of work (more than 200 pages long) but the executive summary...

Posted by Mike Berry on July 23, 2008 8:23 AM

Pay awards | Strikes, wages and inflation

For those of you slightly bemused by the relationship between wages and the effect it has on inflation, my colleague Sheila Atwood on XpertHR's Employment Intelligence blog gives a good explanation. Chancellor Alistair Darling reiterated his call for pay restraint...

Posted by Mike Berry on July 18, 2008 9:41 AM

Reward | Boosting visibility of benefits is now key priority

Gordon Brown last week called for restraint and ordered the Cabinet and all ministers to forgo their pay increases this year as part of government attempts to control public sector wages. The move was intended to set an example...

Posted by Dawn Spalding on June 23, 2008 9:46 AM

Police pay | Round one: Home secretary Jacqui Smith vs. officers

Home secretary Jacqui Smith took an absolute battering during her keynote speech at this morning's Police Federation conference. Her decision to cut police pay from 2.5% to 1.9% in last year's pay deal was simply unforgivable in police officers' eyes...

Posted by Louisa Peacock on May 21, 2008 3:56 PM

Public sector | Police improvement agency could do better

Personnel Today's front-page exclusive this week highlights how the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) has fared shockingly in its staff survey. Just two in five staff at the NPIA understand their employer’s goals, while only a third agree the business...

Posted by Jo Faragher on March 25, 2008 4:26 PM

Acas dispute | Isn't it ironic?

The news that Acas staff are to strike in a row over pay is a) massively embarrassing for the service's management and b) deeply ironic. As PCS union chief Mark Serwotka pointed out: "The failure of any pay offer and...

Posted by Mike Berry on March 11, 2008 2:07 PM

Agency workers | Temporary sanity is key

If two groups of people disagree about something you can't do much better than locking them in a room until some semblance of an agreement is reached. And so it goes with the stand-off over agency workers between employer groups...

Posted by Rob Moss on February 18, 2008 6:59 AM