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Cost of living impacts on employees and employers

Steve Bridger

Inflationary pressures and the soaring cost of living is playing on workers' minds. But also on employers.

We have some resources to help organisations who want to support the financial wellbeing of their employees through the cost of living crisis, and we've been discussing this here. Our discussion about mid-year cost-of-living payments and one-off support for employees has now been read over 10,000 times. Charles Cotton, CIPD's Performance and Reward Advisor has also written about the pros and cons of doing that here.

Please continue to share any tangible steps you are taking to support your employees. As well as one-of payments, are you supporting your staff with travel loans? Have you introduced or extended flexible hours, allowed staff to 'sell' holiday? Are you considering encouraging your employees to come into the office where it will be warmer over the colder months?

But I recognose this is also a real challenge - a crisis, even - for employers themselves. 

Can you afford to do anything? Do you think it's your responsibility to do anything? Are you reviewing benefits? Do you expect to have to make redundancies to offset rising energy bills? 

Please let us know (below) what additional advice and resources you would find helpful in this area.

Parents
  • Following a 5.5% increase across the board in April, we are currently considering a one-off payment in September to all employees who are not in the higher tax band. Trying to use the funds we think we’ll have available to give the maximum impact to the employees who need it most.

    We are also creating a Financial Wellbeing policy for the first time, to try and signpost employees to the benefits we already offer that can help them manage their costs, and also to external agencies/charities who might be able to help with money issues.

    However. We are waiting to see what magic accounting tricks the new Prime Minister comes up with before making any decisions. As Chen-Yang says, the impact of price increases has been substantial to our small company, which in turn limits additional payments we are able to make to employees. The rate we pay for gas has gone up 600% since we had to renew our fixed contract, for example.
  • in reply to Maya
    We are an SME of 60 staff. We considered limiting our proposed one-off payment to those on lower pay only but we know that some of our staff who are higher rate tax payers are also facing significant financial pressures so we are proposing to pay this to all staff except for directors. We feel that the payment not only represents some financial assistance but also demonstrates support and understanding to all of our employees.
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  • in reply to Maya
    We are an SME of 60 staff. We considered limiting our proposed one-off payment to those on lower pay only but we know that some of our staff who are higher rate tax payers are also facing significant financial pressures so we are proposing to pay this to all staff except for directors. We feel that the payment not only represents some financial assistance but also demonstrates support and understanding to all of our employees.
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