Issue 30 - May 2009

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Welcome to issue thirty of transform-hr.com, our e-zine for HR and payroll professionals. In this issue Steve Foster looks at the debate around integrated v separate HR and Payroll systems and we explore employee stress, the symptoms to look for and how you can manage employees back to the workplace. We also have a range of articles from discussing ‘Layoffs and short-time working’ through to our regular legislation timetable ‘Legal Eagle’ in Industry Specials.

Transform-hr.com will give you ideas, knowledge and inspiration to help you transform HR and payroll to deliver effective structures, policies, services and processes that can significantly impact your business in a positive way.

Transform-hr.com is a comprehensive online source of knowledge and thinking for the HR and payroll community. Therefore to ensure it provides the best service, responses and feedback to the topics discussed are critical to the e-zine's continued success!

special feature

Advice on managing an employee signed off with stress

Following on from the article in the last edition of transform-hr.com on managing sickness, this article focuses on the impact of employees suffering from stress, what the symptoms are and how you can manage their absence in a way that is conducive to enabling the individual to return to the workplace effectively... [more]

opinion column

The Big Debate: Integrated v Separate HR and Payroll Systems

Organisations often agonise over the best approach to running their HR and Payroll systems, with a common question being whether to have a fully integrated HR and Payroll system or to operate entirely separate systems, one containing HR data and one running payroll. Let's explore the arguments either way... [more]

industry specials

Pitfalls of Lay-offs and Short-time Working

In the current economic climate, employers are able to make use of lay-offs and short-time working to deal with temporary work shortages or adverse trading conditions before the requirement to make redundancies is reached... [more]

also in industry specials this issue:

New Rights for Agency Workers

The Agency Workers Directive, currently undergoing initial consultation, will provide agency workers with the right to equal treatment in relation to basic working and employment conditions after 12 weeks in a given job... [more]

Time Off Work to Train

An extension to the right for employees to request time off work to train is expected to be introduced in 2010 as part of the Children, Skills and Learning Bill... [more]

Redundancy Pay Increase

As part of the 2009 Budget, Alistair Darling has announced an increase to the maximum amount of a "week's pay" for the purposes of calculating statutory redundancy payment entitlement... [more]

Time Off Work for IVF Treatment

An employer who is faced with an employee undertaking IVF treatment can turn out to be a difficult issue for an employer to manage... [more]

Legal Eagle

Here is a summary of forthcoming legislation that could affect you and your company. [more]

schools

National Peer Mentoring Programme for Schools

To ensure the government’s commitment to significantly improve the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults, the government have formed a new organisation - the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) to process and monitor applicants who apply to work with vulnerable people... [more]

recruitment

Why Outsource?

Recruitment is a key part of the HR lifecycle but is often time consuming and costly... [more]

ipp news

Introduction

[more]

also in ipp news this issue:

Tax Changes

Announced in the budget were changes in tax rates, personal allowances, and pension tax relief. The IPP has confirmed with HMRC on how these changes will be operated by employers, specifically payroll... [more]

Redundancy rate change

There will be a change to the weekly Statutory Redundancy Rate... [more]

Budget illustrative tables

[more]

Naming and Shaming defaulter taxpayers

Who is affected... [more]

Penalties for Late filing of Returns and Late Payment of Tax

Taxpayers affected by the measures are those who do not file their tax returns or pay their tax liabilities on time for... [more]

How will the Penalties be applied for PAYE and CIS?

Penalties for late filing of CIS returns include... [more]

HMRC e-learning modules for penalties

HMRC has pulled together a landing page for the seven e-learning modules that have been used to train its own staff on the new penalties regime that is now in force... [more]

Right to Appeal

[more]

Reducing burdens on business

Since 2006, the Government have implemented or committed to new measures that will deliver administrative savings to business of around £540 million per annum, made up of... [more]

Supporting Business

HMRC is committed to supporting business, particularly through these challenging times, highlights include... [more]

Gender pay audits - a role for payroll?

With the recent publication of the Equality Bill payroll departments may well find that they are the ones who will be called on to provide the statistics to enable an analysis of gender pay statistics to be included in annual reports... [more]

Extend maternity rights further says EU commission

The Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Department (BERR) has issued a consultation on the European Commission's proposals to reform the Pregnant Workers' Directive to provide for better work-life balance and employment protection for pregnant women and new mothers... [more]

National Minimum Wage

The government has been under continuous pressure from the British Hospitality Association not to implement the change to National Minimum Wage regulations in October, which outlaw the inclusion of tips in National Minimum Wage pay however they are paid... [more]

New penalties for those who underpay their workers

Employers will now face a penalty if HMRC discover they have failed to pay workers the NMW... [more]

Scottish Parliament Revokes Earnings Arrestment Changes

Earlier this year, the Scottish Parliament announced that from the 6 April 2009 employers would need to operate Earnings Arrestment Orders using new guidelines... [more]

48 hour opt-out

Back in April a meeting took place between delegations from the European Commission, Members of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers... [more]

Working Time guidance

In light of the increase in annual leave to 28 days (5.6 weeks) from 6 April 2009, BERR have updated their guidance... [more]

Flexible working extension

The regulations to support the extension of flexible working to parents of children up to 16 years old was published in March and came into effect on 6 April 2009... [more]

Updated online filing Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA)

This makes interesting reading if only to register the amount of investment the government has already made to support online filing and the future spending plans... [more]

Tribunals Reform

Changes to the tax appeals system and new internal review process... [more]

New Adjudicator

HMRC has appointed Judy Clements as the Adjudicator, taking over from Dame Barbara Mills... [more]

Employer CD-ROM 2009

HMRC has issued the following statement... [more]

New compliance checks - fact sheets

HMRC have published a series of fact sheets to help customers understand the new framework for compliance checks... [more]

Guide for pension and annuity payers

HMRC has published additional guidance on more unusual scenarios that pension payrolls may come across... [more]

State pension age for women

The DWP have begun writing to women born after 5 April 1955 who will be affected by the move to a new state pension age of 65... [more]

Consultation on auto-enrolment into pension personal accounts

A consultation and impact assessment has been published by DWP that looks at the practical arrangements by which employers will be required to... [more]

Loss of pension tax relief

[more]