HR news round-up: From equal pay to migrant nurses in poverty
Next loses equal pay case More than 3,500 current and former store staff of fashion...read more
HR news round-up: From worrying signs for inclusion to how health supports the economy
This week’s HR news round-up covers everything from the latest REC figures on falling support for inclusion measures in recruitment to the links between health and economic prosperity.
Worrying decline in inclusive recruitment measures
The number of employers who use inclusive recruitment practices is falling across the board, according to an annual survey of employers by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).
The REC says says: “It is a major concern if employers are failing to understand the commercial and ethical reasons to ensure they hire inclusively, especially given the UK’s acute skills and labour shortages and long-standing struggles to up productivity. The findings will also alarm job seekers from minority or underrepresented groups who may be struggling to get on in their careers.”
55.2% of employers surveyed said they do not specifically state an interest in diverse candidates in their job adverts. The figure was 49.2% in 2023 and 47.9% in 2022. And just 5.8% plan to implement this in the future, which compares to 7.2% in 2023 and 8.2% in 2022. Nevertheless, at least 25.5% said they introduced this more than a year ago – up on 23.8% in 2023 but down on 29.2% in 2022.
The survey finds 44.2% of employers do not use wording specifically designed to be inclusive in their job adverts, compared to 28.3% who did not in 2023 and 33% who did not in 2022. And just 3.8% plan to implement this in the future, compared to 5.4% in 2023 who said they planned to and 5% in 2022 who said they planned to.
74.8% do not use name blind CV submissions, compared to 69.9% who did not in 2023 and 53.2% who did not in 2022. While 3.8% said in 2024 they plan on implementing this in the future which is up in comparison to the 1.4% who said in 2023 they would implement it, it is lower than the 7.3% who said in 2022 they planned to implement it.
Finally, 61.7% of surveyed employers said they do not use diverse interview panels, which is more than the 55.7% in 2023 and 53.4% in 2022 who said they did not use them. However, 11.5% said they plan to implement this in the future, compared to 10.6% in 2023 and 8.3% in 2022.
Mental health impact at work
Poor mental health accounts for one in six of all long-term sickness absences in the UK, compared to one in 12 in 2016, according to analysis by BrightHR.
The statistics come from BrightHR’s absence management software, which is used by over 64,000 companies and over 750,000 of their employees in the UK.
It says mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression and stress, now account for 16.5% of all sickness absences of four weeks or more in the UK, compared to 7.9% in 2016
Moreover, instances of long-term sickness absence caused by poor mental health have been steadily rising year-on-year since 2016, and peaked in 2021 at a high of 16.8%.
Of the mental health concerns recorded, stress is now the biggest contributor to long-term sick leave, making up 42% of all long-term mental health-related sickness absences in 2024, followed by anxiety (27%), general mental health issues (17%) and depression (14%)
Roadmap for teaching recruitment published
A new road map on how to attract more teachers through offering greater flexibility has been published by Teach First.
The new report, Tomorrow’s Teachers: A roadmap to get Gen Z into the classroom, sets out a comprehensive roadmap of the transformations it says are needed to attract the next generation of teachers – including a new system of formal secondments for existing teachers to spend some time out of the classroom in other sectors, before returning with new skills, enthusiasm and energy.
Teach First commissioned research agency Public First to poll 3,000 16–24-year-olds to probe attitudes to careers, particularly in teaching. Three quarters (73%) said that teaching was a job that had purpose – the highest of the career options tested. Over three fifths (61%) of Gen Z would consider working as a teacher, but nearly half (47%) said they would enjoy teaching for a few years, but not their whole career.
42% also perceive teaching as stressful and 36% say the salary is poor and that schools lack funding. Moreover:
- 71% of said that it would be easier to earn a lot of money in another sector.
- 57% said it would be easier to do something new or innovative in another sector.
- 46% said that it would be easier to achieve a good work-life balance in another sector.
- 45% said it would be easier to develop professional skills in another sector.
Read more here.
Nurseries continue to close
Nurseries in England continue to close at a time even though the sector needs to provide 85,000 additional childcare places by September 2025 when working families will be entitled to 30 hours of childcare per week from nine months to starting school.
Research by the National Day Nurseries Association [NDNA] shows that 199 nurseries were forced to close between September 2023 and the start of this academic year on top of the 216 closures recorded in the previous academic year. The NDNA says this would have affected an average of 50 children per setting or more than 10,000 children in total.
NDNA’s data showed that just under four in 10 of the closures (38%) took place in the 30% most deprived areas in the country including parts of London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds.
Default flexible working still on the cards
Labour has reiterated its plans to introduce legislation aimed at giving people a default right to flexible working unless it is not reasonably possible to do so.
It comes amid a barrage of reports on Labour’s employment reform plans, the details of which have yet to be published. In an interview with the Times, Jonathan Reynolds, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, labelled previous government policies on flexible working “bizarre,” asserting that the Tories declared “war” on remote work.
He pledged to end the “culture of presenteeism”, asserting that flexible working contributes to productivity, staff resilience and their ability to stay working for an employer.
Meanwhile, Amazon has announced that employees will be required to return to the office for five days a week from the start of next year, reversing pandemic-era policies.
