HR Articles

It’s less than four weeks until Christmas and the Christmas party season is about to begin.  The office party is often a mixed blessing – an opportunity to boost morale and perhaps celebrate a successful year yet also a melting pot of workers letting their hair down, with potential for accidents, injuries, threats and claims.

Twitter has made headlines yet again after its new owner, Elon Musk, has given employees an ultimatum: work long hours at high intensity, or quit and receive 3 months’ severance pay. Employees were given until Thursday 17 November 2022 to make a decision, which was around 24 hours after the ultimatum was given.

At PMQs in the House of Commons last week Sir Kier Starmer likened PM Rishi Sunak to “a weak boss so worried the bullies would turn on him, he hid behind them”.

This week the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) handed Interserve a £4.4 million fine for failing to put appropriate measures in place to prevent unauthorised access of private data.

Earlier this month, Twitter decided to dismiss around half of its employees (around 3,700 people) due to cost-saving reasons. Staff received a memo from the company stating that there would be mass layoffs, and then an hour later, employees were denied access to their work systems. This happened around 3am UK time, so most of Twitter’s UK employees were asleep. 

Trans is an umbrella term used to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth.  It covers a variety of terms but may include people who describe themselves as transgender, gender-fluid and non-binary.

The European Data Protection Board has opened a public consultation in relation to one of its guidelines on personal data breach notification under the GDPR.

Research of Tommy's (a UK charity researching the causes and prevention of pregnancy complications, miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth and neonatal death) found that sadly it is estimated that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss.

The Government has commissioned a review of the Shortage Occupations List (SOL) to determine whether any occupations should be removed or added to the list.

In April to June 2021, three in four mothers with dependent children were in work in the UK. This was the highest level reached in the equivalent quarter over 20 years.