Written by Pensions provisions have long since been a dilemma for companies who have seen over the last 10 years a massive fall in investment returns in their pension funds together with an ever rising life expectancy and therefore burgeoning pension liabilities for these depleted funds to cover.
We have seen businesses try to handle these issues by re defining benefits and asking their staff to accept the planned changes. However a lot of the staff are unhappy with the proposed changes and see any cutbacks in their pension availability (and other benefits) as unreasonable. Indeed in the UK at the moment there are huge issues with our postal workers, currently striking in order to protect the long time postal workers benefits. Royal Mail obviously saw problems looming a considerable amount of time ago. The employment contracts offered over the last five years allow employees with much less entitlement to benefits (including pensions) than staff who have been with the organization for a longer period of time. So we have an odd situation within the organization at the moment, some workers out on strike to protect benefits they themselves are not actually entitled to.
We have just come through the worst period of job losses that the UK has seen for decades and following this down turn we will see the early stages of a recovery over the next few months. However the organisations looking for new workers over the coming months will not be just replacing like for like in the job offer and benefits stakes. They will be looking to increase employee numbers, but keep a firm check on the benefits that they are stuck with for the long term. Pensions offers will be much less attractive, to stop the growth of the current problems and job contracts may well be for short periods.
There may be some positive outcomes from the new style contracts too. As more and more organisations make use of the power of Internet Business we will see some inventive organizations start to develop and offer a large amount of flexibility to the employee in terms of hours of work and place of work. This is particularly possible when looking at online organisations. These have normally fared well throughout the downturn as they have typically a lower amount of overhead. Indeed a good number of them have actually sprung up within the slump plugging gaps that the closure of more conventional companies have left.
Opportunities to work whenever suits the individual are rising with these new business models and even the ability to Work From Home is on offer, not only providing excellent opportunities for people who have other responsibilities but also keeping the business expenditure down at the same time. This type of flexibility will also make sure that the companies keep hold of as many of their female staff as possible. Those who choose to have children are often in a difficult situation when trying to return to employment and these new, much more flexible contracts and Online Jobs will at least be a helpful thing for these workers even though some of the other conditions may be inferior to post downturn job offers.
