Episode 412
Statutory Sick Pay, Employee Benefits & UK Employment Law Explained
EP 412 - How far should UK employers go when it comes to looking after staff?
In this episode we break down the real cost of being a “nice” employer - from UK statutory sick pay (SSP) and full sick pay policies to employee benefits, pensions, flexible working, and permanent health insurance (PHI).
With major UK employment law changes coming, SMEs face difficult trade-offs:
Is full sick pay worth the payroll cost?
Does unlimited holiday actually work?
Can generous benefits create legal risk?
Are employers responsible for employees’ long-term wellbeing?
Featuring insights from Oury Clark's employment lawyer Jessica Bass and financial adviser Freddie Pattenden, this episode is a practical guide for SME founders, directors, and HR leaders navigating sick leave, compliance, retention, and post-COVID workplace expectations.
If you run a UK business and want to balance competitiveness, fairness, and sustainability - this one’s for you.
*For Apple Podcast chapters, access them from the menu in the bottom right corner of your player*
Spotify Video Chapters:
00:00 Caring Without Going Broke
00:57 Meet the Experts
01:27 What Staff Really Want
03:38 Compliance Value Competition
05:28 PHI Income Protection Debate
11:22 Post Covid Flex and Mental Health
15:36 Legal Minimums Sick Pay Changes
21:54 Morality Consistency and Flex
26:15 Being Nice Can Backfire
29:10 Structuring Benefits and Contracts
32:09 Unlimited Holiday Pitfalls
32:51 Unlimited holiday pitfalls
34:50 Perks arms race
37:07 SMEs vs big firms
38:35 Pension basics explained
39:43 Qualifying earnings trap
42:41 Pensions and retention
47:17 Salary sacrifice demystified
54:43 Self employed pension gap
55:06 Death in service cover
57:15 Private healthcare reality
59:19 Tailoring PMI benefits
01:03:00 Managing premium increases
01:04:43 Virtual GP and AI support
01:06:16 Avoiding Benefit Red Herrings
01:08:14 Flexible Benefits Allowance
01:11:20 Renewals and Underwriting Traps
01:13:47 Flexible Working Rights
01:15:33 Office Returns and Discrimination
01:19:49 Mental Health Boundaries
01:21:46 Best Benefits and Compliance
01:27:10 Business or BS Quiz
01:27:55 Maternity and Paternity Debate
01:34:28 Wellbeing Apps and Final Wrap
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Welcome to Business without bs, the alternative mba.
Speaker A:Now, everyone says they care about their staff.
Speaker A:Well, most businesses say they care about their staff, but when you strip away slogans and LinkedIn posts, what does that actually mean in practice?
Speaker A:And is it private healthcare?
Speaker A:Is it pensions?
Speaker A:Is it flexibility?
Speaker A:Is it helping people when life goes wrong?
Speaker A:Is it just providing a safe, stable and inclusive environment?
Speaker A:So we're here to answer some of those questions.
Speaker A:So today On Business Without BS, we're talking about how businesses, especially SMEs, really should or could look after their people without bankrupting themselves.
Speaker A:So I think there's a definite element of trying to be realistic.
Speaker A:Obviously, we'd love to give everything to everybody all of the time, but it's a business, so it has to balance up difficult things.
Speaker A:And I don't think it's about pretending beanbags are beneficial, although they are quite comfortable sometimes.
Speaker A:So I'm joined by the very excellent Jessica Bass, employment lawyer.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Of some repute, who's seen everything go wrong on the other side of the fence.
Speaker A:So sometimes asking Jess questions is more like, whoa, you know, she's like, working in an A, E department.
Speaker A:She, you know, she sees where it goes wrong, which is really important.
Speaker A:And Freddie Patterden, who is a financial advisor.
Speaker A:Hello, Freddie.
Speaker A:Who designs benefits that actually matters to employees.
Speaker A:So we've got, we've got the team here.
Speaker A:Okay, so let's start with you, Jess, on, you know, when.
Speaker A:What do you think when people say we look after our staff, What.
Speaker A: What in: Speaker B:So I think obviously there's the absolute minimums that you have to provide for people.
Speaker B:So there's certain things that are set by law that all employers have to provide.
Speaker B:In terms of holidays, they have to provide auto enrollment, pension, certain levels of sick pay and things like basic family leaves that everyone's enticed to as long as they meet those qualifying criteria.
Speaker B:I think in terms of saying we look after our staff, generally, it's mostly about listening and listening to what people actually want.
Speaker B:That's going to vary massively across your workforce in terms of people of different ages, different, different things, different areas of their lives that they're, you know, the things that they're kind of going through.
Speaker A:When you say listen, that's very interesting because it's a great word.
Speaker A:Just listening to them generally.
Speaker A:Or listening, you said, to what they actually wanted.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:In terms of.
Speaker B:And in terms of what they actually want.
Speaker B:I mean, some industries that are, you know, ridiculously high pressure for them, things like More holiday is going to be more beneficial.
Speaker B:It gives them that time to actually switch off and, and, you know, turn around and come back and be better employees.
Speaker A:Well, like, if you take your first example, you make me think of.
Speaker A:It's like if you're a deep sea diver, that's one of the most intense jobs in the world.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, you're thousands of meters below and you know, they get.
Speaker A:They work for, I don't know, whatever it is, like three months on three months.
Speaker A:They get a lot of holidays.
Speaker B:Yeah, they get a lot of holiday.
Speaker A:But there's an extreme example.
Speaker A:There's obviously, you know, the intensity with you, which you work has an impact on how much rest you need.
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:And also that will then impact things like.
Speaker B:Will private healthcare be useful?
Speaker B:Probably, yes.
Speaker B:If you're putting yourself in a situation where you might be exposed to more harm or that sort of thing, or even higher stress, having a healthcare program that's going to have employee assistance programs, things like that, somebody that you could talk to is going to be really, really beneficial.
Speaker B:Certain industries absolutely might not.
Speaker B:Might not get the same.
Speaker B:There might be different things that are more important.
Speaker A:Great points.
Speaker A:Freddie, what are your thoughts?
Speaker C:Yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker C:I think you've done my job for me, which is always nice.
Speaker C:It's always nice and easy.
Speaker C:But yeah, I think, look, first and foremost it's about.
Speaker C:It's about compliance, being legally compliant, making sure that we're dotting the I's, crossing the T's on the things which actually do matter.
Speaker C:They're not going to keep.
Speaker C:They're going to keep us outside of jail, which is obviously massively important.
Speaker C:Is then about making sure that we're getting good value from the benefits and things that we're actually putting in place for our employers or employees.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker C:And that is really kind of linking back to that, listening, communicating to our staff, making sure that they actually are aware of the benefits that we do and don't have and listening to the ones which they're saying are going to make a big benefit.
Speaker C:And then kind of third is being competitive, making sure that we're actually competitive in comparison to who we're competing with for talent.
Speaker C:And making sure that we're also standing out in some regard, be it maybe our size, how nice we are or maybe the benefits that we're offering as well.
Speaker C:Something that gives us that USP to give us that kind of competitive edge against our competitors is for sure useful.
Speaker A:So there's the statutory requirements maybe we'll talk about, because obviously there's a big employment bill coming in that's going to be increasing some of the statutory requirements.
Speaker A:I think there's also this building block we were talking about before we started about working in, in a nice environment.
Speaker A:A non toxic, safe, stable, inclusive.
Speaker A:That is so important.
Speaker A:I mean if you haven't got that, that's like being homeless.
Speaker A:I mean it's like, it's just like, you know, it's a disaster, isn't it?
Speaker A:So you've got those two things then.
Speaker A:I, I don't.
Speaker A:We'll, we'll talk as we go through the different ones.
Speaker A:But are there any things that are a real mismatch out of interest when it comes to what do employers think are really valuable and what employees actually really value?
Speaker A:Value.
Speaker A:I guess that's the kind of employers might put in loads of comfy bean bags.
Speaker A:But really employees just want holiday.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean the key one for me, and this is where, where me and Freddie sometimes disagree is Phi.
Speaker B:Permanent health insurance.
Speaker A:Private health insurance.
Speaker B:Permanent health insurance.
Speaker A:What's permanent health insurance?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:I mean, do you want to do that?
Speaker A:Permanent health insurance?
Speaker A:Strikes feel.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:You don't want to be committed on a permanent basis for sure.
Speaker A:Sounds a lot.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Phi, also known as like group income protection, I think is also, it's also definitely known as.
Speaker C:It basically is just a policy which pays out a set percentage of an employee's salary after they're off work for a set period of time.
Speaker C:So Normally it's a 75% of an employee salary that's covered after normally a 13 week, so three month or 26 week deferral period of them unable to work normally through illness or injury.
Speaker C:And then it will pay out for a set period of time.
Speaker C:And that's kind of where me and Jess slightly differ because as a financial planner I want my clients to have absolute resilience.
Speaker C:So we have an emergency fund for that deferral period, that kind of 13 week, 26 week deferral period where the policy isn't paying out while we're unable to work due to whatever it is.
Speaker A:Most policies won't pay out for 13 weeks or something.
Speaker C:That's correct.
Speaker C:It's called a deferral period.
Speaker A:Okay, so this is, this isn't private
Speaker C:health care, it's an income protection policy,
Speaker A:sort of critical illness sort of vibes.
Speaker A:Is it almost more broad in its
Speaker C:scope compared to critical illness?
Speaker C:I can't work, I can't work due to illness or injury.
Speaker C:But if you.
Speaker A:And just to be.
Speaker A:Let's you Know, these are really interesting conversations but if, as I know with my dear wife, if you go to the NHS and you say I'm stressed, they don't have, they're not connected to employment, so.
Speaker A:And a lot of NHS doctors would say this, it's not fair for them to ask that question.
Speaker A:So they just sign you off.
Speaker A:They don't really have a choice on a risk basis.
Speaker A:They just, I mean, obviously you may be very stressed.
Speaker A:You may be, but in a way not going to work could be the worst thing to happen to you if you're, you know, suddenly anxious at home.
Speaker A:So you could go to a NHS doctor, you could say I'm terribly stressed.
Speaker A:They would, they and that's kind of through no fault.
Speaker A:Their own end up in a really difficult place saying, well we'll sign you off for a couple of months and then if you had one of these policy that would kick in and pay them.
Speaker A:Them, would it?
Speaker C:Yes, it would pay them through the payroll, through the kind of payroll of the insurance policy.
Speaker A:The employer wouldn't be paying, but he'd be paying an insurance to have this cover.
Speaker C:So yeah, the employer would pay for the insurance policy, it would cover all.
Speaker A:But he wouldn't be pay the payroll, would he?
Speaker A:He would have paid for the insurance.
Speaker A:This has happened to a staff member.
Speaker A:Staff members now getting 75% of their pay.
Speaker A:Sounding quite a good deal at this point, isn't it?
Speaker A:I mean, very controversial chat, but that's, that's the kind of thing that you would say, does this therefore encourage people to not come back to work?
Speaker A:Is that almost the problem or.
Speaker B:I think from my perspective.
Speaker B:So one of the fair reasons to dismiss an employee is capability and that can include long term sickness and obviously no one wants to get to that position.
Speaker B:People don't hire staff to dismiss them generally.
Speaker B:But when you've got somebody that's on phi, that can go on for a very, very long time and then you've got somebody there on your books that's still an employee, that's still building up holiday, that's still building up all their sort of normal rights and being paid, you know, quite, quite rightly in that situation.
Speaker B:But if you were to then take the decision to dismiss them, you're then in a situation where you're then depriving them of that insurance because ultimately they're not entitled to that insurance anymore.
Speaker B:When they're not.
Speaker A:When you have the concept of permanent even if they're dismissed.
Speaker C:Well, this is, this is where we kind of tailor it to make sure that it's compliant for our clients and also valuable for the employees.
Speaker C:And that's basically looking at the payout period.
Speaker C:The maximum policy, normal ones are 2, 5, and then up until retirement.
Speaker C:So I assume the ones that you don't like, Jessa, make those five years up until retirement.
Speaker A:It's a spicy sausage, but we're here to talk about very difficult balances and spicy sausages, as my dear sis would say.
Speaker A:I mean.
Speaker A:And I remember a conversation years ago with an Australian expert on this.
Speaker A:He wanted to change how the.
Speaker A:He was British originally, but because in Australia, the.
Speaker A:A bit like America, the private health and everything is linked to the business, the insurers absolutely focus on getting you back into work.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:They're like the worst thing for your mental health and for everything is for the business, for you.
Speaker A:For us as insurers, we want you back at work.
Speaker A:So the whole policy became very.
Speaker A:Is very connected.
Speaker A:And it is like that in lots of countries.
Speaker A:It's the fact that NHS is completely separate, provided, you know, you know, by the government, by the taxpayers and all of that, separate to the work.
Speaker A:So it doesn't have a feeling or duty towards, like, we, we.
Speaker A:We want to stop paying this money, get them back into work.
Speaker A:Get them back into work.
Speaker A:And I think.
Speaker A:I think maybe that's.
Speaker A:It creates quite a difficult thing sometimes for your clients.
Speaker A:You're obviously active for employers.
Speaker A:So, I mean, we, we can move, we'll get.
Speaker A:This is a great start with the lovely spicy sausage, just to warm us up.
Speaker A:Difficult decision.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:But look, that's what we sit and try and do every day.
Speaker A:It's a question for you as an employer.
Speaker A:It's a question for you, how much.
Speaker A:You know, because I gave a mean example to say, not mean, but just to say someone could say they were stressed.
