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7th May 2021

THE HOT STORY

Gen Z is unconvinced about the honesty of business leaders

Generation Z is not convinced that top business leaders are honest, according to new research from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). Fewer than four in 10 believe business leaders have integrity while just a quarter (26%) believe companies are contributing towards the fight against climate change. The ACCA and the IFAC quizzed 310 individuals studying finance or accountancy in the UK, and found that 60% of 18 to 25-year-olds thought business had a positive impact on wider society, despite their scepticism about the honesty of bosses. Jamie Lyon, head of business management at ACCA’s Professional Insights team, said: “There’s advice in our report for all business sectors – not just accountancy – about how to harness the potential of Gen Zs in the workplace, and also about how to gain trust. Business integrity matters to Gen Z, suggesting that in the minds of younger people that the image of businesses – in some aspects – remains to be improved.”

City AM

HIRING

UK recruitment activity recovers at record rate

A monthly report from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation shows job hiring in the UK bounced back in April at the fastest rate since records began in 1997. Private sector employers led the increase in activity, with computing seeing the steepest increase in permanent vacancies, followed by accounting, finance and engineering. Retail was the only sector to register lower demand for permanent staff. However, those looking for work or to move jobs fell in April at the sharpest rate since January 2020, partly due to furlough but also because of concerns about job security and a reduction in foreign workers after Brexit.

The Times

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

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REMOTE WORKING

Google says a fifth of workers will be remote workers

Google expects about 20% of its staff to work remotely after the company's offices reopen this fall, and some 60% will work a hybrid schedule that includes about three days in the office and two days “wherever they work best.” The remaining 20% of workers can change their location to a different Google office. “The future of work is flexibility,” CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in an email to employees that outlined a policy that relaxed the company's stricter earlier stance. “The changes . . . are a starting point to help us do our very best work and have fun doing it.” Employees will - for up to 20 days per year - also be able to work from any location other than their main office. The previous such allotment was 10 days. The company will also continue to offer workers extra “reset” days — days off to help them cope with the impact of the pandemic.

U.S. News

WORKFORCE

Hybrid working week will be the norm for many

Ryan Bourne, an economist, writes in the Telegraph about how the pandemic has revised people’s opinions of working from home (WFH), with 76% of UK working adults saying their perceptions of WFH have improved - 10 times the number who say their perceptions have worsened. A survey by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom found 29% of people felt they worked more productively at home, against 21% who said they were less efficient. The Bloom survey identifies six clear reasons why companies in both the US and UK will likely opt for hybrid models. Meanwhile, governments will need to prepare for changes to transport and commercial property markets, Bourne continues, while companies will need to attend to team morale and whether they will have to carve out different approaches to WFH depending on workers’ age and seniority.

The Daily Telegraph

Employers aware of workers’ need for increased pension support

According to Willis Towers Watson, more than three-quarters (79%) of UK employers say they recognise the importance of greater support for retirement savings over the next two years. The firm’s Future of Financial Wellbeing study found that employers were focusing on improving financial wellbeing to help employees cope with the economic fallout of COVID-19, with just over three-quarters (76%) of employers stating that their employees wanted them to take a more active role in supporting their financial wellbeing.

Pensions Age

Older workers hit harder in pandemic

From last October, the ONS says redundancy rates among those aged 50 and over rose above the rates for other UK age groups and stayed highest until the end of February.

Financial Times

STRATEGY

London emerges bruised from lockdown

Bloomberg examines how London is emerging bruised from lockdown in the aftermath of Brexit and a pandemic that has hit the capital harder than other regions in the UK. Official data show that the City accounts for a quarter of UK output and suffered almost 30% of the drop in payrolls nationwide in the past year. Some of the headwinds facing London are tied to people moving to the capital’s suburbs and beyond for extra space, while Brexit is draining away high-paying finance work. Meanwhile, William Wallis in the FT considers whether London can reinvent itself after the pandemic.

