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Human Times helps you stay ahead of the latest news and trends that impact the HR industry. Every weekday, our unique blend of AI and team of expert HR and employment editors and researchers monitor 100,000s of articles, and social posts to create summaries of the most relevant and useful content to help you lead, innovate and grow. The award winning Human Times newsletter has four geographical editions with news tailored to your region.
From HR leadership to diversity and inclusion, hybrid working, organisational data, performance management, and retention strategies, Human Times is the only trusted free online news source dedicated to covering the most up to date headlines, articles, reports and interviews to make sure you’re abreast of changes in the HR industry.
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Recent Editions
Human Times
North America
Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters has sought to reassure staff after the Asia-focused bank announced plans to cut 15% of back-office jobs by 2030 as it expands AI. Winters said at the time: "It's not cost-cutting. It's replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we're putting in." In a memo to staff on Wednesday, which observed that the media coverage of the plans "may be unsettling when reduced to simple headlines or a quote out of context," Connecticut-born Winters said the bank had been open that its workforce will evolve. "Some roles will reduce in number, some will change, and new opportunities will emerge. We will continue to prioritize investment in reskilling and redeployment wherever we can . . . Where changes do happen, we will handle them with thought and care."
Full Issue
Human Times
UK
The UK unemployment rate increased to 5% for the first quarter, from 4.9% in the three months to February, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Vacancies fell to a five-year low. Payrolled employees decreased by 20,000, with an estimated drop of 100,000 expected in the following quarter, while youth unemployment reached 16.2%, the highest level since January 2015. Bosses blamed Labour's decisions to put up the minimum wage and National Insurance contributions for forcing them to turn away from hiring young people. Despite wage growth exceeding expectations at 4.1%, concerns about inflation and joblessness persist, with forecasts predicting a peak unemployment rate of around 5.3%. "The latest figures point to a labour market feeling the strain," observed Jack Kennedy, senior economist at jobs platform Indeed. "A volatile domestic political backdrop adds uncertainty that businesses could do without," he said.
Full Issue
Human Times
Europe
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will today deliver a ruling on the right to strike that could have profound implications for global labour relations. The top United Nations court has been asked to issue a non-binding advisory opinion on whether a treaty drawn up in 1948 by the International Labour Organisation, known as Convention 87, implicitly enshrines such a right. The treaty includes the right for workers "in full freedom, to organise their administration and activities." Unions say this by extension enshrines the right to industrial action; employers disagree. Although not binding, the ruling will in practice clarify the right to strike in international law. Harold Koh, representing the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said that if the court ruled the right to strike was not inherent in the Convention: "National employer groups would contest the right to strike country by country, focusing first on nations with compliant courts, weak civil societies and ineffective media."
Human Times
Middle East
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will today deliver a ruling on the right to strike that could have profound implications for global labour relations. The top United Nations court has been asked to issue a non-binding advisory opinion on whether a treaty drawn up in 1948 by the International Labour Organization, known as Convention 87, implicitly enshrines such a right. The treaty includes the right for workers "in full freedom, to organise their administration and activities." Unions say this by extension enshrines the right to industrial action; employers disagree. Although not binding, the ruling will in practice clarify the right to strike in international law. Harold Koh, representing the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said that if the court ruled the right to strike was not inherent in the Convention, "National employer groups would contest the right to strike country by country, focusing first on nations with compliant courts, weak civil societies and ineffective media."
Read the latest HR highlights
How HR is Tackling Long Covid?
Fingers remain tightly crossed around the world that the rampant hospitalization and fatality stage of the Covid-19 pandemic has generally peaked. Vaccination programmes are accelerating, and restrictions are gradually being lifted...
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ESG Is Not Just Another Name For CSR
Back in the distant 1980s if you wanted to demonstrate your environmental and ethical credentials it was sufficient to shop at or purchase shares in retailer The Body Shop. The charismatic Anita Roddick, founder of the “hippy” tinged retail chain, heralded a new age of environmental concern, caring capitalism and corporate awareness that evolved into what became known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR was much talked about and lauded, but in reality often ended up being a lot of a hot air (excuse the pun) and often never progressed much beyond a footnote in the annual report.
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Have Older Workers Paid The Highest COVID-19 Price?
Across the world the pandemic is slowly but surely moving into its next phase. Recovery beckons. As furlough schemes across the U.S. and U.K. are being wound down, restrictions eased or lifted, and workforces moving back up the gears, early signs indicate that older employees are more likely to be casualties of the pandemic aftermath than their younger colleagues. Here at the we have witnessed an increasing number of stories supporting the growing belief that older workers are disproportionately paying the highest Covid-19 price.
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Bosses. What's not to like? Plenty, say employees
“You’ll never have another boss like me, someone who’s basically a chilled-out entertainer”
So said, David Brent, the fictional manager of Slough-based paper merchant Wernham Hogg in the seminal TV comedy The Office. Ricky Gervais’s portrayal of Brent as a flawed, narcissistic, incompetent, and deluded manager was so well observed that many (including me) believed it was a genuine fly-on-the-wall documentary when they alighted accidentally on the first ever episode.
Rolling with the Payroll
To mark National Payroll Week the team at the Human Times has provided some insight into the industry that we hope you’ll find useful.
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