Speaker A:NHS signs them off, policy kicks in.
Speaker A:You know, employers ended up with an insidious position of sort of having to say, well, I haven't got anyone here.
Speaker A:I need, you know, enough is enough.
Speaker A:And he was.
Speaker A:Here is exactly the point that we're here to discuss.
Speaker A:It's like, where are the lines?
Speaker A:Where are my duties these days as an employer?
Speaker A:How much do I have to look after you?
Speaker A:You know, traditionally, the old school was, I provide you a job.
Speaker A:That's what I do.
Speaker A:I provide you an earning and that's it.
Speaker A:You know, that was, you know, 50, 80 years ago or whatever, and it was like, people were happy to have work.
Speaker A:Now it's become so much more.
Speaker A:This is the place you spend a lot of your life.
Speaker A:I should give you more, I should protect you.
Speaker A:And I think you've just got to get that balance right, don't you?
Speaker A:I mean, out of interest, when you talk about that subject, how has things changed since COVID which had such an impact on some of these questions, what would you notice?
Speaker A:Major changes since then?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I think the major one that I've seen is, is that sort of flexible working and working from home.
Speaker B:I mean, I didn't work from home at all before COVID It just didn't.
Speaker B:It wasn't really part of professional service.
Speaker B:Yeah, we didn't.
Speaker B:All right, we came in every day, but, you know, now I thankfully don't have to go on the tube every single day, which is quite nice.
Speaker B:Different industries, though, we're seeing a massive switch.
Speaker B:You know, financial services seem to.
Speaker B:Most of them are going.
Speaker B:Going back into the office five days a week.
Speaker A:Doesn't it show how much I used to drive to Slough every day for 15, 20 years?
Speaker A:I don't even remember.
Speaker A:And that if you told me how to do that now.
Speaker B:Oh, God, yeah.
Speaker A:But it's so.
Speaker A:It's whatever you get used to, isn't it?
Speaker A:Once life's.
Speaker A:Once, it's a bit easier.
Speaker A:You never want the hard bit again.
Speaker A:You're like, why would you?
Speaker A:Why would you?
Speaker A:But it's just mad how much.
Speaker A:But it also shows that sort of the problem, almost illustrated by the fact that if you.
Speaker A:If things get too easy for you, like, you need a bit of pressure in life.
Speaker A:It's like you need to be challenged in life.
Speaker A:You know, I was thinking of my friend when he's saying he couldn't get out of bed in the morning and that's, you know, why he struggled.
Speaker A:And I was like, I can't get out of the bed in the morning either.
Speaker A:But you have to, you know.
Speaker A:So that's again, one of these interesting push and pulls.
Speaker A:If you ask someone, do they really want to do nothing and just watch TV all day?
Speaker A:But that's really bad for you.
Speaker A:Like, it's bad for your health, it's bad for your brain, it's bad for your family, it's bad for your life.
Speaker A:You know, your life will fly by and you haven't done anything and what.
Speaker A:You know, but that's what you're.
Speaker A:Because we're conservation, we've got such a sense of conservation of energy, isn't it?
Speaker A:So it's a very.
Speaker A:Again, you should challenge people.
Speaker A:Anyway, very, very interesting.
Speaker A:I mean, was anything from your perspectives changed a Lot since COVID Out of
Speaker C:interest, I think there has been a major, major overhaul of looking at benefits, prioritizing mental health, things like that.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:And if you just look at the kind of statistics in terms of, of how many people are actually off work, how many hours, how many days that's wasting and how much that's harming the UK economy, it's, it's quite, it's, it's incredible.
Speaker C:It's in a very bad way, unfortunately.
Speaker C:So £150 billion each year is, is lost to people through ill health, taking time off work and the average employee these days is taking over nine days off sick each year.
Speaker C:You look at that kind of five, 10 years ago, it was more so four, four or five.
Speaker C:So it's basically doubled the amount of time.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Everyone when they're sick now it's like, everyone's like, well, I'm, you know, I don't need to mix though, isn't it?
Speaker A:Because for anyone who's got a lot to do, it's like, I'll work from home.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:Whereas it used to be like, well, I'm not coming in because I feel sick.
Speaker A:You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I've got a bad cold or whatever.
Speaker A:I don't want to get everyone sick.
Speaker C:But that, but that's the strange thing.
Speaker C:So you would think that less, there'd be less time off because more people are able to work from home.
Speaker C:They have that facility to be able to go, I don't need to take a full day off because, you know, I'm maybe a bit contagious, but I'll stay at home.
Speaker C:But weirdly, we're not seeing that.
Speaker C:We're seeing the exact opposite.
Speaker C:We're seeing that more people, but they're
Speaker A:like my PA and head of marketing or whatever and they don't really have a choice because I'm bothering them still.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, yes, it's one of those things which is, is pretty bizarre, but it does mean that kind of effective immediately, the government, his employers, his advisors, we kind of need to be doing something because there's a huge amount of money being kind of missed out on.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I saw those, yeah.
Speaker A:The amount of people being sort of signed off, long term ill, I mean, they're just, there's just crazy stats that are going up and up and up.
Speaker A:So that's, that would lead me back to this thing again, that life isn't supposed to be easy.
Speaker A:Life is hard, life is difficult.
Speaker A:To get up life, you've got to face Challenges.
Speaker A:You should be outside of your comfort zone.
Speaker B:You should.
Speaker A:But we had it during COVID didn't we?
Speaker A:It was like, it was like we all felt safe at home.
Speaker A:We like to go anywhere.
Speaker A:This is lovely.
Speaker A:But you know, actually it was like I realized little things like oh, actually listen to a podcast in the morning and on my way back home all week was actually a really helpful part of my.
Speaker A:When I didn't have kids and I wasn't working and I was just sitting in a vehicle.
Speaker A:This thing that felt like a waste of time is actually really valuable anyway.
Speaker A:Fascinating.
Speaker A:Sorry, do I dad.
Speaker A:So let's, let's, let's do employment law.
Speaker A:Come on, Jessica.
Speaker A:So we're going to start, we're going to start with employment law.
Speaker A:Roughly what, what are employers legally required to do and what are they morally expected to do?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I mean in terms of legal requirements, full time employee is entitled to 28 days a year, annual leave as minimum.
Speaker B:That can include bank holidays.
Speaker B:So usually you see it as 20 days plus 8 days bank holiday.
Speaker B:They're entitled to statutory sick pay which at the moment is just over 118 pounds a week.
Speaker A:That's once you've been sick for a
Speaker B:while or three day deferment period at the moment.
Speaker B:But that's coming down to, to day, day one essentially in.
Speaker A:Yeah, because tell us what the changes are coming.
Speaker A:So the ones we know.
Speaker A:But those, that's when you illustrate them there.
Speaker A:So at the moment someone's got to be sick for three days, then they got to give you a doctor's note and then they go statutory sick pay.
Speaker A:And actually you're generally not paid to be sick, are you?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:So the first three days you're your is unpaid at the moment under statutory.
Speaker A:So payrolls get adjusted, you know, and say you weren't here for three days unpaid.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And then from there you get 118 pounds 75 a week, goes up every year on the start of the tax year.
Speaker B:Doesn't go up a huge amount.
Speaker B:It's not going to, you know, we're not going to see it go, go five times that or anything.
Speaker A:I wonder if people actually realize when they're going sick that they don't get paid for sick days.
Speaker A:I think people think that they do get paid.
Speaker B:I think people do.
Speaker B:And I think actually what I tend to see is most people in professional services and in, you know, in those kind of those similar sort of roles, they do tend to pay for those.
Speaker A:I was going to say, I don't think Employers I know are bothering to adjust the payroll and can you knock two days off, John, because he's been so.
Speaker A:It's too much effort.
Speaker B:It's too much effort.
Speaker B:I completely agree.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The, the sort of.
Speaker B:The cost and the time of actually doing it generally is not really worth it.
Speaker B:And actually, you know, annoying yourself.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You're just denying your staff over 50, 100 quid, whatever it is.
Speaker C:Do you mind if I jump in there?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because I disagree.
Speaker C:I've got statistics behind it.
Speaker C:I love it.
Speaker C:I love it.
Speaker C:So let's say someone does take nine days off a year.
Speaker C:That's going to increase your Payroll cost by 3.6% if you're paying them for that.
Speaker C:Whereas if you just paid them the statutory.
Speaker C:It'd be.
Speaker C:So you're saving 3.5% by not giving them sick pay.
Speaker C:So that's obviously a massive amount of money.
Speaker C:Three and a half percent of their total earnings.
Speaker A:If you take nine days off a year, that's three and a half percent because it's 9 over 252.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker C:So if you reframe it that way, when you look at the other benefits that you could get for three and a half percent of the payroll cost, well, it's actually massive.
Speaker C:And you could enhance holiday by 10 days or so.
Speaker C:Nine days.
Speaker C:Would you rather.
Speaker A:Well, you've also said, I mean, the NI actually didn't go up 2%.
Speaker A:It went up quite a lot more than that because they lowered the threshold to five grand from nine grand.
Speaker A:So I can't do it roughly in my head, but you could argue that, you know, it affected employers quite a lot, adding the 2%.
Speaker A:But you could say, well, why don't you operate your sick pay properly?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And not.
Speaker A:But don't you think, to Jess's point, it just irritates people?
Speaker C:I think that, yes, it's a bit irritating, but what would you prefer?
Speaker C:Would you prefer 5 days extra holiday or would you prefer full sick pay?
Speaker C:So you're likely to take more days off in sick, in sickness?
Speaker C:The stats show, obviously, nine days is more than five, but I think that people would actually be happier with an extra five days guaranteed holiday.
Speaker A:Oh, so you're saying give everyone five days extra holiday but you, if you're sick?
Speaker A:Well, it was stat.
Speaker A:You're not gonna.
Speaker A:Well, you're not gonna get paid because the nine days aren't all in a row.
Speaker A:Nine days would be like day here, day here.
Speaker A:You're gonna lose your money when you don't.
Speaker A:Encourages you to come in with you Well, I would slightly argue with how often.
Speaker A:I mean, I'll get absolute for this, but people aren't really ill as often.
Speaker A:They just have a cold or something.
Speaker A:Sorry, you were gonna say something?
Speaker B:No, I was gonna say.
Speaker B:Well, I think the, the, in that situation, if, if people did have more holiday, they could elect to use a day's holiday as they pay and then they get, then they get the pay for it.
Speaker B:So as an employer, you can't force your employees to use holiday when they're sick.
Speaker B:But if an employee says to you, I'm sick, I'm not working, but can I actually use one of my days holiday so that I get paid for it?
Speaker B:You can do that.
Speaker B:That's fine as long as you're not making them.
Speaker B:So then they get the pay anyway.
Speaker B:I think the danger I sometimes see is when you set and you say to somebody, okay, you get 10 days a year sick pay, is that they'll think, well, I've got 10 days a year.
Speaker A:I have a friend who used to keep a spreadsheet.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know people that,
Speaker A:you know, he happened to find out how many days sick day they would pay for and he would tick them.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:And then I think that's it.
Speaker B:It's almost like, well, that, that, that's there to, to use and, and you know, whether that's, that's right or wrong, I kind of love the logic.
Speaker C:But yeah, I just think that reframing that, that reframing it saves you one and a half percent of your payroll costs and it actually could be viewed as a massive benefit and a massive benefit for people joining the business and staying in the business.
Speaker C:Because you know, instead let's say you
Speaker A:want a half percent giving the five days holiday, giving five days holiday and
Speaker C:then not doing the nine, nine days.
Speaker C:So you save one and a half percent your payroll costs.
Speaker A:You've given everyone five days extra holiday.
Speaker C:They, they're well arrested, they're going to be performing best, they're going to be going gangbusters.
Speaker A:Yeah, in a way.
Speaker A:I mean, nine days a year is quite a lot.
Speaker A:I mean, for a healthy individual, that's quite a lot of days that you can't work.
Speaker A:I mean flu, you can't work.
Speaker C:I mean, that's the thing, those nine days, maybe we need to, that is the average, what's actually the median?
Speaker C:There might be people taking a lot and lot of time.
Speaker C:That, that then drives that number up.
Speaker C:If you know someone is, is off the every day for the whole year, that's obviously 200 odd days.
Speaker C:So that might be what's pulling the.
Speaker C:The number up.
Speaker C:But that's the average amount of days.
Speaker C:Nine days is the slightly lower.
Speaker C:I reckon it's probably maybe slightly lower, but let's say it's seven.
Speaker C:Still saving money.
Speaker A:It's like the hangover question I always found fascinating.
Speaker A:Wasn't it, like, if you are.
Speaker A:If you have the world's worst hangover, what do you do?
Speaker A:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker A:Is that a sick day?
Speaker A:Is that a day's holiday?
Speaker A:It's like, you know the.
Speaker A:There's that expression, go out with the boys, coming with the men.
Speaker A:It's like, yeah, but I mean, when you really have a hangover anyway, that's a really fascinating discussion.
Speaker A:Sorry, did you want to add any.
Speaker A:You good?
Speaker C:All good for me, thank you.
Speaker A:What do they say they've got to do?
Speaker A:Statutory sick bay.
Speaker A:That was fascinating with this question of sort of, what are they morally expected to do?
Speaker A:Do you have any comment on that?
Speaker B:I think that's become such a tricky topic, doesn't it?
Speaker B:I mean, morality is different for everyone.
Speaker B:Matters to me is going to be so different to what matters to you.
Speaker B:That matters to Freddie.
Speaker B:Like, as I say, it's going to be different.
