France: paternity leave extended from 11 to 25 calendar days
From 01 July 2021, fresh extensions to paternity and new children leave come into effect, rising from the current 11 to 25 calendar days for a single child, and from 18 to 32 calendar days for...
Colombia: congress approves extension of paternity leave and establishes parental leave allowance
Paternity leave is to be extended and a portion of maternity leave is to be converted into a shared 6-week parental leave allowance, under a bill tabled by José Daniel López, a...
Switzerland: Allianz’s Swiss subsidiary now granting eight weeks of paternity leave
So that fathers can better welcome the arrival of their child (including adoption) and achieve a better balance between their professional and personal lives, Allianz Suisse has decided to extend...
Austria: IKEA launches “R U OK?” programme to support staff mental health
The Austrian subsidiary of Swedish furniture giant IKEA is implementing an innovative programme to improve the mental wellbeing of its staff. The effort comes at a time when employees face...
30 April 2021
Ireland: parental leave extended to 5 weeks
As of 01 April 2021, parents of a child born or adopted on or after 01 November 2019, can now take an additional three weeks of parental leave bringing the total number to five weeks. The Family...
Italy: Autostrade’s innovative agreement allows smart working parents 90 minutes of time off every morning to help children with online schooling
With schools closed in a large part of the country and only set to gradually reopen after the Easter period, the agreement signed on 18 March at Autostrade per l'Italia (Aspi, Italy’s major...
1 April 2021
Kering: interview with Béatrice Lazat, Human Resources Director of the luxury group, on Kering’s global domestic violence policy
Since the start of 2021, Kering has been rolling out its global domestic violence policy that provides specific support to all employees who open up on their situations as victims of domestic...
29 March 2021
Financial services giant Citigroup bans video calls on Fridays
There will be no more Friday video calls for employees of Citigroup. The New York-based financial services group, the world’s 12th-largest company according to the Forbes Global 2000, has...
Germany: what lessons has the current situation been teaching the nation’s human resource managers?
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, the massive deployment of telework has turned the corporate arena into a huge laboratory that is trying out new ways of working and the work of...
9 February 2021
Solvay: global agreement on minimum levels of protection revised to align paternity and co-parent leave with maternity leave
On 15 December 2020, the management of the Belgian chemicals firm Solvay and its global staff representation body, the Solvay Global Forum (see article n°10248), revised their first global...
18 January 2021
Unilever 4-day working week trial in New Zealand
From 07 December and for a one-year trail period, 81 employees working in sales, distribution and marketing roles at the Unilever food giant in New Zealand will be working in the office for 4 days...
Japan: Yahoo adopts a new way of working
It is a news story that has caused quite a stir in Japan. From October onwards, Yahoo Japan will let its employees choose their working hours and their place of work. In a country where human...
29 September 2020
Google is offering its teams a three-day weekend so they can recover fully
The US digital giant has for the second time encouraged its teams globally to take a Friday off in order to enjoy a 3-day weekend. This second day ‘off-work’ was implemented for all...
8 September 2020
EU: European Parliament working on draft directive on the right to disconnect
We reported in June that this initiative was in the pipeline (see article n°12024). At the end of July, MEP Alex Saliba, from Malta’s Labour Party, put forward a draft resolution on the right to...
27 August 2020
United Kingdom: firms tempted to keep mass remote working in place in September
Only a fifth of UK companies plan to re-open their offices to staff next month, according to a survey conducted by specialist HR site People Management, reported on 25 August. The same study...
Siemens plans long-term policy of 2 to 3 days per week of remote working for all
On Thursday 16 July, the German multinational unveiled a plan that will see two to three days of remote working become the norm for at least 140,000 of its employees. Developed in the wake of the...
21 July 2020
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