Bloomberg

Financial Times

INTERNATIONAL

Compliance officers have a growing role in corporate sustainability efforts

US companies including Dell and Western Union are relying more on the work of their chief compliance officers as they seek to demonstrate to ESG-focused shareholders their commitment to sustainability. Such companies believe that the role played by compliance in ensuring that employees act ethically is key to corporate efforts to attract sustainability-minded investors. “A compliance officer is viewed as a leader in ethics, in good corporate practices,” observes Taylor Pullins, a former sustainability director for Houston-based oil and gas producer Noble Energy. “Right there, they have a role in disclosing internally to employees and to the market about why they are a responsible corporation.” The Wall Street Journal notes the legal risks associated with ESG commitments, as regulators take steps to protect investors from claims that could be viewed as deceptive — or so-called “greenwashing.” Dave Curran, who leads law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison’s sustainability practice, says: “Over the last couple of years, [ESG] has become a mountaintop of risk . . . Lawyers and compliance executives are getting more and more involved in everything from pressure-testing disclosures, to analysing processes and procedures, to tracking, measuring and monitoring these programs.”

Wall Street Journal

Remote working can transform disabled people’s job prospects

A report from PwC Middle East urges organisations in the region to capitalise on the growing popularity of remote working, and transform the employment prospects of people with disabilities. The firm’s Remote-Ability report identifies barriers to the effective participation of disabled people and offers suggestions to support their inclusion in the local labour market. The most recent data indicate that the share of people with disabilities across GCC countries ranges from 4.37% of the population in Saudi Arabia to between 1% and 3% of the population in other member states. Randa Bahsoun, Partner at PwC Middle East, said: “Data drives every forward-thinking diversity strategy. We need to understand where we are as a region before taking the next steps. GCC countries are well placed to leverage technology in order to transform their labour market while increasing access for [people with disabilities] and acting as models of best practice for other governments. For this approach to be successful, GCC leaders, policymakers, educators and stakeholders from the public, private and non-profit sectors should collaborate to institutionalise an inclusive ecosystem for people with disabilities, where they can be active and productive whilst ensuring their voices are heard along the way.”

The Peninsula

New labour laws in Spain to boost jobs

Spain is to enact new labour laws by early next year to boost the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs while the nation’s economy recovers from the pandemic. “Our goal is to have a new labour market framework by the beginning of 2022 that helps to ensure strong growth in quality jobs, with greater productivity and better salaries,” Economy Minister Nadia Calvino said, adding that the proposed reforms aim to simplify the number of contracts and modernize the country's framework for collective bargaining.

Bloomberg

Singapore needs foreign tech talent

The head of Singapore’s central bank says the country needs foreign tech talent to stave off a crisis. Ravi Menon said that if the inflow of foreign labour is tightened excessively, “it will impair not just the competitiveness of our financial centre but dampen the prospects for creating good jobs in the future, especially for Singaporeans . . . The answer does not lie in restricting the inflow of foreign tech expertise. On the contrary, it is by attracting the best tech talents from around the world that we can anchor new tech capabilities and functions that expand job opportunities for Singaporeans.” A lack of local skills means Singaporeans make up just a third of the financial sector’s tech workforce, notes ITPro.

ITPro

OTHER

State pension cut for Britons who retire to EU

Millions of Britons who are planning to retire to the EU could face a hefty cut to their pensions due to post-Brexit rule changes. UK expats who move to the Continent and have previously lived in Australia, Canada or New Zealand will be hit by changes to how the state pension is calculated. This is because any years spent working in those three countries will now no longer be counted towards the state pension. John Westwood of Blacktower Financial Management warned that the change would hurt expats during a turbulent time. "If the Government goes ahead with this change in rule, they need to lay out clear foundations for UK expats on the new state pension breakdown," he said.

The Daily Telegraph

Popularity in class linked to age

Researchers have found that school pupils are considered more popular the older they are in relation to their classmates. The study, which surveyed more than 13,000 teenagers aged 14-15 in England, Sweden and the Netherlands, found that relative age related to primary school cut-off date for school enrolment was strongly associated with popularity in England. The link was even sharper in the Netherlands, where underperforming students are required to repeat a school year. Co-author Frank van Tubergen, from Utrecht University, said: "So, in England, if you're born in an unlucky month, it will be so for the rest of your educational career, whereas in the Netherlands, the system of grade retention and skipping classes creates over-time changes in class composition, which makes current age more salient/relevant than past relative age."

The Guardian

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