Speaker B:Different people at different stages in their life.
Speaker B:I think morally, what as an employer that you should be doing is, one, complying with your legal requirements, two, being consistent where you can.
Speaker B:And I think consistency doesn't always mean treating absolutely everybody exactly the same, but it means having fair principles that you consistently apply.
Speaker B:So while you could say, okay, fine, we could offer this to X person because it works for their role, okay, we can't offer it to those, but those principles remain the kind of the same.
Speaker B:And the overarching thing is that, yes, we can offer, let's say, flexible working, for example, Right.
Speaker B:There's some roles that we know you can't say, yeah, you can work from home, it doesn't work.
Speaker B:Right, it doesn't work.
Speaker B:Somebody that's coming in to clean the office, you cannot do that remotely.
Speaker B:It's just not going to work.
Speaker C:Pilot's going to be difficult on.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Anything that actually requires you there in person or between sort of set hours and things like that.
Speaker B:But if you have those kind of persistent principles.
Speaker B:Okay, well, we will allow.
Speaker B:We will.
Speaker B:We'll do what we can to accommodate this, providing you meet these certain things.
Speaker B:And one of the key ones I say to my clients is if you've got somebody that's performing well and is kind of able to do their role that is coming back and making sure that they're hitting all the targets or those things.
Speaker B:That's when you can kind of have that conversation if it drops.
Speaker B:You want to be able to have the flexibility, particularly in somebody's contract or your flexible working policy or something like that to say, actually, no, that's not working anymore.
Speaker B:We need to change that.
Speaker B:We need you in, in the office sat with somebody making sure you're getting that guidance, making sure that you're, you know, that you've got access to that support.
Speaker B:We don't know what your setup is at home, for example, make sure you've got a space of work that you can actually sort of do those things.
Speaker B:So having that, that principle that you are applying consistently, I think is much more important than just saying, right, this is our.
Speaker B:Nobody's allowed to do it because one person can't or, you know, everybody can do.
Speaker A:It's very hard balance, isn't it, being fair and consistent.
Speaker A:I remember having someone on the POD talking very well about, you know, their view was that they will be more generous to the people who are really pulling their weight.
Speaker A:The less.
Speaker A:And that's an interesting consistency.
Speaker A:That's very hard to do.
Speaker A:But it's like, you know, in your team, if you're not a massive business, you're like, someone comes and asks to do something who's always putting in the extra.
Speaker A:You're like, yeah, no problem.
Speaker A:And someone is not so much now they want to go do that.
Speaker A:Now that would, they would say, well, that's not consistent.
Speaker A:You've done it for that.
Speaker A:So there can be very difficult things like that, isn't there?
Speaker A:You end up sort of trying to be fair for the sake of it.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:And I think the, the, the where I see things kind of fall down a little bit is that different people will interpret those things differently.
Speaker B:So different managers might allow one thing and another manager might say sort of,
Speaker A:absolutely, I say yes to everything.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm a proper, proper soft touch about that.
Speaker A:But yeah, that's hard, isn't it?
Speaker A:I mean that.
Speaker A:Is that where you try and I guess that's where the role of an HR department is important.
Speaker A:I guess.
Speaker A:I mean, there's, there's always that sort of push and pull, isn't there, between the.
Speaker A:Who's your manager and.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:And I think a big part is training people and making sure they know what the policies are, what the processes are, what the kind of.
Speaker B:What the parameters are that you can work within then and you've got that what can you give yourself in terms of flexibility?
Speaker B:Okay, well, this is where we're okay with it.
Speaker B:But actually if you start doing that, it suddenly becomes a bit of a problem.
Speaker B:So making sure that everybody knows what
Speaker A:you are illustrating one of the most difficult things.
Speaker A:And I think employees often don't realize how difficult this is.
Speaker A:That exactly like you say, someone goes along to their manager and says, my uncle's died.
Speaker A:And they say, oh, that's terrible.
Speaker A:Take, can I have the week off?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, go for it.
Speaker A:And then you find out that actually other people's uncles have died and they only got three days off.
Speaker A:They're all now furious.
Speaker A:And the manager's like, oh, I just was being nice, you know, I've got to look after my person.
Speaker A:And people would be like, yeah, but you didn't actually check.
Speaker A:You've got, you know, you've done something now which you, these, the people you've pissed off, they are flaming angry and now we've got a problem.
Speaker A:This is a really tricky situation.
Speaker A:What do you, where do you think people get caught out when they're trying to be nice and nice employers?
Speaker B:I think a lot of it comes down to not having that, not having that clear process, that clear consistency, that clear sort of.
Speaker B:This is, this is what the parameters are of what we can offer and, and how we'll app it.
Speaker B:You know, I see it with the, the main issue I see is let's say dismissals.
Speaker B:It's performance related, right.
Speaker B:So people are trying to be nice to people and not giving them the genuine actual feedback that.
Speaker A:So you're talking about someone who's worked for you for long enough that they.
Speaker A:Two years, currently being reduced to nine months that you required to go through a process of redundancy or performance.
Speaker A:They've been too nice about someone's performance.
Speaker A:Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker B:Yeah, in terms of performance.
Speaker B:It's, it's, it's, it's when it's a shock to somebody at the end that it becomes an issue and it should never be a shock.
Speaker A:I'm sorry, that's so British.
Speaker A:British people are so like, oh, no, I won't say anything.
Speaker A:No, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker A:And then one day.
Speaker A:Right, you're absolutely rubbish.
Speaker A:Let me get through to you.
Speaker A:You know, in fact, I mean, we.
Speaker A:Terribly vague for a long, long time.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I think it's, I mean, it's that sort of, it's, that's where I see things go, go wrong is
Speaker A:when the Employee's so upset if the employee.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And there's just.
Speaker B:They're completely blindsided by it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They've been told for the past two years that, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely fine, not a problem.
Speaker B:And then they get hauled in and go, actually, no, that's it.
Speaker B:You've not been doing this, you're not really doing that.
Speaker B:You're not really in that.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:That is where.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:Again, it's that communication piece.
Speaker B:See it quite often, if you talk to people and you're, you know, people don't always have to agree with you, but if you can.
Speaker B:If you can say, look, this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it.
Speaker B:Generally people are more receptive to that.
Speaker B:It's when they don't feel like they've been told, we're just told what's going on, that they should.
Speaker A:Well, it's so difficult.
Speaker A:I mean, I.
Speaker A:We know these things and they're slightly obvious, maybe, these days, but it's the management sound, it's the establishing with them that, you know, you think they are a decent person.
Speaker A:This isn't a personal thing.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:For me, when I have to give back, I write it all down because I guess you get so nervous when you're in front of them, you say, I can't say it.
Speaker A:You know, your whole British brain's imploding.
Speaker A:But I just then read out some sentences I prepared, saying these, These are things that I am.
Speaker A:I am observing that may or may not be correct.
Speaker A:Is it?
Speaker A:And then, you know, but it's.
Speaker A:It's very, very difficult, but, but so important to give some clear feedback.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's also.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's a kindness.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker A:It's such cruel to be kind.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's obviously ways to do.
Speaker B:To do things and, you know, there's obviously ways to approach feelings and have conversations.
Speaker B:But I. I think in that situation, you just absolutely feel for somebody that thinks that they've been doing absolutely brilliantly and then actually it turns out maybe they've not been hitting those things, but it's not helping them develop, it's not helping them improve if they're being told because they say, yeah, yeah, you're great, when actually maybe a few little tweaks and you could be great.
Speaker B:You could do these things.
Speaker B:We could give you this training, we could do these certain things.
Speaker A:It's really interesting.
Speaker A:I mean, this may be a question for Freddie, as Well, but any, any benefits that create legal risk if they're badly structured.
Speaker A:I mean we were talking, I guess about one before.
Speaker B:For me, the key thing would be in your contract making sure you've got the ability to vary benefits, vary plans, withdraw them entirely if you have to.
Speaker A:This is a really important point.
Speaker A:People, people casually say, right, everyone can have X, everyone to have healthcare, everyone have whatever.
Speaker A:And then you, especially with the new employment bill, you won't be able to vary stuff.
Speaker B:It's going to be a lot harder to make changes to certain, certain provisions in contracts and things like that.
Speaker B:But ultimately if you, let's say you're having a great year and you sign up to a really expensive scheme and you know, health insurance scheme or something like that, and the next year it, your business starts going down, your premiums go up and your alternative is to cut that or cut jobs.
Speaker B:You want to be able to, to pull that, pull that.
Speaker A:So what you write is in the contract.
Speaker A:You say your salary's X and I.
Speaker A:It's a privilege, not a right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you have a benefits clause that says, this is you.
Speaker B:You're entitled to be part of this, subject to the rules of the scheme.
Speaker B:However, we reserve the right to amend Fairy withdraw this.
Speaker A:I mean, and I'm sure I'll get shot for it.
Speaker A:But actually right now, before, before the employment bill has come in, it's going to make it extremely hard.
Speaker A:I know everyone gets very excited about Han reefar because that sounds terrible headline.
Speaker A:Just I didn't know what it was until I think you or Ross explained it to me and I was like, oh, right, okay.
Speaker A:Now that, that's an example.
Speaker A:The Han Refar rule is the example of we've either got to cut people or we could vary the terms of this contract and take a little bit of benefits away from everybody and you know, everyone keeps their jobs.
Speaker A:That's going to become much more difficult.
Speaker A:So now is the time if you need to do it, to sit down and vary the contracts.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Look at your contracts and see what's in there and make sure that you know these benefits, it's one of those things that lawyers love.
Speaker B:It depends on what the contract says and whether it's just contractual benefit.
Speaker B:But you still want to have some discretion in there to be able to change things because the thing like last thing you want is, you know, those premiums to shoot up.
Speaker B:And as business be thinking we can't afford to do this anymore, we could offer, you know, something slightly lower or drop down the COVID or something like that.
Speaker A:But so other than people being too nice and not giving good enough feedback as you go along, that ends up a bit of a car crash for people.
Speaker A:When else do you think, is there any other thing else that employment, when employment disputes really go wrong or any other sort of obvious patterns of behavior?
Speaker B:I mean, we're dealing with humans, so
Speaker C:things always go wrong.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:So that's, that's one of the wonderful things about humans is that they're so wildly unpredictable, but I think incredibly sensitive.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I think, I think in terms of that sort of thing, I mean that I don't necessarily think there's a particular thing that I think in terms of benefits tends to backfire.
Speaker B:I think people can sometimes be tempted to offer absolutely everything, and you could offer absolutely everything, but ultimately, if it doesn't work for your business and it doesn't work for, you know, the commercial realities, then it's not gonna, you know, people are gonna be disincentivized.
Speaker B:So one of the things I see sometimes companies will offer is unlimited holiday.
Speaker B:It doesn't actually work.
Speaker B:It doesn't work.
Speaker A:So you've obviously got popular in America where they have no holiday to start with.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And I sometimes see, you know, some, some my clients will talk to me about it if they've got it in the U.S. they say, yeah, well, you know, unlimited holiday, people all take like 12 days.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker B:They'll take an awful lot more than that.
Speaker A:Will they here?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Will they?
Speaker B:Minimum is 28 days.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So then you're in a position as an employer where one, you've got to try and encourage your staff to take at least 30 minutes.
Speaker A:Oh, so just slow down.
Speaker A:So that is, I hear, is the stats.
Speaker A:Is that true in the UK as well?
Speaker A:You offer unlimited holiday, people take less holiday.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I'd always slightly cry bullshit on that.
Speaker B:There's evidence, there's evidence that says that people take less than if they just had a set amount of holiday.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because we have to push people out the door here, don't we?
Speaker A:You know, I mean, in the uk, use it or lose it.
Speaker A:Tend to, but the policy isn't it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you're always in sort of November December, pointing out to people who, you know, some, some people like you haven't.
Speaker A:And they're like, oh, yeah, I'm taking my holiday.
Speaker B:You know, and as, as an employer, you've got so obligations under the working time regulations to make sure that people take a sufficient holiday and make sure that they're then, you know, correctly rested and all that sort of thing.
Speaker B:And that's all what it comes down to is making sure people have a break away from work.
Speaker B:So if you've got unlimited holiday, it becomes very tricky to, one, tracking it, two, getting people to take it.
Speaker B:And then you'll always have somebody that takes, you know, way.
Speaker B:And then you end up in a situation in the teams where, okay, well, one of you's taken 20 days and that's it, and the other one's taken three months off and, you know, gone from wherever.
Speaker B:And that sort of thing.
Speaker A:I think it's using the reverse psychology.
Speaker A:I think it's one of those, you care for what you wish for, you know, do you, you vote for Brexit, you get more immigrants, whatever.
Speaker A:You know, it's like you always get the opposite of what you expect.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:I think someone clever in America worked that out that we say, well, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you, tell them they can take as much as they want and now they've got all the power, but they've got all the responsibility.
Speaker A:It stresses them out.
Speaker A:And then they're like, yeah, but they're judging me now on this, how much I take.
Speaker A:So I'll tell you what, I'll take nothing.
Speaker A:And, and, but, you know, we know it's not a zero sum game.
Speaker A:We know that Sweden and France bases shut down in August, nothing gets done, but they come back in September on fire.
Speaker A:You know, we, we've decided to, to mix it and we're not really sure what we're doing here, you know.
Speaker A:Oh, very, very interesting.
Speaker A:So, I mean, let's, I think, let's move to.
Speaker A:I mean, I think actually perhaps your, the conclusion is almost this point that you're better to offer a few things and do them properly.
