Highlights of the CIPD Festival of Work
The 2024 CIPD Festival of Work was a landmark achievement for HR professional development, with over 11,000 attendees gaining access to more than 150 content sessions, 60 festival activities, and 180 exhibitors of leading products and services.
Keynote Speeches
The festival opened with Dr Daniel Hulme’s keynote speech, ‘Rethinking AI and impact on Business and Humanity’. Dr Hulme inspired attendees by generously sharing ideas for how HR practitioners could use Artificial Intelligence, including: data visualisation, chatbots, employee avatars, video generation, and network analysis.
Stacey Dooley MBE presented the next keynote, with the topic of breaking barriers and igniting change in media, mind, and society. The compelling speech was warmly received by attendees, with highlights including an amusing anecdote about her experience meeting David Dimbleby, and sincere reflections on her gratitude for the many learning experiences she accesses through her work. Attendees were moved by her explanation of the difficulties and disillusionment she experienced with education as a teenager, and her genuine appreciation for the lifelong learning opportunities offered through her career. The Learning and Development Stage offered attendees a wealth of professional development content, with topics including: lifelong learning, strategic skills development, and navigating the future landscape of learning initiatives.
The final keynote was presented by Alex Mahon, Chief Executive of Channel 4. This insightful speech explored leadership, culture, and key principles for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Attendees engaged with her exploration of authenticity, resilience in response to challenges, and her passion for fostering an open and honest organisational culture. The Festival provided further opportunities for reflection on the importance of EDI with a plethora of interesting presentations and panel discussions on topics including: neurodiversity, psychological safety, advocacy, and diverse leadership.
Takeaways for Employers
It’s an exciting time for professional development with a vast amount of guidance and learning opportunities, but many people are likely to feel apprehensive about the volume of work involved in keeping up with the increased compliance requirements and recommendations for best practices.
Bright Contracts clients have access to over one hundred carefully reviewed employment policies and additional resources, including new content for 2024 on Flexible Working, Carer’s Leave, Paternity Leave, and Absence Management.
Happy International Women's Day!
Happy International Women's Day!
At Bright we celebrate all our employee's achievements and progress in the Tech industry every day, but with International Women's Day being upon us we wanted to shed a light on some of our amazing women by gathering a few of our Bright women and hearing what International Women's day means to them, who the inspiring women in their lives are, an important piece of advice they have been given and much more. We also included some of our Bright men who shared their experiences and opinions with us too.
On IWD2023 and beyond, everyone everywhere can help forge an inclusive world. Let's #EmbraceEquity to create places & spaces where women thrive.
To Pay or Not to Pay – The Jubilee Bank Holiday
On Friday 3 June 2022, there will be an extra Bank Holiday granted to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The usual May Bank Holiday has been moved forward to Thursday 2 June 2022 resulting in a four-day weekend for those able to take time off.
What are your employees’ rights when an additional Bank Holiday is announced?
The general rule is that employees do not have an automatic right to a day off work when this or any other Bank Holiday is announced. Employers will need to review their contract of employment to determine if an employee is entitled to a day off work and to be paid for it.
Some contracts of employment will state that the employee is entitled to a certain number of days of annual leave, “plus bank holidays”. In this case, they will be entitled to the additional Bank Holiday off work.
Other contracts of employment state that the employee is entitled to a set number of days of annual leave, but do not mention Bank Holidays. In this scenario, the employee will not be automatically entitled to the additional Bank Holiday off work.
Some employment contracts provide the employee with a set number of days of annual leave “plus eight Bank Holidays”. Again, this will mean that the employee is not automatically entitled to the additional Bank Holiday off work.
If the contract states “you are entitled to XX days holidays plus the usual bank holidays in England and Wales” again this would not give the worker an automatic right to the additional Bank Holiday because the addition Jubilee day is not a “usual” bank holiday
Employers will need to review their employees’ contracts of employment to see whether all of them, some of them, or none of them are entitled to take the Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday off of work.
Where employees do not have a contractual right to the additional Bank Holiday, employers will need to consider if they wish to grant the day’s leave as a gesture of goodwill, if they will require employees to attend work or if they will give employees a day off in lieu of the Bank Holiday due to staffing requirements.
Whilst it is important to comply with the letter of the contract of employment or work, the additional Bank Holiday can also be a morale booster for staff. You may consider granting employees an additional day’s holiday for the Jubilee as an act of goodwill, stressing of course the reason for it being allowed as a one-off gesture.
Related Articles:
Extra Bank Holiday for Queen's Jubilee
Are you up to date with family friendly leave?
Family friendly leave has developed significantly in recent years. Keeping abreast of what’s what can be challenging for employers.
BrightPay’s employment law experts have designed a free webinar for employers, which will give attendees an overview of Maternity, Paternity, Shared Parental Leave and Parental Leave how to process them directly through payroll.
The webinar will highlight frequently asked questions in relation to the leave types mentioned above, such as:
- Who is eligible?
- How employees apply?
- Pay and other benefits during family friendly leave.
- Managing family friendly leave efficiently and legally!
The webinar will give attendees a chance to ask any questions you may have, with an interactive Q&A session at the end of the webinar.
Places are limited for this webinar. Don’t miss out – book your place now!
If you cannot attend the webinar, don't worry – the webinar will be recorded and as long as you have registered you will receive a link to the recording afterwards.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
