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12 Jul 2019
by Annie Makoff-Clark

At a glance: reward and benefits headlines this week 5 - 11 July 2019

Your quick-read round up of the reward and benefits stories appearing in the press in the past seven days.

The headlines you might have missed between 5 - 11 July.

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Four-fifths use digital communications to boost benefits engagement
Employee Benefits:  EXCLUSIVE: Digital communications are steadily increasing as a method of improving engagement with benefits, up from 68% in 2016 to 78% this year, according to research by Employee Benefits. Read Story.

OH remains inaccessible to majority of UK workers
HR Review: Under half of UK workers have access to Occupational Health (OH) services, despite the fact that every year over 170 million days are lost to illness. Read Story.

Businesses turning to four-day working week could save billions, says research
People Management: Implementing a four-day working week could save UK businesses a combined £104 billion annually, according to new research from Henley Business School which suggests compressed weeks lead to increased productivity and improved physical and mental wellbeing. Read Story.

Staff trawl social media for 13 hours per week
HR Grapevine:  UK employees spend an average of 13 hours on social media at work per week, according to new research from Croner. Read Story.

Summer weather will cause productivity to stay at lower level
HR Review: Korn Ferry believes Q2 2019 UK labour productivity figures will be similar to Q1, a drop of 0.2 per cent, mainly due to the summer weather. Read Story.

‘North-South divide’ in life cover premiums narrows
Health Insurance & Protection: Regional disparities in the UK life insurance market have reduced over the past year, data suggests.  Comparethemarket’s quarterly Life Snapshot shows the North-South divide in premiums has narrowed significantly, with people paying £17.05 and £22.40 per month respectively in the North East and London. Read Story.

G20 leaders commit to promote prevention of ill-health across life span
Health Insurance & Protection: Leaders of the G20 nations have committed to promote healthy and active ageing through policy measures that address health promotion, prevention and disease control across the life span. Read Story.

People feel most creative at mid-morning
Workplace Insight: People feel they’re most creative at 11:05am, according to new research by MPA Group. The survey of 1,000 UK office workers looked into the time of day employees feel most creative, and which working environments best help to stimulate our creativity. Read Story.

Meetings ruined by late arrivals and setting up tech
Workplace Insight:  A report from Moo claims that people are wasting time by waiting for all attendees to arrive at or dial-in to meetings. Engaging in small talk with colleagues and tackling technology followed closely behind. Read Story.

Gap between richest and poorest pensioners widens
Money Marketing: A fifth of UK retired couples are “pensioner millionaires” as the gap with the poorest pensioners widens, according to a study by Aegon. Read Story.

ONS: UK productivity continues to decrease
Cover magazine: Labour productivity, as measured by output per hour, was down 0.2% in Q1 2019, when compared to the same quarter in 2018, according to Office of National Statistic (ONS) figures. These findings make Q1 the third consecutive quarter of contraction for UK productivity. Read Story.

Millennials urged to contribute more to workplace pensions
Corporate Adviser: The under 40s need to contribute more into a pension, if they are to maintain current spending habits in retirement. According to current research the average millennial is spending around £1,700 a month, more than twice as much as the State Pension. Read Story.

No more cold turkey as part time workforce age rises
Workplace Insight: New data from Rest Less claims that there are 3.4 million over 50s working part time today, an increase of 912,000 in a decade. Read Story.

SME employees forced to work during summer holidays
HR Review:  Just under a third of Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) employees will work every day this summer holiday (2019) instead of taking a break. Read Story.

Learning new skills deemed more essential than a promotion or pay rise
HR Review:  In a survey conducted by CV-Library, Brits ranked their main career priorities. The results stated that learning new skills came top (44 per cent). Which was followed closely by the desire to receive a pay rise (43 per cent) and to move to another company (40 per cent). Read Story.

Employers “key role to play” in mental health support
Corporate Adviser: The number of searches for mental health related terms has increased dramatically over the past four years, according to new analysis from RedArc. Read Story.

78% of teens think meeting face-to-face is still important at work
Employer News:  Despite their high frequency mobile use, and perceptions of ‘head in screen’, over three quarters (78%) of ‘app generation’ teenagers believe that it’s still important to meet people face-to-face for work, according to research from Fuze. Read Story.

Physical activity interventions need to be tailored to individual needs, report says
Personnel Today:  There is an opportunity for employers to support their staff to become more active, but they will need to tailor interventions to fit differing working patterns and types of work, a think-tank has suggested. Read Story.

Record number of UK workers adequately saving for retirement
Pensions Age:  The amount of people in the UK saving enough for a comfortable retirement has reached a record 59 per cent, research from Scottish Widows has revealed. Read Story.

Majority of companies unprepared for ageing workforce
Pensions Age:  The majority (62 per cent) of UK business have not reviewed their pensions strategy to prepare for the challenge of an ageing workforce, Capita has revealed. Read Story.

Survey Reveals What Office Technology Workers Want and How it Affects HR
Recruitment Buzz: Hire Intelligence’s recent survey discusses the least popular pieces of office equipment and how employees really feel about company spending. After surveying 2000 workers, the survey reveals some key ingredients to better employee productivity. Read Story.

A third cite time and resources as key barriers to boosting engagement
Employee Benefits: Exclusive - Far fewer respondents cite time or resource constraints as the primary barrier to improving employee engagement than in previous years, according to research by Employee Benefits. Read Story.

Want to clock off early? You’re not alone – 84% of people think employers need to adopt flexible working hours
HR News: The summer sun might have workers dreaming of finishing up early to get to the nearest park, yet just one fifth have the option to do so. Read Story.

Ethnicity pay gap as high as 20 per cent for some groups
People Management:  Almost all categories of black and minority ethnic (BAME) workers are paid less on average than their white British counterparts, official data has revealed. Read Story.

Three-quarters of firms pay staff late or incorrectly
HR Magazine: Employees at some of the largest organisations in the UK are regularly being paid incorrectly or late, a Censuswide survey on behalf of MHR has revealed. Read Story.

Millennials demand better income protection benefits
Corporate Adviser: Millennials are the generational group most likely to want to protection their income, according to new research from Canada Life. Read Story.

Half of adults willing to pay into later life care fund
Health Insurance & Protection: Nearly half of adults would be willing to save into a special fund to pay for the care they might need in later life, research shows. Read Story.

Take up of shared parental leave constrained by traditional attitudes
Workplace Insight: Despite the introduction of shared parental leave rights, more than half of UK adults still think that women be the primary carers of babies and children, according to the latest British Social Attitudes Survey. Read Story.

Industry wants flexibility around mental health underwriting decisions
Cover magazine: More than two-thirds in the life and protection sector think our industry is better at underwriting physical health than mental health, while 64% want greater flexibility around decisions than just ‘accept' or ‘decline', a study unveiled at the Protection Review Conference revealed today. Read Story.

Part-time pensions penalty’ costs women £100,000 in retirement
Corporate Adviser:  By the time they reach their 60s women’s pension wealth is less than a third of men’s – making them more than £100,000 worse off in retirement, according to new figures. Read Story.

Women on FTSE boards serve shorter and less senior tenures
HR Magazine: The amount of energy being 'token woman' on a board demands leads women to leave sooner, or it could be that they're being pushed experts warn. Read Story.