Speaker A:Because that's what you were saying some people, and you get, I guess, is that inexperience.
Speaker A:Someone comes in and just think, oh, I'll just give them everything, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think it's very easy in terms of when you're recruiting people and you're trying to get new talent through the door and they're sort of saying to you, oh, well, I'm here or so, and so is offer me X, Y, Z.
Speaker B:And somebody goes, oh, we could do that.
Speaker B:And then you actually have to sort of look at it and provide it.
Speaker B:And then it becomes a little bit trickier then, doesn't it?
Speaker A:Manage it and you know, yeah, definitely.
Speaker A:Anyone can bring their dog whenever they want.
Speaker A:You know, 50 dogs in the office.
Speaker C:I think that is specifically an SME issue because sometimes you are competing with, you know, the big blue chips and.
Speaker C:And they then go, well, I'm getting this, that set X, Y and Z at this company, and I'm joining your smaller company.
Speaker C:And I think some SMEs do feel kind of bullied into.
Speaker C:Into feeling that they do have to have to provide those.
Speaker C:Those extra benefits that they otherwise would have been getting at those bigger companies.
Speaker A:And it comes from San Francisco, too.
Speaker A:It became this sort of talent war over there, wasn't it?
Speaker A:They started providing food to everyone.
Speaker A:They started.
Speaker A:And then that's.
Speaker A:For some reason just everybody knows about that.
Speaker A:And everyone's like, oh, well, I went to this office.
Speaker A: oomberg in London, this is in: Speaker A:It was like walking into Fortnum Mason food halls.
Speaker A:It was just like, what the hell?
Speaker A:And everyone can have whatever they want.
Speaker A:And you think to yourself, I want this.
Speaker A:Why don't I get this?
Speaker A:Fairness again, isn't it?
Speaker A:And those San Francisco buffets, you know, as one of our lovely clients said, we were like, oh, my God, what a.
Speaker A:And they said, nobody eats it.
Speaker A:We just have to do it because they do it across the road.
Speaker A:And it became this sort of war, didn't it?
Speaker B:I mean, my partner gets it with his work.
Speaker B:He gets all his food provided in the office.
Speaker B:They've got a coffee shop and everything goes in
Speaker A:a very interesting game that's become.
Speaker A:How do you get people in?
Speaker A:You know, we've got a.
Speaker A:A defibrillator machine in our office.
Speaker A:As I like to say to my staff, you're less likely to die in this building than you are at home, Kit, you know, don't do the same both at the same time.
Speaker A:I've tried.
Speaker A:Yeah, very, very, very interesting.
Speaker A:And I mean, I think you make this great point too, that big businesses, of which there's only about 8, 000 in this country, you know, larger employers, they offer a lot of stuff because with respect to them, and I'm sorry to say you're a bit more of a number in a machine is how I see it.
Speaker A:I mean, that's, you know, a little bit.
Speaker A:It's a little bit of a less.
Speaker A:It's a sort of.
Speaker A:I get all this stuff and so to sort of, you know, that's kind of.
Speaker A:I'm saying all the wrong ways, but it's sort of slightly buying loyalty in that way.
Speaker A:You know, let's.
Speaker A:And we can afford to give it, can't we?
Speaker C:In theory they do get massive economies of scale with lots of these benefits because.
Speaker C:Oh, interesting big teams that they can offer.
Speaker C:They can get these bespoke packages, say
Speaker A:we've got 10, 000 people and give
Speaker C:us your best deal.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:So, yeah, so much easier for them in comparison.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:Well, I.
Speaker C:And you'll be able to champion that more than most and the.
Speaker C:About how important and how great is working with SMEs and for SMEs.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So I mean that's the, that's the kind of main thing.
Speaker C:They are different.
Speaker C:They are completely different.
Speaker A:Well, I actually think it's.
Speaker A:It's actually difficult to move between the two culturally.
Speaker A:I think, I think people who spend their life in big business will struggle to go to SMEs and people who spent their life in SMEs will struggle to go into big business.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They are different cultures entirely.
Speaker A:But I hadn't thought about the economies of scale which, which is where we'll start moving into this, Freddie.
Speaker A:And what you've got to talk about because I think it's so crucial.
Speaker A:It's like, you know, it is.
Speaker A:It is tricky.
Speaker A:If you take out a three person private health care and then one of them dies of cancer and they claim, you know, these are.
Speaker A:These are difficult things.
Speaker A:But let's start at the beginning.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker A:You know, what do you.
Speaker B:Let's do.
Speaker A:Let's do pension.
Speaker A:I mean the, the fun is.
Speaker A:I think that's probably now the most fundamental thing your employer is doing for you as a benefit, isn't it a pension everyone provides first and foremost.
Speaker C:Well, everyone.
Speaker C:90 of employers offer a pension.
Speaker C:10% are lagging.
Speaker C:Behind.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker A:Not auto enrolled.
Speaker A:I thought it was law.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:They haven't got around it.
Speaker C:Haven't.
Speaker C:Haven't done it.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker C:So if that's you, you should do it.
Speaker A:Well, if that's you, there's some very rude letters from the pension authority somewhere and there's penalties.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So definitely get on that.
Speaker C:So what?
Speaker A:The auto enrollment came in, which I always thought was a silly name for a pension scheme.
Speaker A:But the point is that all employees automatically enrolled and the minimum sort of 3%.
Speaker A:But you know, I think most employees probably don't understand their pension.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I would say that's more than fair.
Speaker C:Most employees don't understand their pension is, is definitely a true statement and a lot of employers don't.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:To be brutally honest.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So yes, like you say, there are the minimums of the 3% employer contribution and the 5% employee contribution.
Speaker C:Those percentages are then normally based on one of three things.
Speaker C:The first is total earnings, just unlimited earnings, all your commissions, your bonuses, your salaries, all that type of stuff.
Speaker A:Stuff.
Speaker C:You then have your base salary, which is pretty common, and then you have your qualifying earnings, which is the statutory minimum.
Speaker C:So a lot of employees will be expecting that 3% of their earnings are going to be going into their pension scheme from their employer.
Speaker C:The reality is that most employers are actually structuring that using qualifying earnings.
Speaker C:And qualifying earnings are earnings between 6,240 pounds a year up until 50,270 pounds a year.
Speaker C:So instead of that 3% being based on your salary, if you earn less than 50,270 pounds, it's your salary minus 6,240 pounds.
Speaker C:That's what the 3% is based on.
Speaker C:If you earn over 50,270 pounds, it's actually based on 3% of 44,030 pounds.
Speaker C: So you could be earning: Speaker C:It's going to be based on 3% of 44,033 pounds.
Speaker A:Now there's an element that we haven't discussed yet, which is a lot of this stuff.
Speaker A:Stuff.
Speaker A:I think what employers value is loyalty.
Speaker A:Because retraining you, finding new people, it's, it's, it is a, it's a huge effort for a business.
Speaker A:I mean, I mean, with great respect, unless your job's, you know, very simple to learn and things, you know, it takes months, maybe years for you to get up to speed and be valuable to the business.
Speaker A:So for me, I think that's some of the stuff we're striking here, isn't it?
Speaker A:Initially, when you may enter a business, it would make sense to maybe not just throw everything, the cat and the dog at it because if they've left six months later, is that fair?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And that's what most employers do.
Speaker C:They, they initially are on the qualifying earnings on the 3% to keep costs lower, your pension is going to be one of your most expensive benefits, if not the most expensive.
Speaker C:So, so yeah, really important that you're not kind of, of committing to a really expensive cost there.
Speaker C:So a lot of people, a lot of employers will start off on that 3% on qualifying earnings and then we'll kind of reward good service, reward their loyal employees, will pay their higher earning employees.
Speaker C:The people that understand pensions a bit more, they might use a different structure or a different contribution basis for those.
Speaker A:Well, you might also, the more someone stays in a business and SMEs.
Speaker A:It can be their life and that's great is the you they become so much more part of the relationship that you want.
Speaker A:You don't want to find out someone who's been in your business 20 years hasn't got a pension.
Speaker A:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker A:You get to a point where it's like, but hang on, you know, John, you're retiring in a bit and we, we haven't given you, you know, what's your.
Speaker A:I've got much of a pension.
Speaker A:You know, it's like, hang on a second here, you know, I want to know that you walk off into the sunset in a happy way with enough money so it's a, it starts to flip.
Speaker A:Whereas someone's with you for six months and gone, you never see them again for the rest of your life.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, who cares?
Speaker A:It's probably something too strong.
Speaker A:I could never admit publicly, but.
Speaker A:But yeah, slightly.
Speaker A:I mean, what.
Speaker A:How much do you think increasing employer contributions, increasing employer pension contributions.
Speaker A:You can always increase your employee contributions meaningfully improve that retention.
Speaker A:Is it the stats?
Speaker A:Is it.
Speaker C:I mean, yeah, there's no stats specifically to show that, but they do say that kind of 25.
Speaker C:So one in four employer employees would move to a new employer specifically for better pension contributions.
Speaker C:So is quite a sizable amount, the amount of people which actually do kind of follow through on that, that threat of leaving is definitely not one in four.
Speaker A:I was going to say that sounds like a street survey.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:It's one of those if everything else was equal.
Speaker C:So, yeah, it's definitely an important benefit.
Speaker C:Most people would say that pension is the most important employee benefit to offer and an important benefit to.
Speaker C:To offer in a good way with a decent structure, with a decent provider.
Speaker C:So it definitely isn't something to kind of ignore or always stay on the minimums.
Speaker C:I think it kind of going back, it really does depend on your industry quite often because people which understand pensions, they're going to be sometimes rubbed up a bit the wrong way by qualify earnings.
Speaker C:They people automatically think that it's on base salary.
Speaker C:No one knows what qualify earnings is.
Speaker C:I'm sure that people listening today, 50, 60, 75 are not going to know what qualify earnings are.
Speaker C:So I would say look into that, ascertain if you're on qualify earnings and then understand why you're on qualifying earnings and use that as a kind of basis to, to discuss your package with.
Speaker A:Well, this is what, you know, when we, we did this last month.
Speaker A:But you know, a lot of this is is educating yourself.
Speaker A:You, you've got to get your head around your own situation.
Speaker A:I mean you're an employee but your employer is not going to be able to fix all your problems.
Speaker A:Definitely.
Speaker A:It's terrible to admit but your state pension, if you're youngish is by the time you're going to get it, it's probably pretty valueless.
Speaker A:It may not even be there.
Speaker A:I mean, you know, most governments are almost bankrupt with their pensions.
Speaker A:They can't afford it.
Speaker A:So what is your plan?
Speaker A:You've got to make those decisions personally about how much you love where you work.
Speaker A:You can obviously have grown up conversations with them, but I don't.
Speaker A:You know, I think, I think the one thing you should always remember is creating politics, I. E. Talking to everyone and getting everyone wound up about a subject that's not actually helping anyone around you.
Speaker A:I mean everyone's now going to be really stressed out but you've obviously got to work out how you're going to plan for your life.
Speaker A:And if you don't think your pension contributions are high enough and you map it out then talk to your employer about it and you know, work out your plan, isn't it?
Speaker A:I mean that's a bit of self
Speaker C:sign yourself to be honest.
Speaker C:It's, it's at the end of the day your employer has given you a workplace pension in line with the, in line with the law or they're doing even more than that.
Speaker C:It's kind of your responsibility to, to because it's going to be your retirement.
Speaker C:They're not going to be on retirement with you.
Speaker C:You need to be planning, you need to be either be working with an advisor or working by yourself independently to make sure that enough is being contributed.
Speaker C:If enough is being contributed.
Speaker C:Fantastic.
Speaker C:There's not a great deal that you need to do apart from review it regularly.
Speaker C:But if there isn't enough then I would suggest you look at it.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, but it's very similar.
Speaker A:I mean not to be go down a political but it's like how much is the state supposed to look you after?
Speaker A:How much is an employer versus looked after?
Speaker A:I mean at the end of the day you're the only one who can really look after yourself.
Speaker A:It's almost so it's a balance.
Speaker A:It really is to try and think through these things.
Speaker A:I mean talk about.
Speaker A:So that's very true.
Speaker A:You said by business and actually if you look at our quick guide you can see different industry average rates.
Speaker A:You can google them, I'm sure ask, Chat, gbt.
Speaker A:But yeah, in certain Sectors people get paid a lot more than others in terms of pension contribution.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:And that is the thing that I would stress if you're in a sector which massively understands pension.
Speaker C:I mean look, linking back to the previous question where we were, we were talking about should you care about pension contributions?
Speaker C:Because employees don't care or don't know.
Speaker C:Some people definitely do.
Speaker C:So it is important in the financial services industry that's obviously one which they do understand, they do care.
Speaker C:But I mean hospitality or something like that, like the arts or an industry of that, that sort of ilk.
Speaker C:Anyway, they don't understand it as much and probably increasing their salary, they're going to be 10, 10 times more grateful for that than you increasing their pension contributions by double, triple that.
Speaker C:So it's really important not to be wasting your money on, on people which won't care or putting your money in the areas which are actually going to make a, a big push and an emphasis on improving staff morale for sure.
Speaker A:And we should mention salary sacrifice.
Speaker A:They're knocking it on the head in a few years time.
Speaker A:But take us through, try give us a simple version of salary sacrifice.
Speaker C:Well, I think first of all they're not knocking it on the head.
Speaker C: It's being kind of diluted in: Speaker C:So it's one of those vote winners which you know, maybe pulled away at the last minute saying we listen to you middle class professional services people which use salary sacrifice a of lot lot.
