Xigaware

Pensions provisions have long since been a worry for organizations who have seen over the last 10 years a huge fall in investment returns in their pension funds together with an ever increasing life expectancy and therefore mushrooming pension liabilities for these reduced funds to cover.

We have seen companies try to deal with these issues by re defining benefits and asking their staff to accept the planned changes. However a lot of the staff are discontented with the proposed changes and see any lessening in their pension availability (and other benefits) as unjust. Indeed in the UK at the moment there are huge issues with our postal workers, currently striking in order to defend the long time postal workers benefits. Royal Mail obviously saw problems looming a considerable amount of time ago. The employment contracts issued over the last five years allow employees with much less entitlement to benefits (including pensions) than workers who have been with the business for a longer period of time. So we have an perculiar situation within the organization at the moment, some workers out on strike to defend benefits they themselves are not actually entitled to.

We have just come through the worst period of job losses that the UK has experienced for decades and following this down turn we will see the beginnings of a recovery over the next few months. However the organisations looking for new staff over the coming months will not be just replacing like for like in the job offer and benefits stakes. They will be looking to increase employee numbers, but keep a firm check on the benefits that they are obligated to for the long term. Pensions offers will be much less attractive, to stop the growth of the current problems and job contracts may well be for shorter periods.

There might be some positive results from the new style contracts too. As more and more organisations harness the power of Internet Business we will see some inventive organizations start to expand and offer a large amount of flexibility to the worker in terms of hours of work and place of work. This is predominantly possible when looking at online organisations. These have typically fared well throughout the recession as they have typically a lower amount of overhead. Indeed a good number of them have actually sprung up within the slump plugging holes that the closure of more conventional companies have left.

Opportunities to work whenever suits the individual are increasing with these new business models and even the ability to Work From Home is on offer, not only offering excellent opportunities for people who have other commitments but also keeping the business costs down at the same time. This kind of flexibility will also make sure that the companies keep hold of as many of their female staff as possible. Those who choose to have children are often in a difficult situation when trying to return to work and these new, much more flexible contracts and Online Jobs will at least be a helpful thing for these staff even though some of the other conditions may be inferior to post recession job offers.

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