CIPD

By Ben Willmott, Head of Public Policy at CIPD.

As UK businesses wait to see the UK Government’s employer guidance on working safely when lockdown measures are eased, they should also prepare for the biggest employment relations challenge they have ever faced.   

The guidance will aim to set out how organisations can gradually and safely return employees to the workplace after lockdown and is likely to cover a range of important…

By Claire McCartney, Senior Policy Adviser at CIPD. 

The Resourcing and Talent Planning Survey is now live…

The impact of the coronavirus means that the way organisations resource and plan their workforce is changing rapidly. The CIPD in partnership with Omni’s Resourcing and Talent Planning Survey is now live and we would like to hear how your organisation is being impacted and responding to these challenging…

By Adrian Wakeling, Senior Policy Advisor, Acas 

“It's a cliché but when this is over, I'll never, EVER take anything for granted again …. we thought we were awake, but we were truly sleepwalking” 

These are the words of the novelist Joanna Cannon, writing on Twitter. If we needed a wake-up call for the way we value each other at work and the way we reach out to offer support to the most v…

By Ben Willmott, Head of Public Policy

The announcement that the Government’s Job Retention Scheme is to be extended until at least the end of June is extremely welcome but leaves considerable uncertainty about what happens then.

Friday’s announcement came just the day before collective redundancy consultations would have had to be triggered in many organisations if the JRS had ended on 31 May as initially scheduled…

Author: Paddy Smith, Public Affairs Manager

Over the past month the Government has announced its interventions to support businesses and workers through the COVID-19 crisis. These have included loans and financial support through the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme and the Job Retention Fund.

As is usually the case with government schemes − however well-intentioned and particularly when programmes have to be devised…

By Claire McCartney, Senior Policy Adviser at CIPD. 

One of several health, well-being and safety concerns relating to the impact of COVID-19 and the current period of isolation and lockdown, is that incidences of domestic abuse are likely to increase and that escape routes could be cut off. 

Last week the National Domestic Abuse helpline, run by charity Refuge, reported a 25% increase in calls and online requests for help since the lo…

By Ian Brinkley, former chief economist, CIPD 

There is no doubt that unemployment will rise a lot and employment will fall due to COVID-19. The extent will not be known for some months, until the employment statistics catch up, though some business activity surveys confirm a rapid decline and applications for universal credit have soared.  

One speculative article has suggested unemployment could reach 20%,1 but a report suggests that net job…

By Nick Pahl, CEO Society of Occupational Medicine.

Our lives have seen massive change, with new uncertainty and challenges. We have missed people and our mind has wandered. There is stress and pressure from the fear of infection and feeling isolated, along with concerns about job or income loss. The crisis has demanded new ways of working and routines.

Weirdly, it can be a time for us all to find positives – if you are…

By Claire McCartney, Senior Policy Adviser at CIPD.

The CIPD welcomes new legal right to paid parental bereavement leave – Jack’s Law

Lucy Herd, Jack’s Mother and prominent campaigner, and Claire McCartney, senior policy adviser at the CIPD, discuss the importance of the new legislation and why bereaved parents at work need proper support.

On 6 April this year, a new piece of legislation known as ‘Jack’s…

By Katy Adalar, communications manager at the CIPD.

An equal world is an enabled world. That’s the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day (next Sunday, 8 March) – a day to celebrate women’s achievements and promote gender equality. 

Women’s role in business and society is certainly more valued today than it was in 1911, when we celebrated International Women’s Day for the first ti…

By Gerwyn Davies, Senior Policy Advisor - Labour Market.

UK productivity growth of 0.3% over the past ten years recently won the Royal Statistical Society’s accolade as the ‘statistic of the decade’. However, analysis of the labour market by the CIPD has provided some equally interesting figures that illustrate how transformative the past decade has been in many ways.

An expanding workforce

One of the…

Lizzie Crowley, Senior Policy Advisor - Skills

The world of work is rapidly changing, impacting on how organisations approach learning at work. In this fast-changing world, learning needs to evolve and it must be accessible and agile. Many organisations are changing where, when and how learning is delivered; increasingly in the flow of work, not in the classroom; via digital technologies which enable learning to be available…

Jon Boys, Labour Market Economist at the CIPD.