Speaker C:But kind of in simple terms you should get full tax relief equal to the highest marginal rate of income tax that you pay on all of your pension contributions.
Speaker C:So that's 45 if you're an additional rate taxpayer, 40 if you're a higher rate taxpayer.
Speaker C:20%.
Speaker A:Basically anything you put into your pension is not taxed and there are different bands of tax.
Speaker A:So you get, you get full relief on anything put into pension.
Speaker A:Now there is, there's limits to that.
Speaker A:Once your salary goes above about 260.
Speaker C:That's correct.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:So what salary exchange or salary sacrifice does is you get all of that tax relief and you get national insurance relief.
Speaker C:So you don't pay employee or employer, your employer doesn't pay national insurance on the amount that you sacrifice or exchange.
Speaker C:So let's say that someone is contributing in a normal way using a relief at source scheme, really jargony term, we don't need to really worry about it
Speaker A:but come straight out of your payroll.
Speaker C:It came straight Come straight out of payroll after you have paid.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's just make it easy.
Speaker A:You're normally getting a thousand pounds and they will just take it straight off the top line out of a thousand pounds and put 100 pound into your pension.
Speaker C:Basically, the pension provider will then reclaim 20% income tax relief from HMRC and that'll be paid into your pension as a bonus.
Speaker C:But that's amazing if you're a non taxpayer or if you're a basic rate taxpayer because nothing more for you to do and you've got a nice bonus in your pension.
Speaker C:But if you're a higher additional rate taxpayer, well, we need to get our extra money.
Speaker C:Where's our money?
Speaker A:Because the 20 is, is the 20 tax.
Speaker C:You've suffered a basic rate tax.
Speaker A:So you do suffer the basic rate in the company and then they put it back in the pension.
Speaker C:That's correct.
Speaker A:But if you were suffering 50 or 45 plus Social Security, you would only be getting 20 back when you've suffered
Speaker C:45 and then you need to reclaim the 25.
Speaker C:So I was actually at a, presenting as a business recently and they're very intelligent people, high earners and we've done about five, 10 of these.
Speaker C:All of them are claiming back thousands of pounds in tax relief that they didn't know they were able to get.
Speaker C:So I think just as an aside, if you are in the position where you are contributing to a relief at source scheme.
Speaker C:So some examples of the people's pension nest, any personal pension, if you are contributing to those and you're a higher or additional rate taxpayer and you've not been claiming back to your tax relief from hmrc, the good news is you're owed a lot of money.
Speaker A:So through your tax return you then go to the revenue because the 20 has been added to your pension.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker C:And you need your additional 20 or 25 tax relief back.
Speaker A:Can you write what you fill in in your tax return?
Speaker C:Yeah, you can do that on your, on your SA100 or your self assessment.
Speaker C:You can call up HMRC, you can do it through the online services, you
Speaker A:can, you can call out, you can try to get through to hmrc, Dear agency.
Speaker A:You get.
Speaker A:No, absolutely, I'm the.
Speaker C:But yeah, that's the kind of basis and what salary exchange means is that you don't have to go through that process.
Speaker C:It gets deducted from your salary, which sounds bad because your gross salary is lower, but what's really good is your net income is going to be higher because you get all the tax relief because it's taken before income tax.
Speaker A:So basically you slightly lower your salary and you say actually make my salary £900, effectively exactly by the same amount
Speaker C:you otherwise would be contributing your pension contributions to the scheme.
Speaker C:Stop top.
Speaker C:The amount that you've sacrificed is then contributed to the scheme by your employer.
Speaker C:Same amount is going in before.
Speaker C:But this is where the magic happens.
Speaker C:Because your gross salary is slightly lower, you don't pay national insurance, your employer doesn't pay national insurance either.
Speaker C:And the saving is generally going to be rebated back to you as an increase in your net income.
Speaker A:So it's small, but it's not negligible.
Speaker A:Effectively every little helps.
Speaker C:I don't know which supermarket says that,
Speaker A:but yeah, okay, great.
Speaker A:And so therefore you basically you and the, the concern can be, if you were, if you took a big salary sacrifice, it could affect I guess your ability to get mortgages or what's the, what's the downside?
Speaker C:There's very little downside in all honesty,
Speaker A:Siddly, I would say it's complicated to understand.
Speaker C:The downside is you have to get me and Jess involved.
Speaker C:If you're, if you're, if you're a compliant employer, a lot of employers will just, you know, just get it in place.
Speaker C:They'll be recommended by their pension provider.
Speaker C:They'll have contact them saying, heard this amazing thing, salary exchange or salary sacrifice.
Speaker C:They'll go, yeah, I want to save national insurance, I want to increase my employees net income, why wouldn't I?
Speaker C:But they then do that without doing any of the employment documents, any of the communications.
Speaker C:Employees don't understand it, they think I'm not going to opt in, my salary's lower.
Speaker C:Or they just force people to opt into the scheme.
Speaker C:And then there's obviously legal compliance issues.
Speaker A:Yet you see these cars?
Speaker C:You just take over from me and
Speaker B:explain, yeah, well you're varying somebody's contract, don't you?
Speaker B:If you're forcing people to do it as a unilateral drop to their salary, which a lot of people might not be overly thrilled about.
Speaker B:And yeah, there's absolutely some great benefits to salary sacrifice and genuinely think it's one of the, the biggest wins as an employer that actually doesn't really cost you anything and actually saves you money.
Speaker A:I think so.
Speaker A:And I had some clients say, well, why haven't you told us before the national insurance hike?
Speaker A:And I think the national insurance hike just brought more attention to, wow, how do we, we, how do we mitigate for this?
Speaker A:And, and some of them are like, well, we did mention it, but to be honest it's so, it's so fiddly and complicated.
Speaker A:People sort of lose interest once you're going to.
Speaker A:But this, this ni.
Speaker A:Hike really made everyone go I want to do it now definitely.
Speaker C:And we, we saw that as kind of duo.
Speaker C:We definitely saw that in the amount of kind of schemes that we were setting up and business we were doing.
Speaker C:But, but just to kind of really simply illustrate why it's worth it for employers.
Speaker C:So the 15% nick rate rate if you have a national insurance rate.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:If you have a 5% employee pension contribution to the scheme based on base salary, if all of your employees opted in, we can make your effective NIC rate rather than 15%, 14.3% which means it's only a 0.5% increase compared to a 1.2% increase.
Speaker C:So there is really some savings that
Speaker A:can be made here especially with, especially with decent payrolls and everybody's.
Speaker A:It's a win, win, win, Exactly.
Speaker C:So it's a, it's a win for US advisors which is obviously most important.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:It's a win for the employees because they get to adjust their, their net adjusted income which is really important if they're earning over a hundred thousand pounds for various reasons and it's massively employers because they can save thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands depending on the size of the employer in national insurance
Speaker A:they might actually stop and think more deeply about these pension contributions and trying to put more aside.
Speaker A:I mean I, I think it's.
Speaker A:What's the rule of thumb with pensions?
Speaker A:You should be trying to side of your income or something, isn't it?
Speaker C:That's a pretty, pretty good rule of thumb.
Speaker C:It really depends on, on how early or how late you've started to be honest.
Speaker C:So it, lots of pension providers will have these kind of modeling tools which are, which are really useful to kind of give you a projection of how much you should be contributing.
Speaker C:You can then.
Speaker C:What if I put an extra hundred pounds, extra 200 pounds, extra 300 pounds and that can then give you a predicted income in retirement and that's quite a good.
Speaker A:What about the self employed?
Speaker A:What about the sole traders and the partnerships?
Speaker A:What do they do?
Speaker A:They're not getting all of this.
Speaker A:I know they don't get this.
Speaker A:I would have to do a separate POD on the self employed I think because I think it's a whole different set of questions I guess.
Speaker A:But I mean they need to be thinking about how to do it I guess in different ways.
Speaker A:They still have the same pension Pension allowances.
Speaker A:It's just they won't have the automatic scheme thing put in.
Speaker A:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Let's talk about death in service.
Speaker A:Talk to me about death in service.
Speaker A:And, and do you think this is an important benefit?
Speaker C:Definitely, it's important.
Speaker C:It's important.
Speaker C:Maybe on the.
Speaker A:What is it?
Speaker A:What is it, first of all?
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:It's a policy which generally pays out a tax free lump sum to the beneficiaries of an employee if they were to die.
Speaker C:And that tax free lump sum is normally equal to a multiple of their salary, normally between three and five times their salary.
Speaker A:This just means if someone's worked for you for years and unfortunately passes, is that their, their partner or their family, you, you can effectively hand them a check to say, well, here's four, four times their salary or whatever, here's something.
Speaker A:Rather than terribly sorry about that, good luck with everything, you know, and it, it gives some protection because lots of people don't put in place life insurance.
Speaker A:And I don't think it's expensive.
Speaker C:Is it really cheap?
Speaker C:So when we were looking, when we were talking about cost of the payrolls earlier at 0.3%.
Speaker C:So, so like per employee, it can
Speaker A:be, what's that, half a sick day or something?
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:It's great.
Speaker C:So it could be £100 to £300.
Speaker C:It does depend on the employee's age, but on average it normally works out to about 200 pounds per employee.
Speaker A:Per year.
Speaker C:Per year.
Speaker C:It's nothing.
Speaker C:It's nothing.
Speaker C:It's not a benefit in kind either for employees.
Speaker C:It's pretty simple to administer, it's pretty simple to set up.
Speaker A:You could, you could argue if you're being cynical, being like, well, this, they, they probably, probably won't even know I've got it and they won't care until it happens.
Speaker A:But I, I would, I would say it's not expensive.
Speaker A:It is enormously powerful.
Speaker A:If you wanted to be cynical for your brand, I mean, how damaging is it for your brand to not have it?
Speaker A:Well, in some ways it's not an expectation to have it, but they might chat to a friend who had it, but it, but the power to say, here's some money.
Speaker A:I'm really terribly sorry.
Speaker A:You know, that's, that's, that's.
Speaker A:And I just hate the idea.
Speaker A:I'm sure other employers do that.
Speaker A:Say the idea someone worked for you for five years or whatever and then drop dead and you'd have nothing to say for their family than sorry.
Speaker A:And then, and then you see people trying to raise Money on, go fund it and stuff.
Speaker A:And you think, God, you know, all I needed to do was pay a couple hundred quid to look after them.
Speaker A:So I think that's a no brainer.
Speaker A:I think everyone should have that.
Speaker A:Let's do, let's do the big spicy sausage.
Speaker A:Sorry, nhs, you're not in a great state of affairs.
Speaker A:I'm sorry about that.
Speaker A:And private, private healthcare therefore is getting more and more popular.
Speaker A:Where, where are we on private healthcare, Fred?
Speaker A:Is it a nice to have or is it necessity?
Speaker C:It's, it's almost a necessity now.
Speaker C:More, more and more people are providing it.
Speaker C:Like you kind of alluded to there, the NHS as well, that they really are struggling.
Speaker C:I mean, it's 28 days to see your GP.
Speaker C:Can you imagine your staff not being able to see a GP for 28 days, not being able to work for X amount worries of that.
Speaker C:The worried.
Speaker A:Well, very.
Speaker C:A very bad thing.
Speaker C:And then you have these like, presenteeism, it's called, where people are actually unwell, they've got massive back pain, but they are getting to work.
Speaker C:But by no means are they effective or productive.
Speaker A:So we're presentees and they're turning up,
Speaker C:but they're not presenting, but they're, they're basically rabbit.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:They're in pain.
Speaker C:So much pain.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:And then, then you get into sort of, I guess the question about.
Speaker A:You were raising it there.
Speaker A:So Andrew Thomas, who leads your team, I remember him saying to me years ago, saying, you know, is it really matter?
Speaker A:And exactly what we're talking about, you say, well, if it's going to take you 28 days to see a doctor and you think there's something wrong with you, by the time you see a doctor, you'll be an absolute state thinking you got cancer.
Speaker A:And I know from my dear wife, you know, actually, 99 of the time, the good news is you're fine.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, it's like I've read online, I'm absolutely convinced it's cancer or whatever.
Speaker A:And they're like, no, actually it's just this thing called and it's fine and here's some pills and it will go away and you'll just relax and it will fix itself.
Speaker A:So, so that definitely has an impact.
Speaker A:So the private healthcare can step in and give you a private GP appointment quickly.
Speaker A:And I don't think that bit necessary, that first step, that ability to see a GP quickly.
Speaker A:I mean, as a, as a.
Speaker A:That has an incredible.
Speaker A:That is sort of dealing with sort of 95% of the noise, isn't it?
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:Nips it in the bud.
Speaker A:Nips it in the bud.
Speaker C:That's the, that's the key point.
Speaker A:And then tell us more about these, these, you know, benefits like this.
Speaker A:There's a, you know, we talked about it before we did this is.
Speaker A:And there's a raft of different ways of packaging these things.
Speaker A:So tell me more about it.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Loads of different ways you have with these private medical schemes, there's tons of bolt ons, there's tons of things that you can include on the policy to make it more tailored to your specific workforce.
Speaker C:So you can have dental and optical, you can have therapies cover, you can have mental health cover, you can have the underwriting to be different to cover certain illnesses which people have already got a lot.
Speaker C:It really depends.
Speaker C:And obviously adding these types of things is going to be more expensive, but they are what people are looking for.
Speaker C:If we kind of look at the, the top 10 things which, which people want, the second most important is, is private medical.
Speaker A:And then you have what's the most important?
