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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
Employees and executives at Commerzbank, as well as some investors, criticised UniCredit's new cross-border takeover attempt at the start of the German lender's shareholder meeting. Commerzbank employees, blowing whistles, gathered before the AGM with signs reading "UniCredit go away!" Frederik Werning, a union official and Commerzbank supervisory board member, told Reuters: "We are deeply concerned that if [the] plans go through, they will not be strategically sound, they will lead to job losses, and they will also threaten German small and medium-sized businesses." Commerzbank has said a deal could result in the loss of 11,000 full-time jobs, nearly a third of the workforce.
Full Issue
Human Times
Middle East
Facebook owner Meta has detailed its layoff plans for this week in a memo shared with staff. The company said workforce reductions globally would be accompanied by a fresh round of organisational changes aimed at improving its AI workflows. Meta Chief People Officer Janelle Gale said in the memo that the company plans to move 7,000 employees to new initiatives related to AI workflows and to eliminate managerial roles. "Many leaders will announce org changes," she said. "As org leaders worked on the changes, many of them incorporated AI native design principles into their new org structures. We're now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership." New initiatives where Gale said staff were being transferred include those aimed at developing AI agents that can autonomously carry out tasks currently performed by humans.
Full Issue
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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