Last week a question time audience member refused to believe that earning over £80,000 put him in the top 5% of earners. In fact, he went further and suggested that he wasn’t in the top 50% and that every doctor, accountant, and solicitor in the country earns more than £80,000. Of course he was wrong, but the condemnation was tentative and subsequent reporting cited…

By Brad Taylor, Director of People and OD at the CIPD.

Within organisations across the UK, there is a growing need to support the mental health of their employees. In the last year, 39% of UK employees experienced mental-ill-health where work was a contributing factor.

Organisations need to take responsibility and put in place the necessary support for their employees. To show our commitment to doing this at the CIPD, this…

By Dr Aideen Young, Evidence Manager, the Centre for Ageing Better

Our research shows that workers in later life want work that they find personally meaningful, intellectually stimulating and sociable. They want jobs that are flexible and come with opportunities for learning, mentoring and career progression – and they want workplaces that are supportive and inclusive.

Being able to properly support these workers…

In June, Stonewall were delighted to attend CIPD’s Festival of Work conference and deliver a workshop on LGBT-inclusive workplaces. Sarah Campbell, Head of Conferences and Events at Stonewall talks about the session, top tips, and how the audience responded.

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of attending the CIPD’s inaugural Festival of Work conference. As part of their inclusion workshop I was thrilled to…

By Jon Boys, Labour Market Economist at the CIPD.

In this blog we ask, who works at the weekend?

1 in 5 of us that work, do so on the weekend but this proportion differs markedly by various characteristics. Most important is the type of job someone does, which is closely related to the industry that they work in. Other differences such as region, age, or qualification largely reflect that different people do different…

By Rachel Suff, Senior Policy Adviser, CIPD; Tony Vickers-Byrne, Chief Adviser HR Practice, CIPD; Andrew Walker FCIPD FCPFA, formerly Director General HR, House of Commons and Nick Pahl, Chief Executive, Society of Occupational Medicine

Occupational health (OH) and HR practitioners represent the two professional groups most concerned with the health and well-being of people at work. As such, the strength of the working…

This week the Government published Health is everyone’s business – a public consultation on a range of measures to reduce ill health-related job loss. It is seeking views on how employers can best support disabled people and people with long-term health conditions to stay, and thrive, in work. It sets out proposals to encourage all employers to take positive action to support employees who are managing health conditions…

By Deborah Garlick, Director, Henpicked: Menopause in the Workplace and Claire McCartney, Co-Director of Inclusive Talent and Associate, CIPD

The menopause is an important workplace issue that affects many employees, and we were delighted that it featured prominently in our series of inclusion workshops at the CIPD Festival of Work. There are now around 4.4 million women aged 50-64 in work (ONS 2019), and the vast majority…

By Rob Neil, Head of Culture Change and Leadership, Department for Education.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, yet nothing can be changed until it is faced" James Baldwin

This uncomfortable and imposing truth is one which applies to many organisations now wrestling with the challenge of having conversations about race at work. Sadly, some respond by looking the other way and simply hoping the ‘elephant…

By Gill Dix, Head of Workplace Policy, Acas

As the public debate, the media, and society have opened up to the mental health agenda, workplaces and employers, quite rightly, are gradually becoming more attuned. The Government-commissioned Stevenson and Farmer Review has helped, pointing out the ‘significant mental health challenge at work’ that the UK faces, and the importance of the employer’s role when it comes to creating…

By Gerwyn Davies, Senior Labour Market Adviser.

Whilst the UK has been given a six-month extension to finalise its arrangements for exiting the European Union, the Brexit-related uncertainty that many businesses face remains. However, the extension does offer some reassurance that the prospect of a ‘No-Deal’ outcome has now been reduced, given the retrenchment from the no-deal option on both sides of La Manche. While both…

The gender pay gap reporting deadline was midnight 4 April 2019. I stayed up late and crunched the numbers and this is what I found.

• 10,463 organisations submitted by the deadline which is approximately 99% of organisations[1]. This is an improvement on last year when only 93% of organisation’s made the deadline.
• The absence of gender pay gaps over 100% (which is statistically impossible and was seen in last year…

By Sheila Wild, author of the CIPD gender pay gap reporting guide

The latest dates for filing the past year’s gender pay gap reports have come round again – 30 March for the public sector, and 4 April for private and voluntary sector organisations. I’ll be updating the CIPD guide on gender pay gap reporting ahead of next year’s reporting deadline but, for now, I’m going to take a look at emerging trends…