Speaker A:Pension.
Speaker C:Pension.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:Pension most important.
Speaker C:But the second most 30% of people view this as their top benefit.
Speaker C:That's private medical insurance.
Speaker C:That's the one they're, they're looking for to be really quite comprehensive.
Speaker C:And with a, with a top insurer you then have other things like wellbeing apps, lifestyle perks, cash plans and optical and dental coverage which can all be wrapped into one which are in the top 10 things which employees look for.
Speaker A:Oh, see, you're saying they're all connected to one policy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which makes everything so much cheaper than getting it dotted around with lots of other things and makes the admin so much less as well.
Speaker A:So give me a sense on costs and what's going on because I mean we've seen our premiums go up and up and actually to your point earlier, Jess, this is something that is important.
Speaker A:Important car to have some ability to adjust, I guess what are the.
Speaker A:What is.
Speaker A:You know, let's just type a tick.
Speaker A:Pick a typical policy for a typical firm.
Speaker A:Well, give me a ballpark of what this thing is costing.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:For a smaller firm, per employee, if you're getting a really comprehensive policy, we're talking, you know, like a kind of low excess.
Speaker C:It's going to be north of £1,000 per employee.
Speaker A:Per year.
Speaker C:Per year.
Speaker C:Per employee.
Speaker C:So it's vastly more expensive than the price than the, the group life cover that we mentioned.
Speaker C:Mentioned.
Speaker C:But people really do make use of it.
Speaker A:Good.
Speaker C:The good thing Is maybe not the good.
Speaker C:But the statistics show 5% of people die before retirement.
Speaker C:So it definitely does happen.
Speaker C:But people don't think that's the good news.
Speaker A:That's the good news.
Speaker A:Is not the good news.
Speaker A:5% of them will be off the policy.
Speaker C:But 95, not, not 5%, 95 will probably use the.
Speaker C:Or probably need or should be making use of use of the private medical scheme.
Speaker C:The reason why is it's expensive is, is for a reason is because the NHS, in my opinion is not up to, not up to scratch in a number of areas and private medical is kind of night and day difference.
Speaker C:You get seen within minutes, not, not kind of months, which is, I think massive.
Speaker C:And if you got a surgery quite often on the nhs, they'll, they'll say, I'll give an example.
Speaker C:My dad, he had a skiing accident.
Speaker C:His shoulder was, was messed up quite badly and he could raise it up to here.
Speaker C:But yeah, that's fine, that's fine at your age that, that's all good.
Speaker C:But on a private health care scheme they go, well, yeah, we'll obviously try and get it back to as best as we can.
Speaker A:Well, really.
Speaker A:And then, and that.
Speaker A:And that is where they are.
Speaker A:The NHS is almost becoming, if you, if you, if you're not going to die, you know, kind of get on with it.
Speaker A:I mean, I don't want to offend anyone but, you know, it's a bit like that now.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:And actually a lot of this stuff you're talking about, it's just being in tip top health, isn't it?
Speaker A:Who wants to walk around, they can't live their, lift their shoulder up, you
Speaker C:know, you can't play sports.
Speaker C:Can't, can't do this, can't do that, can't, can't help around the house even.
Speaker C:It's, it's pretty bad.
Speaker A:See that last bit?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Actually, I think you're probably quite like that.
Speaker C:But yeah, there's all sorts of ailments and, and things like that which are important.
Speaker A:But how much is it going up as a cost a year?
Speaker C:It depends on the claims.
Speaker A:So how much the staff are claiming,
Speaker C:is that how much the staff are claiming?
Speaker C:So if your staff are claiming lows or if you really unfortunately just have people which were, have been very unwell, then you could be looking at kind of 30% increases, maybe even more 40% increases.
Speaker C:The average scheme with medical inflation, what we're seeing as a kind of team anyway is more so between kind of 15 to 20% because inflation, that's A lot, though.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's quite high.
Speaker A:You could do a little spreadsheet if you're an employer now thinking, okay, it's £1,000 per person and I've got 50 staff and.
Speaker A:But then you draw that line if it going up at 20, 25% and let's say you're unlucky.
Speaker A:That's, that's where Jess is so important, to be able to vary the scheme.
Speaker A:I guess you don't have to take it away.
Speaker B:You don't have to.
Speaker B:And I think a lot of the time employers will see that as a very last resort.
Speaker B:You know, you don't want to take.
Speaker B:It's easier to give something than it is to take it away.
Speaker B:So if you can, if you can make some tweaks to it and, and, and it still sort of what tweaks
Speaker A:you do you increase the excess.
Speaker C:Increase the excess kind of water down some of the, some of the benefits.
Speaker C:So there's like outpatient cover, which is the amount of things that they can send on kind of physiotherapists and things like that.
Speaker C:So you can also cash plan it so there's an allowance instead of a kind of unlimited.
Speaker A:Oh, you as a business can say, we're happy to pay up to 50 grand or whatever it is.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So within the policy, the insurer will go.
Speaker C:This is kind of a limited version of that.
Speaker C:So they're, they're, they're well aware that these policies are getting a lot more expensive.
Speaker C:So there's tons of ways that you can tailor a plan to make sure that it fits your, your budget, whilst also making sure that it's kind of directed towards your staff.
Speaker A:And you told me that the excess is not.
Speaker A:Does not.
Speaker A:You don't have to pay any excess to see a gp.
Speaker C:They're virtual gp.
Speaker C:You don't have to use the excess.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:So even if you have a 200, 300, 400, 500 pound excess, you can still see a virtual GP that day.
Speaker C:And that's like you said, that's a
Speaker A:big part of it.
Speaker C:It's a massive part of it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Just to get that sort of calm and reassurance.
Speaker A:I mean, I dare mention it, but I, and you know, it's not for me to advocate, but I do think I was always so concerned about how do you fix the mental health thing?
Speaker A:Everybody needs support and there just aren't enough therapists and therapy is expensive.
Speaker A:I don't know if anyone's been in it recently, but, you know, you start to be like, my God, this is quite expensive business coming around, you know, so therefore it's, It's a thing that it's okay if you're rich and stuff, but I do think, and there's all these scare stories and everyone says you shouldn't, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A:But, you know, certainly within my family and friends, the AI steps in is a very helpful thing to bounce problems off, to sort of help you.
Speaker A:I mean, it being so nice to you.
Speaker A:But anyway, I mean, it's an aside, but I wonder whether that's going to help with some of the noise as well, you know, like seeing a gp.
Speaker A:Some of that is just getting a sense of something, isn't it?
Speaker A:You know, and I think the Dr. Google, as they used to call it in the profession, so living with the.
Speaker A:Living with a GP is always gives you this inside knowledge.
Speaker A:But now it's Dr. AI.
Speaker A:But actually AI is better than Dr. Google.
Speaker A:It's definitely a better, you know, and diagnosis.
Speaker A:So there's a.
Speaker A:Anyway, I'm slightly going for the red herring, but it's interesting how you try and hopefully there are some tools coming out now that help people.
Speaker A:So anything else?
Speaker A:I mean, on private healthcare, any.
Speaker A:Anyone you wanted to.
Speaker C:I think with those increasing costs, it's key that you're shopping around or using a professional or.
Speaker C:And speaking of your staff.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker C:You know, but ascertain what your staff actually want, first and foremost.
Speaker C:Because, you know, we were kind of speaking about the kind of red herrings that employers get into when trying to be nice.
Speaker C:So I've seen it time and time again where they have a really expensive group scheme because they want to do one nice thing for one employee and that, because it's a group scheme, applies to everyone.
Speaker C:So they could have just said, look, we'll pay you a tiny bit extra.
Speaker C:Instead they've gone, oh, we'll just.
Speaker C:Yeah, we'll add that onto the private medical.
Speaker C:It's not a problem at all.
Speaker C:That then extrapolated across 20, 30, 40, 50 people, is now a massively more expensive policy and one that they kind of feeling now, well, we can't.
Speaker C:Can't afford it.
Speaker C:Well, you should have spoken to the staff member, offered something to get them on board.
Speaker C:Because that's the reason why you edited.
Speaker A:Well, I was about to say it's not often why they're doing it.
Speaker A:You're trying to.
Speaker A:There's a talent, they have this heavy private medical and then there's a naivety as an employer, perhaps, perhaps the person who made the decision wasn't the person who owned the business or, you know, someone just made.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's be nice.
Speaker A:I mean, honestly, we talk about it a lot here.
Speaker A:I'm like.
Speaker A:And then we're back in again to our loyalty thing.
Speaker A:You know, for me, when I think about it, I'm like, I couldn't, you know, and we're having these discussions at the moment, but I, you know, I almost think actually if someone's been here a long time because you get taxed on this benefit, don't you keep that?
Speaker A:It's not, it doesn't cost nothing to the employee.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So you're giving something to someone and they're going to suffer tax.
Speaker A:So a lot of people therefore choose not to join because they think, well, I don't want to suffer the tax on it, I'm young and healthy, or just, I don't want to suffer the tax tax on it.
Speaker A:So I actually think there's a level at which you start sort of being like, yeah, but if someone's worked for you for 10 years, you know, would you want to know that they can't get their shoulder fixed?
Speaker A:You know, I mean, that's such difficult decisions.
Speaker A:But you've got, you need a profession and you need to really think deeply about it.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:Were you going to say something?
Speaker A:Sorry?
Speaker B:I was going to say that.
Speaker B:I think in that, that aspect, that's when things like, you know, flex flexible benefit policies can come into play.
Speaker B:So you almost give your, your staff an allowance that they can choose.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker A:I didn't know that.
Speaker A:So what, you just give everybody, say, you get this a year, Y say
Speaker B:to people, okay, you've got X amount to spend and choose the ones that you want.
Speaker B:And sometimes there will be things like people want a gym membership or something like that, or, you know, they'll go through the sort of private health and that sort of thing.
Speaker B:And then you sort of allow people then to choose what, what they want.
Speaker B:It's the same way where I see people sort of buying and selling holiday days.
Speaker B:It's a bit of a pain to administer, but actually you then get those things where people will say, actually it's important to me to have 5 more days holiday or 10 more days holiday day, and I will sacrifice part of my salary to essentially get that, or I'm not going to take that amount of holiday, I can sell back five days or something like that.
Speaker B:It gives that sort of, that flexibility and it's, I mean, it's not always workable.
Speaker A:It's always.
Speaker B:It creates that layer of admin and things like that, but people then get what they, what they want.
Speaker C:The only disadvantage, I would say with that, because it is really nice to be able to pick and choose what you want.
Speaker C:Big disadvantage with that is you don't get any economies of scale whatsoever.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker C:So your private medical policy that we were talking about was £1,000 on a personal basis is going to be double that, it's going to be £2,000.
Speaker C:So it's massively important that you kind of do stress that these policies are really good value.
Speaker C:Whilst, yes, you are paying a benefit in kind, you are paying some tax.
Speaker C:Even if you're a 40% taxpayer on a thousand pound policy that's only costing you £400, if you were to get that on a personal basis, it's going to cost you £2,000.
Speaker C:So it's going to be five times as expensive getting a personal policy.
Speaker C:That's kind of only disadvantage, I think, with those.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because it's the nature of the herd, isn't it?
Speaker A:If you've only got three people.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:In a business, then the chances that something serious happens to one is, Is in theory the same, but it's not because it affects things so much.
Speaker A:You know, once you've got a hundred or a thousand people, all the mathematics change so much and the fact that it's taxable is quite interesting.
Speaker A:You wonder over time whether that might shift that they might say, we recognize that private health care is now essentially provided by companies like in lots of countries.
Speaker C:Yeah, you've got the HSAs and the states, those, those type of things.
Speaker A:And, and I mean, lots of countries say Australia, but lots have some sort of mix or, you know, it's not all.
Speaker A:I mean, even when, you know, people get shocked to hear this, you know, in Ireland you have to pay to see your GP.
Speaker A:I mean, I think it's 80, 70 pounds or, you know, it's a decent sum of money.
Speaker A:And there are these problems here that, because there is no friction to see the gp.
Speaker A:And again, you can talk to gps about this, there are some people who do clog up the system who are there every day wanting to see a gp.
Speaker A:Now that paying some money does affect these things.
Speaker A:So we think, oh, lots of people have a sort of free health care service.
Speaker A:Ours is, has been exceptionally generous, you know, it's.
Speaker A:And, and, and unfortunately, yeah, there were problems with that, I'm sorry to say, moving swiftly on.
Speaker A:Anything more on this spicy sausage.
Speaker A:It's just spicy sausage after spicy sausage, isn't it?
Speaker C:The only.
Speaker A:Please.
Speaker C:The last thing I would say is those renewals can be, can be chunky.
Speaker C:It's important that you shop around and, and that, that's really quite key.
Speaker A:So when they go up, have a
Speaker C:look around, it's like yeah, it's semi like a car insurance, travel insurance, all these things which auto renew deal to with some ridiculous premium.
Speaker C:But they then go oh, if you're leaving, we'll massively reduce that.
Speaker C:Which is, which is what we do.
Speaker A:Don't they have the problem that they won't accept preconditions these schemes?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:If they're on a moratorium based underwriting.
Speaker C:So yeah, another jargony word.
Speaker C:So moratorium underwriting essentially means that they won't cover conditions that the employer suffered from in the last five years until they've been a policyholder shoulder for at least two years and not suffered from the condition for at least two years.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So moving schemes may sound, is the right thing to do, but actually you may not be able to.
Speaker C:You can get continued medical underwriting by switching scheme generally.
