(PR in) HR Pulse | HR News Round-up: 6th – 12th February 2023

Zoom Ceo Takes A 98% Reduction In Pay In Solidarity With Laid-Off Employees

Zoom has joined the growing number of tech companies making layoffs, with c1,300 (15%) employees leaving the business. CEO Eric Yuan has written a letter to employees explaining the decision as an important step to manage the current financial and economic climate and necessary to secure Zoom’s long-term future. 

Similar to the CEOs at Google (Sundar Pichai) and Goldman Sachs (David Solomon), Yuan has forgone his bonus, taking a 98% pay cut, one of the largest cuts so far by a tech CEO. Salary.com reveals that this would mean a total pay cut of c$290,000 (c£240,526) to c$6,000 (c£4976). Source: UNLEASH and Insider.

AI Tools, ChatGPT - Are Employees Telling Their Bosses They’re Using It? 

OpenAI’s artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT launched last November with global acclaim. It is able to generate detailed answers and scripts to a variety of questions enabling employees to speed up the process of certain written tasks. 

However, an issue has quickly arisen - whether or not employees should be open about using the app. Fishbowl has recently revealed that of the 11,793 people it surveyed, almost half (43%) use ChatGPT or an equivalent AI application for work, but 70% haven’t disclosed it to their bosses. 

Some employers are open to the use of AI applications like this and the benefits they can have for career development. Wista’s CEO Chris Savage explains that ChatGPT allows employees the time to be creative and produce higher-level work after being provided with a foundation to work with. He added that it comes down to workplace culture and whether employers understand the true benefits of AI tools. Source: WorkLife.

Government To Support Female STEM Workers Return To Work

The Government Equalities Office has allocated £150,000 to fund ‘STEM ReCharge’, a project to help STEM (science, technology and mathematics) workers back into work, particularly women who had left due to family obligations such as care for their children and/or elderly family members. 

The scheme will be run by Women Returners and STEM Returners for a duration of 18 months, providing free career training to c100 individuals who have been out of work for more than a year, aiming to build confidence and tackle any prejudices or barriers they may face. According to STEM Returners’ 2022 research, more than a third (38%) of women experienced gender and/or age-based bias during the recruitment process and almost three-quarters (72%) claimed they had a difficult time returning to work. The Director of STEM Returners, Natalie Desty aims that this programme will create a more diverse, inclusive and equitable STEM sector for everyone.

Marie Caulfield, Minister for Mental Health and Women's Health Strategy explains that the current labour shortage is heavily affecting the number of employees within STEM roles, which is particularly concerning as STEM roles make up such a large percentage of Britain's economy, even though there are c75,000 STEM returners looking to get back into their respective fields. Source: Personnel Today.

Financial Hardship After Retirement For Ethnic Minorities

The Social Market Foundation (SMF) has suggested that pensions should be changed to an auto-enrolment scheme after realising that only a quarter (25%) of BAME employees have workplace pensions. Analysis into specific ethnic groups revealed that almost 23% of Black and a quarter (25%) of Asians surveyed have private and/or workplace pensions. However, a deeper look into the 25% of Asians taking up pensions revealed a large discrepancy between groups as almost half (42%) was made up of Chinese respondents and only 7% of Bangali’s. 

The SMF’s Squeezed out or opting out? report found that almost half (45%) of ethnic minorities claimed they didn’t have enough money to contribute to a pension, 16% thought that the state pension would be sufficient, 14% said that they had general savings, 13% weren’t interested in a private pension scheme and 11% didn’t think it was relevant as they would be retiring abroad. The SMF also called for the threshold for a pension to be lowered to £0 from the current £10,000 allowing lower earners to build their pensions, reducing financial hardship during retirement. Source: Personnel Today.

Kay Phelps