Chelmsford Borough Council to extend ‘successful’ internship scheme

Year-long paid placements offer ‘two-fold benefits’ for employer and intern

Chelmsford Borough Council is to take a second cohort of interns this autumn after the success of its inaugural programme. The local authority introduced a 12-month internship scheme last September after its workforce development plan revealed that only 14 per cent of town hall employees were in the 16-24 year old age group.

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Advanced people counting system also identifies age and gender

SG Systems, a market leading provider of anti-theft solutions and CCTV, has launched the People Classify Customer Activity Monitoring System (CAMS), which evaluates video-based, real-time analysis of visitor behaviour.

This advanced Customer Activity Monitoring System gives the ability to, not only counter customers but also identify their age and gender and even report the weather conditions at the time as well. With the help of intelligent 3D video analytics this market leading innovation can systematically and sustainably increase efficiency and achieve higher revenues on shop floors, hotels, casinos, shopping centres or other environments which rely on customer flow for renewable sales.

SG Systems claims that the people counting system can provide retailers with the highest precision in people counting; informing of how many people pass through specific location at what time, as well as distinguish male and female visitors and their age category.

SG Systems managing director, Symon Millward, said: “This innovative counting system can not only improve efficiency and quality of service but clearly add real value through the power of accurate and unique data”.

UK lacks top quality leadership, finds recent survey.

One-fifth of employers’ development programmes ‘ineffective’

Only one in five HR professionals and a third of leaders in the UK rate the quality of leadership as ‘high’ in their organisations, according to new CIPD research.

While 39 per cent of both leaders and HR professionals consider their organisations’ leadership development programmes to be highly effective, 20 per cent of leaders and 24 per cent of HR professionals rate their employers’ programmes as ineffective.

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Employers should ‘tailor compensation’ as work-life balance desires shift

Workers are increasingly prioritising holiday over pay as new research found that almost a third (31.4 per cent) of UK employees would sacrifice wages for more days off.

A poll of 1,008 workers, commissioned by recruitment firm hyphen, showed that even though employees continue to feel the impacts of higher living costs, they are increasingly looking for greater work-life balance from their employers.

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Firms urged to market apprenticeships to GCSE students

Rising number of programmes for adults but 16-18 age group neglected

As GCSE students collect their results today, the professional body for training providers has urged the government to ramp up the promotion of apprenticeships to employers.

A lack of understanding among some employers about the business benefits of taking on apprentices has limited the number of places available to young people, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said.

The government has already made a significant investment in apprenticeships and provisional data published in June revealed that 326,000 people joined a scheme in the first nine months of 2010-11.

But the number of people starting apprenticeships who were aged over 25 (121,000) was greater in that period than the number of 16-18 year olds (102,900) and of 19-24 year olds (102,800).

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Employees across the UK could be leaving themselves and their companies exposed if they fail to understand their responsibility when using their own cars on company business. That’s the finding from leading Trimble, who, in a recent survey, saw that six out of ten respondents were unaware of the fact that they needed to insure their car for business travel if they ever drive their own cars on behalf of their company.

There is a growing trend for firms to operate a ”grey fleet,” as it is often referred to, as the cost of managing a fleet of company vehicles becomes unsustainable for many UK organisations. However, the legal implications are not clear.

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Talent shortage is a barrier to expansion in North Sea, says oil giant

A lack of UK engineering skills is set to hamper future business growth at BP, according to one of the company’s European chiefs.

The oil giant is planning to create between 150 and 300 jobs a year to help fuel an expected increase in production, but difficulty recruiting the necessary talent is a potential barrier to expansion, said Trevor Garlick, head of the company’s North Sea operations.

“Getting hold of the right people is a real issue for us. We are hiring a lot people, but we are also an exporter of a couple of hundred people to other regions,” Garlick told the Sunday Telegraph.

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The Bank of England has downgraded the country’s economic growth forecast for this year by 0.3 per cent in its latest quarterly report, released yesterday. for 2011 from 1.8% to 1.5%, warning that “the headwinds are growing stronger by the day”. The forecast for 2012 was also downgraded from around 2.5 per cent to closer to 2 per cent, while Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King warned there was “a good chance” that the rate of inflation could hit 5 per cent by December, before easing next year.

The Bank’s governor, Mervyn King, said the main risks to the UK economy came from the rest of the world – notably the apparent slowdown in US growth and the eurozone debt crisis.

Chancellor George Osborne defended the government’s austerity plan in the Commons, a day after the Bank of England cut its growth forecast for the UK

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Retailers count cost of London riots – HR implements disaster planning to assist employees

Businesses are counting the cost of rioting that has taken place across London in the last three days, with retailers seeking the best way of responding to fires and widespread looting.

Retailers have been hard hit by the wave of lawlessness that has spread across the capital, with masked gangs setting fire to premises and attacking police and fire-fighters trying to save properties. The disorder started in Tottenham on Saturday but spread to Enfield, Croydon, Clapham, Hackney, Ealing and Peckham last night.

Big name brands such as Curry’s, JD Sports and Debenhams have been robbed, with some large stores in Clapham, Tottenham and Brixton completely cleared out.

Staff were either evacuated before the mob arrived, as happened in some parts of Hackney, or cowered behind locked doors in stock rooms and basements as stores were ransacked.

Debenhams, whose Clapham store was attacked on Monday night, said in a statement: “All staff were contacted last night and we are working with the police. Our priority is the safety of our staff and thankfully no one was hurt. At the moment that store remains closed.”

Retailers were briefed by the Metropolitan Police yesterday on how to deal with the situation but employers are looking at a constantly changing and unpredictable situation.

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Public workers ‘would rather take pay cut than pension cut’. Just over half in favour of strike over benefit reductions, survey finds

Nearly half of public-sector workers would rather take a pay cut than a pension cut, new research has claimed.

Coming the week after a  rise in personal pension contributions for public sector employees was confirmed, 45 per cent said they would rather decrease their salary than lose part of their pension entitlement, according to a study by recruitment consultancy Badenock & Clark. The remaining 55 per cent would either favour a pension cut or were unwilling to state a preference.

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