Speaker C:So you don't need to worry about that, that kind of issue.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So normally you can.
Speaker A:Because they're all competing against each other.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:They'll take on the scheme and say
Speaker C:okay, they were claiming, well I've got
Speaker A:this bloke, this dodgy shoulder.
Speaker B:Shoulder.
Speaker A:And it's like okay, well we'll take on the dodgy shoulder and we'll price it.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And then what?
Speaker A:Just as you leave the old insurer said oh yeah, we've had a little think about that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And, and you, you'll be saying the amount, the amount of employees that you know, we don't work with, that we have work that we've just taken on which have just said look, we've been, this is what we've been doing.
Speaker C:This is what we've been doing the whole time.
Speaker C:Because they, they don't know or they're, they're based in another country and they just think that that's, that's standard practice.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:But yeah, we've unfortunately gonna go negotiate and we've got.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:I was thinking this the other day with all of these different subscriptions they make it so hard to find the cancel button.
Speaker A:You know, it's always a tiny word in the corner and then whenever you do it then says well why are you doing it?
Speaker A:Then you say why?
Speaker A:And then it was.
Speaker A:Then it'll always do the.
Speaker A:If we gave it to you half price that.
Speaker A:And I was think I need to go through all of my subscriptions.
Speaker A:It's a money Saver expert, isn't it?
Speaker A:Yeah, there's a.
Speaker B:There's an app that you can get that will tell you all of them and cancel that.
Speaker B:I've just done it.
Speaker B:But you have fair subscription for it.
Speaker B:So, you know, around.
Speaker A:Around we go.
Speaker A:Why wasn't it quit that one.
Speaker B:Yeah, I might get a month.
Speaker B:Three.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But I was.
Speaker A:I was just actually genuinely quitting something and then it was doing that to me and I was like.
Speaker A:And it was like a crazy offer and I was like, my God, I need to just try and quit everything and then some.
Speaker A:You will quit.
Speaker A:And it's like, well, what does it matter?
Speaker A:I'll rejoin.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker B:So it's when you look through and you realize that you and somebody else in the house is paying the same subscription.
Speaker B:Why am I doing this?
Speaker A:Don't get me started.
Speaker A:Okay, well, lovely stuff.
Speaker A:So, I mean, obviously Covid, as you said, mental health has come along as this huge topic and, you know, also flexibility.
Speaker A:So here are these big modern expectations, as you were starting to allude to earlier.
Speaker A:Has flexible working gone from a benefit to the baseline or.
Speaker B:Yeah, I would.
Speaker B:I would say so.
Speaker B:I think there's a lot more awareness in terms of what people's rights are now in terms of flexible working.
Speaker A:What are my rights?
Speaker B:Everyone has the right to request flexible working.
Speaker A:What is.
Speaker A:What is flexible working then?
Speaker B:So it varies for absolutely everyone.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:So one, it's a right to request, it's not a right to get, get.
Speaker B:So that's the first thing is it doesn't mean that necessary just because you say you want it.
Speaker A:Is this changing with the employment bill or.
Speaker B:The government said that what they want to do is to make flexible working the default position.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker B:How's that going to work?
Speaker B:We don't currently know.
Speaker B:That's sort of one of those things that we kind of debate for hours.
Speaker B:But there has definitely been a push from the government in terms of the way they're framing legislation and frame that.
Speaker B:They're sort of communicating these things towards that flexibility and giving employees that work life balance, giving them that kind of that right to switch off and that right to sort of, you know, stop work at a certain time and do that.
Speaker B:And obviously there are some mental health benefits to that.
Speaker B:And having those kind of like being able to, I think where people have been working from home a little bit more, let's say for working parents, being able to go and do the school run, do those sorts of things has those benefits.
Speaker B:But like everything, it absolutely has to be balanced.
Speaker B:Isn't There you can't, can't.
Speaker B:If you can't do absolutely everything, if you've got calls at a certain time then then that's within your working hours.
Speaker B:That's when they need to be done right with particularly if you're in it.
Speaker A:So it's got to be reasonable.
Speaker A:I mean ultimately you've got to run your business.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Can an employer now say I don't care, I want you all back in the office?
Speaker A:They can, yeah, because that's what's best for our business.
Speaker A:You know, if you don't want to work here, you can leave.
Speaker B: office based but since March: Speaker B:Yeah, A week before my birthday when lockdown happened, you've been working from home with no issues whatsoever.
Speaker B:You've not gone into the office once.
Speaker B:That's enough time.
Speaker B:That's six years nearly that Somebody could say, okay, well customer practice means that my contract has now changed.
Speaker A:It's quite a long period.
Speaker A:What to establish practice.
Speaker A:It's not, it's not just six months or a year.
Speaker A:You've got to do it a year after year.
Speaker B:I mean it could be six months.
Speaker B:It could be.
Speaker B:It depends.
Speaker A:Well you, I guess you would argue, well hang on.
Speaker A:We had Covid for almost two years.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:But now it's carried on.
Speaker B:Now it's six years later and I'm been doing my job absolutely fine.
Speaker B:There's no impact on productivity.
Speaker B:It's nothing like that.
Speaker B:You're going to have one some slightly annoyed employees unless you can explain why you want to do that.
Speaker B:So is it because you want everyone to collaborate a bit bit more?
Speaker B:It's because you're, you know, seeing a dip in terms of people isolated and not speaking to, speaking to other people, that sort of thing.
Speaker B:If you particularly sales environments work really, really well when people are all sat in a room because there's a competitive nature there.
Speaker B:So you'll one, you'll have that.
Speaker B:But you also risk claims of indirect discrimination and that's where you apply a policy to absolutely everybody.
Speaker B:And theoretically it's going to have, you're not treating anyone differently there.
Speaker B:But let's say that somebody has a protected characteristic.
Speaker B:So somebody has a disability, for example.
Speaker B:That means that for them to come into the office Five days a week actually is really difficult because they can't get on the tube as easily as somebody else.
Speaker B:They're actually suffering a disadvantage.
Speaker B:Even though that policy applies to everybody, they're suffering a disadvantage.
Speaker B:So you then as an employer need to turn around and say, well, this is why objectively we can justify why we're putting that policy in place.
Speaker B:So what is it and what is that reason?
Speaker B:And where I see people fall down is when they say, we want everyone back in the office.
Speaker B:Office.
Speaker B:And you say some why we do.
Speaker B:But that's not going to fly if we're, if you're challenged by your employees.
Speaker B:And that's the sort of, the situation where we have those conversations at that early stage and say, okay, but devil's advocate, talk to me about why haven't
Speaker A:there been some big banks of people that have done it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:What is their reason?
Speaker A:They just say that we want better productivity.
Speaker B:Yeah, we want better productivity.
Speaker B:A lot of people say that it has a, you know, for meetings, for
Speaker A:example, all the stuff in the press says that working home I'm more productive.
Speaker A:Which I always feel is like maybe sometimes yes, sometimes not.
Speaker B:I think a lot of it.
Speaker B:One thing I, I always think in terms of if you're training, you know, junior staff, it's much more helpful.
Speaker A:That's a big banana.
Speaker A:Yeah, isn't it?
Speaker A:That is the big banana, which is the, the opposite to a spicy sausage.
Speaker A:But yeah, training people, overhearing people, you know, it's hard to do that on the zoom.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think, you know that as much as those, those water cooler moments, I hate it.
Speaker B:But actually there's somewhere in it you can end up very isolated.
Speaker B:I think in some.
Speaker B:If you're not speaking to anybody all day and you're sat in your home office.
Speaker A:Well, the sad thing now is because the offices are half filled, everyone's in offices that are half empty anyway.
Speaker A:You know, actually that whole sort of.
Speaker A:And probably that's the argument when people want everyone back in, they're just like having half the people back in doesn't work.
Speaker A:Everyone needs to be back in.
Speaker A:We all need to teach each other.
Speaker A:We need to be a culture.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So everyone's sort of got a right to flexibility.
Speaker A:But it is, I'd say it's pretty normal now, isn't it?
Speaker A:Three, two, you know, two days at home.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Twats.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Seeing a lot more.
Speaker B:4:1.
Speaker A:4:1.
Speaker A:Oh, 4:1's coming in, isn't it?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, unlike in America, what Do they have 996, yeah.
Speaker A:Nine hours a day.
Speaker A:Was it?
Speaker A:Nine till nine?
Speaker A:Six days a week.
Speaker A:I mean, look, just to remind our British colleagues who all feel they're working hard, this is now standard in San Francisco.
Speaker A:You want to work there, there, that's the deal.
Speaker A:And I mean, you got to hand it to the Americans.
Speaker A:When they work hard, they work hard.
Speaker B:If you get paid very well, I'm sure they do.
Speaker A:But I don't know if anyone in this country wants to do 996 pretty much.
Speaker A:I mean, some people have to.
Speaker A:What do we do about mental health?
Speaker A:Come on.
Speaker A:I mean, what can we do?
Speaker A:Complicated problem.
Speaker A:What do you advise players to do?
Speaker A:How much do they need to be the therapists and how much can they just be an employer?
Speaker B:I think it's a very fine line.
Speaker B:One.
Speaker B:You're, you're not one.
Speaker B:We're not therapists.
Speaker B:We're not, we're not.
Speaker B:Well, speak for myself here, I'm not qualified to do that.
Speaker B:So actually, you know, not sure chat.
Speaker A:GBT is very helpful.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But ultimately, as an employer, it's, it's not your job to fix everybody's problems, but it certainly is your job to point them in the right direction in those sort of aspects.
Speaker B:So if somebody is coming to you and saying that they're having a tricky time time, you can point them in the right direction.
Speaker B:But it's not for you to, to necessarily solve all those things.
Speaker B:And particularly where it is outside of work, it's not always appropriate because it
Speaker A:could be personal issues.
Speaker A:I mean, I think what I really feel for too is, and it happens to our stuff.
Speaker A:I mean, I've suffered the sort of burnout kind of, you know, and, and we don't, I mean, we don't, you know, people don't do crazy long hours here or anything.
Speaker A:But you get people who are very conscientious, who work very, very hard and diligently who take, you know, really want to deliver.
Speaker A:Well, as in, they, they're not very flippant about their work.
Speaker A:When people care a lot about their work and then they can just become sort of overwhelmed.
Speaker A:And I'm, you know, I'm very sympathetic with that about how you need to like, take a moment, get some countryside.
Speaker B:And as an employer, you've got an obligation to provide a safe space of work for people.
Speaker B:And that includes in terms of their mental health.
Speaker B:So that is, that is your, your obligation.
Speaker B:As long as you're doing that, you, you, you know, do a risk assessment, for example, on those things.
Speaker B:Check.
Speaker B:Are people working 996 is that, you know, what you kind of want people to be doing and checking up on that, but ultimately putting in place some of those benefits, those employee assistant programs, that sort of thing where they can actually talk to somebody that's qualified to help them.
Speaker A:Okay, so let's go into sort of a closing arc, I guess.
Speaker A:I mean, it's obviously difficult necessarily for SMEs to compete with the big corporates, as we said, but let's do.
Speaker A:Freddie, what would be the one benefit benefit you think really could change staff morale or what's the most valuable benefit in your opinion?
Speaker C:I, I personally think pmi, when it's implemented correctly.
Speaker A:Private medical insurance.
Speaker A:Look at you with your acronyms.
Speaker A:Very good.
Speaker A:Yeah, pmi.
Speaker A:I'm thinking this also means that it's a measurement of weight to height or something.
Speaker C:Is it almost bmi.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker C:I think PMI or private medical insurance is the, is the one most important benefit because whilst you have.
Speaker C:Everyone's got a pension, everyone's got a pension there.
Speaker C:And if there are funding issues then you can kind of rectify that yourself in a pretty easy way through something like salary exchange.
Speaker C:But you can't easily, like we discussed earlier, get a like for like private medical insurance policy in place.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:And if it's not, and if it's not in place and they have a problem, you can't add them to the scheme.
Speaker C:So it, yeah, it reduces the amount of sick days that they take, it increases their productivity, it makes it easier to recruit and it makes it easier to retain.
Speaker C:Saying that that sounds pretty good to me.
Speaker A:Just think it through.
Speaker A:Spend time with you or a professional with.
Speaker A:Talk to your employer and think it through deeply as an employer.
Speaker A:Be, I guess, clear as you can with the communication.
Speaker C:Yeah, speak, speak with just anyone that knows what, what to do in the market, has a good grasp of the market and, and research from there.
Speaker C:Go to a few different providers, get a range of quotes.
Speaker C:You don't necessarily have to get the most expensive options.
Speaker C:Just speak with your staff, get a policy that's pretty cost effective, that's gonna not break the bank in place and then communicate that to your staff.
Speaker A:If I would be cynical because obviously in your role you want people to buy the biggest policy possible, isn't it?
Speaker A:So it's getting a good advice requires.
Speaker A:And I, I, you know, we try as a business to put everyone together so we, we get this balance.
Speaker A:But is it true to say if they just go to financial advisor, they'll try and sell them A big policy.
Speaker A:Does that make them a bad advisor or.
Speaker C:It definitely, definitely makes them a bad.
Speaker C:They're a salesman, not an advisor at that point.
Speaker C:The point is, is that the employees aren't our client.
Speaker C:The insurers aren't a client.
Speaker C:Our bank account is our client.
Speaker C:You, the business is our client.
Speaker C:So we want to be making sure that it's going to be offering the best bang for your buck.
Speaker A:They're not going to be coming back in a year saying, screw you.
Speaker C:This is ridiculous.
