14 July 2020
Since the beginning of July, the Hungarian subsidiary of telecommunications group Vodafone has been offering its telephone customer service staff the opportunity to continue working from home after the pandemic, should they opt to sign up. The introduction of remote working in this area of operations had taken longer than for other employees, who were already equipped to work remotely. However once the necessary steps were taken, the company saw no reason not to continue in this vein. Initially, 50% of such staff...
23 June 2020
In the coming weeks, the government will launch a second tranche of tests conducted to shed light on ongoing discrimination in hiring within companies. It will be conducted among 40 randomly selected large companies in the SBF 120 index (Société des Bourses Françaises 120 Index; French stock market index comprising all 60 stocks in the CAC 40 & CAC Next 20 indexes plus 60 further stocks listed on the Premier Marché & Second Marché). France inaugurated this type of initiative with a campaign that ran...
22 June 2020
This is what the public Brazilian petroleum corporation told Reuters following the lifting of lockdown in the country. The conditions are still to be defined, but the objective is to offer every administrative employee the option to work remotely. According to Petrobras, the experiment has proved successful in terms of productivity and has revealed potential avenues to reduce office costs as the company works to reduce its operational costs. Remote working will be voluntary, although the company anticipates that...
15 June 2020
On 9 June, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) published its third study since 2007. It is based on more than 4,000 interviews and details the average cost of dual training by region, size and business sector. In addition to a comparison between the periods 2007, 2012/13 and 2017/18, the study offers a fairly high degree of accuracy on the type of costs incurred by an apprenticeship, as well as on the average gain generated by apprentices depending on the number of years of training....
4 June 2020
The Hans Böckler Trade Foundation (German Federation of Trade Unions – DGB) has presented its first study on the phenomenon of ‘internal crowd work’ and its implications for both work organization and human resources management. The study is based on several elements including multiple company case studies from the automotive, telecoms, and IT sectors. In addition to the different variants and principles of ‘crowd work’, the study’s authors highlight the enormous advantages that ‘crowd work’...
29 May 2020
Despite encouragement from the UK government for business to gradually return to normal, only 4% of UK employers have made their employees come back to work since coronavirus lockdown rules were relaxed in the country, specialised HR site People Management revealed on 28 May. According to a survey of more than 500 professionals, 55% of employers plan to keep remote working arrangements in place for an unspecified timeframe. Meanwhile 24% of respondents are waiting to find out more about the health-related guidance...
28 May 2020
On 27 May, Deutsche Post it would be testing more than 10,000 employees as a preventative measure, and on a voluntary basis, in order to better understand and assess the epidemiological situation as regards the staff working in its German sorting centers. Management is especially trying to identify asymptomatic carriers. The entire testing operation must be approved by the works councils for the sites concerned. Trade unions and employees are largely in favor of this measure.
28 May 2020
On 27 May, the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) expressed concern that pressure on working mothers (employees) during lockdown could halt progress in reducing the gender pay gap. Throughout the crisis, mothers have significantly reduced their working hours to take care of their children and undertake household chores and in most cases are doing both at the same time. The IFS is warning both that this situation could perpetuate after the health crisis, and that mothers are also more likely to be...
25 May 2020
Identifying and assessing the interpersonal skills of workers and other skills that are not specifically related to their qualifications is a recurring issue. To address this and showcase the importance of so-called soft skills, a taskforce that includes the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) as well as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) published the Skills Builder Universal Framework, a new online evaluation system, on 20 May. The aim of the initiative is to provide employers with a...
19 May 2020
Job cuts, salary freezes and lower vacancy rates are what await the UK’s pandemic-stricken labor market, according to the latest quarterly analysis from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (human resource management specialist association), released on 18 May. According to the study – conducted jointly with temporary staffing specialist Adecco and for which more than 2,000 employers were surveyed – 22% of companies are intending to lay off staff between now and July, six percentage...
