At companies with 50 employees or less, leadership, career prospects, surviving the recession and job security and satisfaction are all believed to be stronger. The survey, conducted by management school Roffey Park, questioned 1,500 managers at all levels from organisations of various sizes.
Employees from smaller companies were also more likely to feel “less cautious” in their work, that their career prospects were still progressing and felt that there was support available for new initiatives within the company.
However, the survey also stated that employees at small companies are more prone to feel uncertain about their future. The research highlighted a need for small companies to invest in staff development and suggested that manager were not making the most of the talent they have within their company. Managers would have also been more likely to have budgeted on staff training during the recession.
The survey also revealed that managers were also more likely to feel that redundancies within their company had been handled badly.
There are certainly pros and cons for employees working for either smaller or larger companies. However, it is encouraging to hear that smaller companies outperform larger businesses on staff wellbeing. We can look to the results of the survey to see how further measures can be taken to improve even more on this and in other areas.
For more information, please visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 3 / 174 )New employment laws expected to be implemented throughout 2011 will cost businesses an estimated £22.9bn, the British Chambers of Commerce has claimed.
These new measure are set to come into practice this year, despite a pledge from the Government to cut red tape after being warned that job creation was being prevented. The BCC believe the new measures will only add to the burden of red tape.
The new laws are set to be put into place over the next four years, but the BCC has warned that the cost to businesses will be “staggering”.
One of the most expensive law changes for businesses will be down to the plans for agency workers to receive the same amount of pay as permanent staff after 12 weeks of work; the BCC estimates that this will have a recurring cost of £1.5bn a year.
Allowing employees the right to have time off for training is expected to cost businesses £175 million a year and the following year’s pension reforms could have an annual reoccurring annual cost of £1.5bn.
The BCC also believe that the Government’s plans to reform the UK’s employment tribunal system, announced last month, will now be “dwarfed” by the cost of these new regulations.
It is a continuous battle for businesses when they are up against red tape and regulations; let’s hope that the Government will be able to match these new employment laws with more cut backs on red tape.
For more information, please visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 3.1 / 52 )As the economy continues in its struggle to grow, traders have warned that the expected inflation rise will hinder growth prospects and is undermining the government’s battle in keeping interest rates low.
Economists are anticipating that official data for January will illustrate that inflation has risen to 4%, which would be the highest rate since 2008 and twice the Bank of England’s target level.
The weak pound pushing up the cost of imports, the jump from 17.5% to 20% in VAT and the sharp rise of global commodity prices are reasons for the expected rise of inflation.
If predictions are correct, Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, will write a fifth consecutive letter to the Chancellor George Osbourne explaining why. This comes after the Bank of England’s decision to keep interest rates at 0.5%, a percentage unchanged for two years.
The bank will have to explain their policy on Wednesday in an Inflation Report. The Governor has stood up against criticism of keeping interest rates low by insisting “inflation is close to zero and well below target” when excluding imported and one-off cost pressures.
If official data for January does reveal a soar in inflation, it may add further pressure onto the Bank of England to rethink their policy of keeping interest levels at the same rate, which will have an impact on already struggling small businesses.
For more information, please visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 3 / 199 )Concern is growing for the state of the public sector's pensions after being described as becoming a “Madoff-style pyramid”.
In a stark warning, the Centre for Policy Studies claimed that UK civil servants' final-salary pension schemes are as unstable as fraudster Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi £31 billion scam and are “now collapsing under insufficient contributions, rising longevity and an ageing workforce”.
In his report for the Centre for Policy Studies, Michael Johnson revealed that Britain will be forced into a “societal division”. Final-salary pensions also came under fire, with Johnson declaring that there will be a “fiscal calamity” if civil servants continue in having a high final-salary pay out.
Former pensions secretary, Lord Hutton, was asked by the Government to conduct a review of public sector pensions and has declared final-salary schemes as being “inherently unfair.”
Compared to three-quarters of civil servants, only a fifth of private-sector employees have a final-salary pension plan. The final-salary pension schemes mean that there are also “disproportionately high pensions paid to high earners” within the public sector.
The “societal division”, which the report warns of, will not be helped by the fact that the tax payer is paying for 80% of the public sector’s final-salary pensions.
These statistics may change after Lord Hutton ruled that six-million public sector workers will have to pay more into their pension plans. He also advised that the government should raise the retirement age for public sector pensions.
With the retirement age continually rising, having a good and fair pension scheme becomes more important. Hopefully a fair balance in pension plans can be found for private and public sector workers.
For more information, please visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 2.9 / 236 )The UK’s largest banks made an agreement on the Project Merlin lending and bonus deal, the government announced yesterday.
Under the new agreement, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group are set to lend around £190bn to businesses this year, including £76bn to smaller companies. The deal will also see the controversial bankers’ bonuses being curbed and details of top earners salaries will be revealed.
The banks will be set targets for giving out loans to businesses and these targets will be monitored by the Bank of England to see if they are being met.
The chancellor also declared that a tax on bonuses would not be imposed, even though he was under considerable pressure from Labour to do so.
On Tuesday, we reported that the deal was imminent between the banks after chancellor George Osbourne announced the government had raised a levy on banks to £2.5bn this year, raising an extra £800m.
The raising on the levy was not warmly received by the shadow chancellor Ed Balls who said that he believed that the banks will not be forced to lend if they do not want to and that George Osbourne was “putting politics ahead of economics.”
It will be interesting to see if Ed Balls’ predictions are right. Let’s hope that if the banks’ loan targets are to be monitored by the Bank of England, it will motivate them into giving more to smaller companies.
For more information, please visit www.glazers.co.uk
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