Speaker C:We can't, we can't afford this.
Speaker C:We'll have already had that conversation.
Speaker C:What's your budget?
Speaker C:What can you afford?
Speaker C:Be aware of the renewals.
Speaker A:And a good advisor would tell you, get your employment contracts, think it through.
Speaker C:And that's why we, we work, we work so closely together because it really does go hand in hand.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:And you should debate because I find that, you know, we internally, we have this all the time, don't we?
Speaker A:And I think it's so important and I'm not even, you know, you've got to get wherever you, your advisors are.
Speaker A:You have to get them communicating together and they may disagree with each other, but let them come to a, you know, let them come to a conclusion if they can.
Speaker A:A compromise, you know, it can be very persuasive.
Speaker C:I was, I was full term IP for life, full time income protection, blank life.
Speaker C:And then just change that to me.
Speaker C:So yeah, we can be.
Speaker C:Because you wouldn't think about that.
Speaker C:Because when you look at it from an individual perspective, really important.
Speaker C:But then like you say, there are these massive complications and working with a employment solicitor, wow, you just wouldn't know that.
Speaker A:You know, one of the most powerful things too is the truth.
Speaker A:You tell, you give someone good advice, the truth, they may choose to ignore it and be very generous, but they will trust you because you're giving them, them the truth.
Speaker A:The amount of times in my career I've said something, you don't actually have to do all of that.
Speaker A:We could do that, you know, and I'm in different worlds than you and I've said the thing when everyone else was trying to sell them something, but I'm just like, well, you don't.
Speaker A:That they're like, okay, I want, I want you to give me information now because that's what people see, isn't it?
Speaker A:They're desperately trying to.
Speaker A:Now for you just to conclude what's the most important thing do you think an employer should think about at the moment?
Speaker B:At the moment, Keep an eye on all the changes, everything is, is going through a bit of change and the key thing you've got to do is be compliant.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's great to offer loads of these, these additional things, but if you're not doing the basics, then you're going to fall down straight away.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, and stay tuned.
Speaker A:We're going to be doing more on.
Speaker A:We'll do an episode.
Speaker A:I think it's next month.
Speaker A:Just looking at the first stage.
Speaker A:The employment bill comes out in April.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker A:First change is coming out and look, there's some, you know, it's a difficult balance, as we say.
Speaker A:And I think, look, the concluding takeaway is this is a very hard balance to get right.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You have to think deeply.
Speaker A:Don't get lost in all the bells and whistles.
Speaker A:I think, I think, I think it's things like that.
Speaker A:Death and service, these sort of private medical pensions.
Speaker A:Just think carefully about those things and what you can afford as a business.
Speaker A:And then more than anything, make sure you run a nice place to work.
Speaker A:You know, that's inclusive and calm and friendly and political.
Speaker A:You know, fix that before you worry about, you know, adding anything on top's not going to make any different.
Speaker A:It's like, you know, having a pile of crap with cherries on top.
Speaker A:It doesn't, you know, it's like, I still don't want to eat it.
Speaker A:You know, fundamentally, really think about how you, how you manage that internally.
Speaker A:And that comes back to the points you were making about fairness, consistency.
Speaker A:These things really matter in a business.
Speaker A:And I think anyone who's been a manager and thinking they're trying to be extra nice to their team, I think you're not thinking about the rest of the business.
Speaker A:It's not about being that nice to that person in front of you.
Speaker A:It's the fact that being nice to that person in front of you could be incredibly mean to some other people who have suffered similar situations.
Speaker A:Anyway, really difficult decision.
Speaker A:Fantastic conversation.
Speaker A:Thank you both so much.
Speaker A:Now, we're just going to end a little bit of fun.
Speaker A:Let's do a little comment, let's do the business of it.
Speaker A:Let's do a little.
Speaker A:A little quiz here.
Speaker A:Okay, brilliant.
Speaker A:Do we think this is going to be interesting?
Speaker A:If they disagree, they disagree.
Speaker A:So do we think so.
Speaker A:Business.
Speaker A:Business or bs, as we like to say.
Speaker A:The hell, Bob, I'm going to ask you questions.
Speaker A:You need to hold your panel up, say whether you think their business or bs.
Speaker A:So unlimited holiday.
Speaker A:Come on, Freddie.
Speaker A:Bs.
Speaker A:Bs.
Speaker A:Well, that's good.
Speaker A:I think if we agree, I think.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's a charade underneath.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's, it's, it's woke.
Speaker C:Nonsense.
Speaker A:I love it, Love it.
Speaker A:Private healthcare for everyone.
Speaker A:Business or bs?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay, we're liking it.
Speaker A:This is very good.
Speaker A:If you disagree, of course we're gonna have to have a fight.
Speaker A:Enhanced maternity.
Speaker A:But not, but, but not paternity.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:Oh, interesting.
Speaker A:Is it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So in.
Speaker A:Wait, let me read that slowly.
Speaker A:So, so it means.
Speaker A:Oh, increasing paternity.
Speaker A:So, I mean, we didn't even talk about it today.
Speaker A:So this is a good opportunity.
Speaker A:So this is statutory maternity is.
Speaker A:I can't remember, 90% for six weeks or something.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then 187 and then what's the general standard now?
Speaker A:People are sort of going for.
Speaker B:Generally people will do full pay for the first six weeks because it doesn't really cost a business that that much.
Speaker A:Sounds a bit better.
Speaker B:Yeah, it sounds a bit better.
Speaker B:It sounds a bit nicer.
Speaker B:And actually you recover majority of statutory maternity pay through your payroll.
Speaker B:Depending on the size of your business, you.
Speaker B:You can reclaim either 92 or 103%.
Speaker B:I'm going with.
Speaker B:Might be wrong on those figures, but quite a lot.
Speaker B:So generally people do that and it's a nice sort to have, but ultimately depends on your size, depends on your staff, depends on what you want to do it for.
Speaker B:Are you doing it for retention?
Speaker B:Because if you're hoping to have people through the lifestyle of their career, it's going to be through their lifetime as well and there'll be changes that people have.
Speaker B:But my view is that.
Speaker B:I think we touched on this very briefly, Andy, previously about.
Speaker B:It does, as a business, if somebody does go out, it does cause a slight amount of disruption, particularly on maternity leave.
Speaker B:It's a longer, a lot longer period than a statutory paternity pay if we change that.
Speaker B:And so couples where it's male, female, if both, does it tend not to
Speaker A:happen at the moment?
Speaker A:People tend to enhance maternity, not paternity.
Speaker A:Is that corporate common?
Speaker B:Sometimes?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, generally, obviously you can't ignore the impact that, you know, going through that process, bearing through pregnancy and birth has on.
Speaker B:Has on a woman.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Absolutely, yes.
Speaker B:There's a.
Speaker B:There's an argument that they should always have a slightly longer period, but having the opportunity for people to take the longer period as a father and that sort of thing starts to reduce the time that everyone's kind of out of that business and, and theoretically it reduces that disruption if both parents have got the opportunity to take the time off and that's great.
Speaker A:I mean you're always saying it like I'm gonna launch in and be like no, no, I agree with you.
Speaker A:I mean, I mean I always give the example of Iceland which has a policy that they force the man to take three months off.
Speaker A:It's sort of, I think it's three months the lady, three months the man.
Speaker A:And I mean I think that would strike fear into my wife's heart that I would be in charge.
Speaker A:But I think that's such an important experience that I would actually sort of spend three months with my, my kids being a dad or being a mom in that sense.
Speaker A:So I'm, I'm all for it.
Speaker A:And I think what you're expressing is some, something people feel very strongly about, you know and I think that's fair is that equality could only really come out.
Speaker A:You know, having babies has a big impact on someone.
Speaker A:The more we allow the man to take to be able to.
Speaker A:It depends on your relationship and what you want to do and who.
Speaker A:Owning money and a million questions.
Speaker A:Isn't it, you know, if one of you earning much more than the other.
Speaker A:I mean it could be.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:That instance is actually where you see it.
Speaker A:I've got a best friend like that.
Speaker A:You know, big up Chris.
Speaker A:But you know it's, you can have a situation where one person, the, the, the, the mother is actually the earning the majority of the.
Speaker A:So they can't afford to and then the father's got to be mummy.
Speaker A:I mean this conversation is getting really confusing really quickly.
Speaker A:But anything that an employer can do to allow and encourage that.
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:And I mean the shared parental leave at the moment, which you can do and it basically means there's a.
Speaker B:The parents can split the maternity leave between them and if it's statutory, you get the statutory rates.
Speaker B:But it's been made so confusing that the take up has been really, really late.
Speaker A:Really.
Speaker B:It's so incredibly confusing.
Speaker A:I thought it was just you could just equally take whatever you wanted.
Speaker B:It's an absolute pain.
Speaker B:I try.
Speaker B:You know, I'm an employment Lawyer, I've been 10 years qualified working through the legislation is so for paternity, for shared parental leave.
Speaker B:But most people don't tend to take it up because it's, it is confusing and, and it's not, you know, not really.
Speaker B:They, they don't see the benefit of it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And for anyone who's been trapped alone with a baby for even a couple of hours, they'll, they'll start to think they were back.
Speaker A:They wanted to Be back at work anyway.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:Why do you think I disagree?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What do you feel on this?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think when you're looking at benefits, I think there's kind of a few main things you want to be looking at.
Speaker C:You want to be increasing your ability to retain your talents, being able to recruit people, reducing absenteeism and then improving your culture.
Speaker C:And I think when you're actually looking at that policy, enhancing paternity pay, do blokes really look at that?
Speaker C:No, they don't agree.
Speaker A:No, I know.
Speaker A:I think it's a really.
Speaker A:I think the reality is we want policies that cater for everyone.
Speaker A:And I think you're right.
Speaker A:The majority of the situation, probably a lot of men aren't really, you know, they'll do their two weeks, but that, that's the sort of old world.
Speaker A:But I think, I think your argument would be, well, if you don't allow for this balance and this opportunity, then you're not allowing for people to change their habits, change that, you know, and, and there are a lot of things that we fall into out of practice.
Speaker A:I mean, I, I look, most friends I have that the, the boss of the house is the lady, you know, they, they would.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They have shock and horror, including my wife, at the thought of leaving their husband in charge for a few days.
Speaker A:I mean, there's some very funny film, an old funny film, I can think, with Michael Keaton in it, you know, when you.
Speaker A:He's in, he's in charge and it's sort of, you know, chaos everywhere.
Speaker A:And it is a bit like that.
Speaker A:My kids are really happy when I'm in charge, but the place is absolute chaos, you know, and I'm, you know, all of that going on.
Speaker A:But I think, I think, I think your point is then, if you're looking at what to focus on, maybe this one is lower down the list.
Speaker A:Possibly, you know, that would be your argument.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think, I think it's.
Speaker C:It's good, it's good thing to have.
Speaker C:But I think if you actually look at the cost things, in my opinion, there's, there's better bang for your bucket elsewhere.
Speaker A:Better bang for your buck.
Speaker B:Yes, Yeah, I agree.
Speaker B:And I think actually, I mean, it all comes down to commercially what you can do.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:It is going to be expensive paying out a fairly longer period.
Speaker B:If you got those, I guess the balance is then if it is something that's important to your staff, and let's say you're in an industry where recruiting, you've got to use a recruiter.
Speaker B:And that's going to cost you 25% of their salary.
Speaker B:It suddenly becomes a different conversation.
Speaker B:But again it's, it's all down to the specific company and what, what they, what they kind of can.
Speaker A:And what that strikes me that last minute is a very complicated subject and some of the stuff we say is very complicated and I think that's what some smaller employers struggle with is these things are really complicated.
Speaker A:So I hope today we've at least pointed out the headlines of the main ones to worry about and if you can't get to the rest, it's okay to be human.
Speaker A:It's okay to say, look, we only have so much capacity and time.
Speaker A:Well, well being apps.
Speaker A:We on the BS or the busy busyness.
Speaker A:Oh yeah.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:And you hesitated quite a lot, Freddie, but Freddy's on business.
Speaker C:Just the reason why is because they're so cheap.
Speaker C:So you might as well.
Speaker C:It's like it's not, I mean chat
Speaker A:GBT's are well being out frankly just keeps agreeing with me.
Speaker C:It's incred.
Speaker C:It's so cheap to add these eaps, these, these well being apps, these additional services onto a PMI scheme, for instance.
Speaker C:And a lot of these, these well being things are also included for free on the pension.
Speaker C:There's financial well being options.
Speaker C:We offer free financial well being services as well.
Speaker C:There's, there's tons of free months.
Speaker A:Yeah, you might.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean if, if anyone needs help with it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You offer a money mentor to, to help educate people.
Speaker A:But I mean they, we did the app during COVID I remember we dear Hughes, who's passed but he was very, very enthusiastic.
Speaker A:But no one really used it.
Speaker A:It's the truth of it.
Speaker A:And that's, that's the uptake again, isn't it?
Speaker C:You've got two people.
Speaker C:Yeah, I don't think they're amazing.
Speaker C:I don't think good, but they're very, very cheap.
Speaker A:So like, like bad chocolate.
Speaker A:Anyway, let's do one more.
Speaker A:So Death in Service.
Speaker A:Let's end on Death in Service.
Speaker A:What do we feel about that business?
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:Well, thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you very much, Jess.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Freddy.
Speaker A:I think you've been brilliant and I hope you've really found that useful.
Speaker A:That has been this week's episode of Business without bs.
Speaker A:And we'll be back for some controversial, hilarious chat as soon as we can.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Take care.