The company says it believes that in-person collaboration enhances learning and company culture. Hot-desking will be eliminated, and management layers will be reduced to streamline operations.
Labour’s employment law reforms also aim to address insecure jobs. New research by the Work Foundation shows that more than four in 10 insecure workers (44%) fell into ‘long-term insecurity’ over a four-year period and that secure workers displayed notably more favourable career pathways across the board. Workers who started in secure work in 2017/18 were twice as likely to hold a secure job by 2021/22 compared to those who started in insecure work (79.5%% vs 39.5%)
It says progression into secure roles often requires people to move sectors. Overall, insecure workers are nearly three times more likely than secure workers to switch sectors (28% compared with 9.6%) – often leaving sectors where insecure work is concentrated like social care, retail and hospitality
What’s more it says opportunities to change occupations or sectors tend to narrow with age and the evidence suggests that older workers are more likely to get stuck in insecure work – with workers aged 45-54 nearly twice as likely to remain stuck in insecure work relative to those aged 16-24 (48.8% vs 28.2%)
The research also shows insecure workers are 1.4 times more likely than those with secure jobs to experience involuntary worklessness – becoming unemployed or economically inactive due to ill-health within the study period. This indicates that job security could be a factor in whether someone will stay in employment while managing a long-term health condition, says the report.
Read more here.
Campaign for better parental leave launches
A new campaign for better paternity leave has written an open letter to the Prime Minister and attached model babies to famous statues of men around London, including footballer Thierry Henry and Hollywood star Gene Kelly.
The Dad Shift‘s open letter says that the UK has the worst statutory paternity offer for new fathers in Europe and that one in three dads take no leave at all while one in two say they struggle financially because of the low rate of statutory pay – less than the minimum wage.
Labour has said it will review parental leave in its first year. The Dad Shift wants parental leave “that is affordable for people to take, gives a substantial allowance of time, and supports equality among parents”.
The letter comes as Deloitte has announced a new policy to equalise paid parenting leave in the UK, offering all parents 26 weeks of fully paid leave. The initiative, effective from 1st January 2025, combines various family leave types, including maternity, paternity and shared parental leave. According to YouGov research commissioned by Deloitte, 87% of employees consider family leave a significant factor when choosing an employer.
Additionally, some 54% of working mothers said that if their partner had more parenting leave, it would help them to progress in their career. An even higher number of working mothers (61%) say that if their partner had more flexibility in their role, it would help them to progress. 57% of working mothers say they have had to reduce working hours because of their co-parent’s workplace inflexibility, more than double the number of working fathers (25%).
The Deloitte-commissioned research also revealed that 50% of working parents find it challenging to access information about paternity and maternity leave during the job-hunting process. And it found that 67% of parents reported increased stress or anxiety levels while balancing work and family responsibilities. Just over a quarter (28%) say they are not encouraged by their employer to take time off for family-related commitments.
Beyond parenting leave, 61% of respondents expressed a desire for more flexible work hours for new fathers, with 46% wanting hybrid working and 42% calling for a more supportive workplace culture.
Read more here.
Call for major reforms of employment support
The UK needs wholesale reform in employment support to reverse ‘a participation crisis’ which has seen a significant decline in its workforce, with 800,000 fewer individuals in work or seeking employment since the onset of the Covid pandemic, according to a new report.
The Working for the Future report, which says it provides a roadmap for the future, indicates that the UK is an outlier among developed nations, with employment rates falling rather than rising post-pandemic, with fewer young people in work, more older people out of work and more people off work with long-term health conditions. It says virtually all of the increase in the number out of work is accounted for by people who last worked before the Covid-19 pandemic even began or who have never worked at all. It calculates that the ‘participation crisis’ has led to a £16bn annual loss in tax receipts.
The report is the work of the Commission on the Future of Employment Support, which has been managed by the Institute for Employment Studies in partnership with abrdn Financial Fairness Trust. It argues for far-reaching reforms to help reverse significant falls in labour force participation, address insecurity and poverty in work and tackle long-standing inequalities in the labour market.
The Commission specifies the support needed for both younger and older people affected by economic inactivity. It says older people should be a key focus within the new Support Guarantee and that this should include far greater use of specialist provision and co-located delivery to reach those who are not engaged with support. The report states: “We need to ensure that both employment services and workplace practices are far more age inclusive: by setting clear performance measures within services to narrow gaps in outcomes for older workers; and by government getting behind the Age Friendly Employer Pledge to promote more age positive employment practices.”
Read more here.
Health and the economy linked, says report
Better health is the most important medicine the UK economy needs for the faster growth that the new government has identified as one of its five key missions, according to a new report.
The IPPR’s cross-party Commission on Health and Prosperity, a three-year inquiry, has published its final report which presents a comprehensive plan for a modern 21st century health creation system.
It finds that if trends continue, economic inactivity due to sickness could hit 4.3 million by the end of this parliament, up from 2.8 million today. As of the end of 2023, an estimated 900,000 extra workers are missing from work. The report calculates that these 900,000 missing workers could mean an estimated £5bn in lost tax receipts in 2024, while better population health could save the NHS £18bn per year by the mid-2030s.
Read more here.
Related
HR news round-up: From multigen workforces to everywoman
Say-do gap on multigenerational workforces There is a ‘say-do gap’ between what...read more
