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European Edition
27th February 2023
 
THE HOT STORY
Thales to recruit 12,000 staff
Thales is to recruit 12,000 employees this year in response to robust demand across its product range, the French defence and technology group’s chief executive Patrice Caine has said in an interview with French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche. Over the past eight years Thales, which has a total headcount of 80,000, had hired 5,000 to 8,000 people per year and last year the company had hired 11,500 new staff, he said.  Caine said that all of Thales’ activities - defence and security, aeronautics and space, identity and digital security - were growing strongly. "The company is a reflection of its markets, which are all seeing dynamic growth, with needs growing in all our fields of activity," he said.
WORKFORCE
Intesa to give its insurance business employees four-day week option
Intesa Sanpaolo is to give the 1,264 staff in its insurance division the option of working four days a week for nine hours on equal pay and working remotely for up to 120 days a year. Italy’s biggest bank said the deal showed the importance of the insurance business for the group by giving employees with the insurance sector contract the same benefits of those with the banking sector contract. Staff in the banking business already have the four-day week option.
STRATEGY
Ericsson to lay off 8,500 employees
Ericsson is to lay off 8,500 employees globally as part of cost-cutting plans, according to a memo sent to employees. "The way headcount reductions will be managed will differ depending on local country practice," Borje Ekholm, the chief executive of the telecom equipment maker, wrote in the memo. "In several countries the headcount reductions have already been communicated," he said. Last week, the company, which employs more than 105,000 worldwide, announced plans to cut about 1,400 jobs in its home country of Sweden.
Britishvolt bought by Recharge Industries
Recharge Industries has bought battery maker Britishvolt out of administration. Recharge Industries, which is owned and run by New York-based investment fund Scale Facilitation, will keep the Britishvolt brand name and intends to focus on batteries for energy storage. Britishvolt had plans to build a £4bn battery plant in Northumberland but collapsed last month after running out of money.
HYBRID WORKING
HSBC seeks smaller HQ
HSBC is looking for a new London office that is less than half the size of its current site. The bank is seeking a new global headquarters of between 400,000 and 500,000 sq ft – far smaller than its 45-storey skyscraper at Canary Wharf, which spans 1.1m square feet. Having embraced remote and hybrid working to a greater extent than peers such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, HSBC wants to reduce its office space by 40% globally compared with pre-pandemic levels.
TECHNOLOGY
Robot lawyer that drafts legal contracts in the offing after chatbot deal
A British artificial intelligence start-up has secured a deal with a Google-backed rival to OpenAI to develop a robot lawyer that can draft contracts as law firms embrace the buzz surrounding ChatGPT. RobinAI, which has just secured $10.5m (£8.8m) in equity funding, is developing a lawyer bot that can pick apart contracts and suggest new wording to solicitors. RobinAI is working with Anthropic, a Google-backed company that has raised over $1bn and is working on a rival technology to OpenAI. Its technology is currently in use by Clifford Chance. The Telegraph notes that any recommendations from the legal robot would need “careful review” by a qualified lawyer.  
CORPORATE
SAP names ex-Deloitte CEO as chairman designate
Software company SAP has named former Deloitte chief executive Punit Renjen as designated supervisory board chairman to succeed co-founder Hasso Plattner, whose term will expire in May 2024 after two decades. SAP said that, under Mr. Renjen's lead, Deloitte's sales grew to $59bn from $35bn in just seven years, calling his track record impeccable.
TAX
France plans to clamp down on tax evasion
France is to tighten oversight of tax evasion and social security fraud after recovering a record €14.6bn ($15.5bn) from fiscal irregularities last year. Budget Minister Gabriel Attal said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper that the government collected €9bn from companies in 2022.  “This is an urgent and major issue, and we want to go further,” Attal said, speaking on Franceinfo radio Thursday. “Tax evasion not only creates a shortage of public funds, it’s also discouraging to millions of French people who work every day and follow the rules.”
INTERNATIONAL
EY apologises over email leak amid workplace review
EY has apologised for accidentally leaking the personal details of current and former employees. The error came as EY Oceania launched a review into the firm's workplace culture following the death of worker Aishwarya Venkatachalam. Ms Venkatachalam, 27, fell to her death from the 11th floor of the company's Sydney office in August last year.  Her friends and family claim she had been bullied and racially insulted while working at EY. The review will be conducted by Australia’s former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, who will look at EY's culture, work practices and psychological health and safety. EY also launched two additional internal reviews in the wake of Ms Venkatachalam's death to tackle mental health and safety support within the organisation. Separately, the FT reports that Communist party members at EY China in Beijing have been asked to wear their party badges to show their political loyalty while they are at work.
Spotify workers want more clarity about diversity fund
Union members at Parcast, the podcast studio at Spotify that specializes in true-crime programming, want management to provide more clarity about an annual fund intended to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA). In a letter to management, the employees, who are members of the Writers Guild of America East, said Spotify agreed in an April 2022 union contract to give the group’s DEIA committee $100,000 annually to “guide, assist and monitor the progress of diversity, parity, and inclusion with regard to recruitment, selection, retention, mentorship, advancement and editorial coverage.” Nearly a year later, Spotify has only approved spending of $5,000, the employees said, despite union members proposing projects they believed fell under the fund umbrella. “We are seriously questioning this company’s commitment to funding this committee, and by extension, the values it represents,” the union said, observing also that management hasn’t provided more information around the process for using the money.  “We have been having active conversations with Parcast’s DEIA Committee on the fund,” Spotify said in an email. “It remains a priority to thoughtfully utilize the allocated fund in accordance with the committee’s goals.”
Some UAE employees benefit from additional vacation days
Khaleej Times takes a look at how some companies in the UAE and the wider Gulf region are offering an ‘unlimited’ annual leave policy to attract and retain talent as part of a larger benefits package. One UAE company that offers the policy is Dubai-based app Careem. In an interview with Khaleej Times, Kai Sin Tan, director of rewards and benefits at Careem, said the company offers an unlimited leave policy to provide “colleagues with the flexibility they need to accommodate personal circumstances while meeting the exceptionally demanding requirements of their jobs,” adding “It’s part of our wider colleague value proposition which includes a flexible hybrid of in-office and home days and the opportunity to work from other locations for 30 days per year.” Tarek Salam, head of Mena Expansion at global HR platform Deel, nevertheless cautions that some employees could take advantage of the policy by requesting excessive time off, or use it as a way to extend long weekends or holidays, and this could have a deleterious impact on resources, productivity, and ultimately the company's bottom line.
OTHER
Academy adds Oscars ‘crisis team’ after Will Smith slap
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer has told Time magazine that the organisation has added a new “crisis team” for the upcoming 2023 Oscars to quickly deal with any potential real-time emergency. The team has been created in response to the incident during the 2022 Oscars when Will Smith walked on stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock across the face. Academy president Janet Yang previously said the organisation’s response to the incident was not rapid enough. “We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place,” Kramer said. “We’ve run many scenarios. So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we’re planning for just in case it does happen.”
 


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