China: labour administration declares an employer’s order for employees to marry as illegal
On 14 February, the local office of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security declared unlawful a directive from the Shuntian Chemical factory requiring that its single status staff...
11 March 2025
Germany: 11% of companies offer a four-day week
According to a survey carried out jointly by Randstad’s German subsidiary and the IfO Institute for Economic Research in Munich among a panel of 1,000 human resources managers, one German...
Germany: mixed interim results for the four-day week pilot project
Since February 2024, 45 German companies have been testing the four-day working week as part of a project launched by the consultancy firm Intraprenör, which has just published an interim...
HR managers overwhelmed by managing emergencies (survey)
While HR managers are generally satisfied with their quality of life at work, they nevertheless complain that they spend a lot of time managing day-to-day issues. The international study...
Germany: the headache of corporate initiatives against the far right
In the highly regulated world of Germany's social market economy, companies have generally avoided taking political positions externally and, even more so, internally. But the strong rise of the...
South Korea: Samsung invites executives to work six days a week
Prompted by worse-than-expected financial results, South Korean electronics giant Samsung is asking executives at its subsidiaries to come and work on Saturdays or Sundays to "overcome" the...
26 April 2024
United Kingdom: 9% pay rise at Tesco
UK supermarket chain Tesco has significantly increased its hourly pay with effect from 1 April, taking the wage level slightly above the Real Living Wage. The group has also announced an increase...
8 April 2024
Laurence Hulin (La Poste): “We have created expert roles to support disabled employees”
France's postal service operator La Poste, which has 238,000 employees, has pursued an active policy that has made it one of the leading employers of disabled employees in the country, starting...
22 February 2024
United Kingdom: investigation into sexual harassment in the City
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s financial regulator, has ordered more than 1,000 banks, insurance companies and brokers to detail how many cases of sexual harassment...
20 February 2024
Germany: Bayer details its ‘fundamental’ internal reorganisation programme
Bill Anderson, the new chief executive of German pharmaceutical and agrochemical conglomerate Bayer, has launched the Dynamic Shared Ownership programme in a bid to revitalise the company...
13 February 2024
Société Générale and Deutsche Bank announce redundancy plans
European banks are tightening their belts. Firstly, French banking group Société Générale announced on 5 February the elimination of around 900 head office positions...
EU: QWL and developing skills, the keys to keeping older workers in employment
The latest report from Eurofound, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, covers a range of positive initiatives in several EU countries, highlighting...
26 January 2024
United Kingdom: companies abandon the Real Living Wage
Financial services group Capita and pub chain BrewDog have decided to stop paying the “Real Living Wage”, as they grapple with tightening financial constraints. Created by the Living...
United Kingdom: Standard Chartered offers “green” cars to employees
All UK employees of the banking group (more than 2,500 people) can take advantage of a leasing offer for a hybrid or electric vehicle as part of a "salary sacrifice scheme". Under this scheme...
14 December 2023
Germany: SAP aims to revive employee appraisals with ‘Winning Culture’
The leadership of SAP, the German enterprise IT solutions producer, wants to restore its employees "taste for performance". To achieve this, it is negotiating the introduction of a "dynamic...
11 December 2023
France: Mazars harnesses training to instil a data culture among staff
Mazars, the Paris-headquartered audit and advisory firm, has stepped up its investment in data by creating the Mazars Data School. The aim of the initiative is to make all of the group's 3,800...
15 November 2023
Most viewed articles of the month on mind HR
What readers clicked on the most last month.
What readers clicked on the most last month.
1
EU: Commission launches consultation with social partners on quality jobs
On 4 December, the European Commission launched the first phase of consultation with social partners with a view to a European directive on jobs, which is scheduled for the end of 2026. It could...
4 December 2025
2
EDF bans alcohol on all its sites
From 1 January 2026, French energy giant EDF (180,000 employees) will prohibit alcohol consumption at all internal and external corporate events, from social gatherings to seminars. The policy...
26 November 2025
3
United Kingdom: government scraps plan to introduce ‘day one’ protection against unfair dismissal
The UK government announced on 27 November, in a statement, that it would not be introducing the right to challenge unfair dismissal (without cause) from the first day of employment in its...
3 December 2025
4
Poland: bill adopted to amend definition of psychological harassment
On 27 November, the Polish cabinet adopted a draft amendment to the labour code aimed at simplifying the definition of psychological harassment at work, or “mobbing” (Article 94 3)...
4 December 2025
5
EU: MEPs demand directive on algorithmic management
Members of the European Parliament have called for a directive on algorithmic management. Such legislation would introduce obligations for companies to inform employees, assess health and safety...
17 December 2025
6
Austria: European rules on wage transparency expected to cause a cultural shock
With the gender pay gap in Austria being the second largest in the European Union (18.3%), the Austrian government has promised to introduce a bill next spring to transpose the European directive...
27 November 2025