Listed below are the biggest stories you may have missed this week.
UK Government should award more bank holidays say TUC
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) is calling on the UK Government to create four new public holidays, with one being in between August and Christmas.
Workers in England and Wales only receive eight bank holidays a year, the smallest amount of bank holidays awarded in any European Union (EU) country. The EU average lies at 12 days. Countries like Cyprus, Slovakia, Finland and Slovenia all have 15 days of bank holiday a year.
UK employees see flexible working as most popular way of earning a living in the future
More than half (58 per cent) of UK workers feel that the most popular method of employment in the future will be flexible working.
This is according to research undertaken by ETZ Payments, a provider of back office software for recruiters. Over a third (35 per cent) would rather have flexible working over a pay rise and 43 per cent think flexibility is the most important issue when choosing a job.
Simon Blake: Tackling ‘summer burnout’ in the workplace
Simon Blake OBE, chief executive of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) explains what ‘summer burnout’ is and gives three tips on how to circumvent it.
Warning from top lawyer for companies to not take employee monitoring ‘too far’
Vanessa Bell, head of employment law at Prettys, an Ispwich-based law firm has given a stark warning to companies that use workplace surveillance to monitor their employees to not take it “a step too far”.
She condemns these acts and states that they could “have a negative effect” on employees’ wellbeing. Ms Bell believes it is far from uncommon that firms now record “staff telephone calls, monitor emails, log the addresses of websites visited and record activity on CCTV.”
She also thinks it is important that employers’ actions remain lawful as well as considering the potential impact on workers.
UK employees told to ‘man up’ from their bosses in regards to mental health problems
Under a fifth of UK employees were told to ‘man up’ when they told their boss they were dealing with mental health issues.
This comes from research conducted by Slater and Gordon a UK and Australian law firm which found that 14 per cent of UK employees received this response from their senior.
This is made worse by the fact that 13 per cent are either fired, forced to leave or demoted when they talk to their boss about this issue.
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Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.
