Happl to see you again for another weekly update!?
This week’s digest discusses what’s next for the Chancellors budget, the employment rights bill being published and continued discussion and controversy around return to office.
Subscribe to stay effortlessly on top of the latest HR news every week! We’d also love to hear your feedback as we refine this series.
3 pieces of HR content from last week
1. Upcoming Labour budget could see businesses affected
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has made clear that there is a ￡25 billion “black hole” in British finances. To fill this hole will require finding more money. However, Labour have backed themselves into a corner that involves “not increasing taxes on working people”. So, where will they find the extra money? We’ve listed some of the rumoured places that, should they be true, may affect businesses. We’ll have proper coverage and guidance on next steps on the 30th October when the budget is announced.?
- A flat rate for pension tax relief: Between 20-30%, currently at 20% for lower earners, 40% for higher earners and 45% for additional-rate. This would reduce the amount of tax relief higher-rate payers get.
- Ending National Insurance relief on employer pension contributions: It’s likely that, if enacted, employers would need to pay a low rate of NI on pension contributions (e.g. 2%).
- Increasing Capital Gains Tax (CGT): This would come with a variety of risks and caveats and may end up seeing specific exemptions and protections for various groups as some forecasts suggest this could lead to a loss in funds raised long term.
- Increased taxes on “unhealthy” product companies: This could “improve the health of the nation” as well as raising significant funds. Key industries they’d be targeting would be Alcohol, Tobacco and Junk Food categories.
- Reduce the small profit rate for corporation tax: Currently for businesses earning under ￡50,000 in profit, the rate could be increased.
- Changes to business and farming inheritance tax relief: Currently, the value of business assets is reduced to either 50% or 100% to help allow businesses and farming to be passed down to generations.
- Increase fuel duty: This was recently reduced by 5p and has been frozen since 2011
- Remove R&D tax reliefs: There are a number of reliefs set up to incentivise R&D in the UK, these reliefs could be reduced.
- It seems the Labour party's hands are rather tied by campaign commitments. It’s likely something will happen with pensions, we’re just not sure what.
- All of this is currently speculation, so little preparation can/should be done.
- The budget will be released on 30th October, we’ll be providing coverage and guidance once it’s up.
2. The employment rights bill officially published
- We’ve heard most of this already, it’s now been published in an official bill
- The bill was introduced on 10th October
- Legislation likely wouldn’t come into effect until Autumn 2026 at the earliest
- Key topics include day one rights (e.g. protection against unfair dismissal, unfair zero hour contracts, strengthen statutory sick pay and more)
- Ending fire and rehire
We covered this previously, see in detail below
3. Work from home & RTO debates continue (yet again)
- Dell have told all employees they now need to be back in the office 5 days a week, every week, however they only gave many employees 2 days notice of this change
- Spotify, in an interview, doubled down on their “work from anywhere policy”, stating that WFH employees were “not children”.
- An ongoing battle of RTO and WFH is continuing, especially in tech
- These businesses often talk amongst themselves, thus we should expect more RTO mandates to follow soon
- A hybrid system seems to be a good balance between ensuring productivity and connection whilst giving employees freedom and trust
- There are lessons to be learned and businesses should consult data and facts before mandating RTO based on outdated ideologies
Upcoming webinars
Openup presents:
The Future of Global Workforces: Trends and Predictions for 2025
- Remote Work & Distributed Teams: How to make remote-first work and seamlessly manage teams spread across different countries.
- Global Hiring, EOR & Compliance: Proven strategies to find top talent worldwide while staying on the right side of local labour laws.
- The Role of AI & Tech: Discover how the latest tech and AI tools can supercharge your global HR and payroll operations.
- The Rise of the Gig Economy: Tips on managing a flexible, contract-based workforce across the globe as the gig economy continues to grow.
Tuesday, 22nd October 2024 - 4pm BST
And that's a wrap ??
Bravo, you’ve made it to the end. You should be all caught up on the hot HR topics of yesterweek.
We’ll be back on Monday 21st October for another weekly digest. Thanks for taking the time to read our third edition! Enjoy your working week!
Subscribe so you don’t miss out, and if you’re feeling EXTRA nice this Monday morning, drop us a follow as well.
Thank you to
Business Insider
and
Fortune
for providing fantastic HR content.
