Is it all about the money, money, money?
Posted on 20th June 2016
It’s understandable that companies will throw cash at the problem of the disengaged employee. Here is someone who you believe is essential to your business. They are bright, hard working, and eminently capable. They have a good CV and, at interview, they did better than anyone else. So when this employee tells you that they don’t want to work for…
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The Performance Review – positive and valuable or a pain in the proverbial?
Posted on 26th May 2016
Let’s face it, most managers and employees look forward to conducting performance reviews about as much as a hole in the head. Why? A number of reasons come to mind: time pressures; fear of confrontation – feedback can be difficult to give as well as to take; a lack of belief in what they actually achieve, and so on. In…
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Pension scams on the rise
Posted on 11th May 2016
When it comes to company pensions, many employers believe their job is done when their colleagues reach retirement and head off into the sunset. However, many employers are now taking steps to ensure their older employees are aware of the rising number of pension scams being reported in the media. After all, the last thing any employer wants is for…
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Ink MD joins Corporate Adviser debate
Posted on 26th April 2016
Ink MD, Billy Johnson joined Corporate Adviser’s ‘Wired’ webinar recently to discuss how to work smarter with SME’s, in particular how to better serve small business customers with data integrated people solutions. See the full video here. CA Wired: Working smarter with SMEs – Serving small business customers with data integrated people solutions…
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The New State Pension – Good news for all?
Posted on 26th April 2016
From 6th April 2016, changes to the State Pension will affect everyone reaching State Pension Age (currently 65) on or after this date. However, recent news reports reflect the conversations Ink has with employees every day – that people aren’t quite sure how this will affect them. Although the headlines refer to a simpler and fairer State Pension, this hides…
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Swindon Town FC receives a red card from The Pensions Regulator
Posted on 26th April 2016
In another example of the Pensions Regulator’s stance on companies who fail to comply with their Auto-Enrolment (AE) responsibilities, Swindon Town Football Club have been fined £22,900 for not enrolling eligible employees into a pension and non-compliance with other AE duties. Charles Counsell, executive director of Automatic Enrolment at the Pensions Regulator, said: “This case illustrates what can happen when…
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Trusting the Master Trusts
Posted on 2nd March 2016
As all employers with less than 30 workers begin to get to grips with their auto-enrolment duties over the coming months, we are beginning to see an increase in “master trust” pension arrangements being marketed to smaller companies. In boring-pension-speak, a master trust is a multi-employer occupational pension scheme. In simple terms, this means it’s a pension designed to provide…
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What have UK employers got to thank the EU for?
Posted on 24th February 2016
In the arguments for Brexit, it seems to us that the majority of commentators cite ‘EU laws’ as the primary reason to get out of Dodge. We’re not going to argue one way or the other for Boris or for David, but we can’t help being curious about the influence that European legislature has had on peoples’ thinking on this…
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The Ink Group wins prestigious national Auto Enrolment Award
Posted on 23rd February 2016
We’re delighted to say that Ink has won Best Adviser Auto Enrolment Proposition at the Corporate Adviser Awards 2016, this is a prestigious national award for the quality of our Auto Enrolment Proposition. The judge’s feedback was as follows: Shining through with a scalable, affordable yet effective proposition, our judging panel loved the way The Ink Group approaches auto-enrolment.
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How do I know if my staff value the employee benefits I provide?
Posted on 10th February 2016
Given that all an employer in the UK is legally obliged to do is pay the National Minimum Wage (soon to be National Living Wage) and then auto enrol staff into a workplace pension scheme at 1% of qualifying earnings, we do spend a lot on employee benefits. Why? Lots of reasons really, but I think the most common…
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