Corporate social responsibility
26 March 2020
On 26 March, during an interview on French radio (RTL), Emmanuel Faber, CEO of the French food group Danone, stated the following commitment on air, “All employment contracts at Danone and all salaries, worldwide, are guaranteed for the next three months.” In addition to not laying off employees because of Covid-19, Danone will cover “all income up to salary level” in the event of recourse to partial unemployment measures, due to supply disruptions in a factory, or the inability of people to...
10 March 2020
While companies with more than 250 staff have until 05 April to comply with the legal requirement to publish their third annual gender pay gap data (c.f. article No. 11073), initial indications from roughly a quarter of these businesses have already started to leak through to the press. One thing standing out from the leaks is that the UK’s dominant financial sector continues to be a laggard. The BBC has calculated that the average salary gap in this sector based on these preliminary numbers has risen to 23.1%...
5 March 2020
The Investment Association, a trade body representing UK investment managers, has written to 63 companies listed on the FTSE 350 criticizing them for the lack of female participation on their supervisory and management boards (BoM). In the letter the IA has called on these major companies to explain how they were working towards improving gender balance and encouraged them to reach the goal of 33% female management board participation by the end of the year, as per the Hampton-Alexander Review recommendation (c.f....
More articles on this topic >>
Digital tools
16 October 2019
Oxford-based visual data management start-up, Zegami, has just launched a new tool for employers that will enable them to predict which employees are most likely to resign from their jobs. Called Zegami HR, the platform operates using a tailor-made algorithm developed from work carried out at the Oxford University Computational Biology division into the factors that made people happy at work in a company. The algorithm uses relevant data and includes age, salary, career path, academic history, career satisfaction...
30 September 2019
Doing an internship at a multinational firm without even leaving the house, and perhaps while still in one’s pyjamas, is now a possibility, thanks to the concept of virtual work experience offered by the Australian start-up InsideSherpa. Since 2017, the company has offered short work experience programmes, exclusively online, at companies from all over the globe. While students see the platform as an unprecedented opportunity to discover large companies and gain experience, employers using this method hope to...
19 June 2019
In an interview on 04 June with David Green for his website My HR Future, HR Tech advisor, Yvette Cameron shares her vision of blockchain storing and managing data technology as it applies to HR. Planet Labor summarizes her vision below (for the full 38′ podcast, click here).
More articles on this topic >>
HR practices
3 April 2020
UK companies are finding themselves having to improvise in the face of the unprecedented Covid-19 health emergency, with some handing bonuses to overburdened staff and others opting to cut executive pay. Across the industries of supermarkets, retail or even financial services, a range of approaches can be observed.
2 April 2020
In a press statement released on 02 April, French food services and facilities management company Sodexo announced, ‘Despite all our efforts, we know that this once-in-a-lifetime crisis currently confronting us will regrettably mean lay-offs for some of our on-site staff in some countries, while strictly adhering to local employment legislation. As a result, we have decided to establish a global Sodexo Employee Relief Program to help on-site staff, who face layoffs.’ The global program will be administered...
1 April 2020
On 26 March 2020, Italian energy company, Enel Group announced an agreement was signed with the professional services and financial risk-mitigation firm Aon SpA to provide a “Covid-19 Insurance Policy” for all its 68,000 employees worldwide. In the press release, it specified that this insurance was specifically designed to meet Enel Group’s needs and that it represented a pioneering initiative aimed at guaranteeing transnational support against the ongoing global health emergency. The policy...
More articles on this topic >>
Industrial relations
3 April 2020
Trade unions and management of the main logistics centre of Spanish clothing giant Inditex, which owns Zara, have struck an agreement on how the site’s operations will be curtailed during the total shutdown of the Spanish economy until 9 April, as decreed by the government. The social partners agreed to keep activity at a minimum during this period, with teams working two days on a voluntary basis and in three shifts of four hours each. This volume of operation corresponds to 15% of the site’s usual weekly...
2 April 2020
The CFE-CGC, CFDT and FO unions announced yesterday, on 1 April, that they are to sign a contract “of solidarity and for the future”, which guarantees 100% remuneration for employees placed on short-time working because of the coronavirus and sets out the conditions for business resuming.
1 April 2020
An agreement signed on 27 March to manage work over the next two months ‘equitably distributes the burden of significantly reduced work without increasing the burden on people’, underlined the three signatory trade union organisations (Filctem-CGIL , Flaei-Cisl, Uiltec) in a joint statement.
More articles on this topic >>
Legal developments
2 April 2020
After having adapted its budget and state aid rules, the European Commission is now proposing a ‘second wave’ of measures aimed at mitigating the economic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. Presented on 02 April, this second wave includes the establishment of a European support system for short-time working schemes, of up to €100 billion in total, called SURE (Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency).
2 April 2020
On 31 March 2020, Poland’s emergency ‘Crisis Shield’ law was published in the Official Journal. The law provides for a series of economic and social measures to deal with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
2 April 2020
On 01 April, the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ) announced that they had reached an agreement “for maintaining company operations”, which in particular provides for faster procedures for partial-unemployment applications. Going forward, the formerly mandatory WKÖ agreement for each request concerning “Covid-19 partial unemployment” (c.f. article No. 11724) will in principle already have been acquired. The “Austrian Employment...
More articles on this topic >>
