THE HUB RETAIL RECRUITMENT’S WEEKLY NEWS SNIPPETS

Good morning! We hope you didn’t get caught out on April Fool’s Day, but here’s a few stories you can definitely rely on. This week at THE HUB RETAIL RECRUITMENT we look at the current position with SAINSBURY’S and ARGOS, plus some other news about SAINSBURY’S; the health benefits of DOGS IN THE WORKPLACE; and very interesting research on the poor uptake of SHARED PARENTAL LEAVE.

SAINSBURY’S TAKE OVER ARGOS: So it’s now official – HRG will be recommending to its shareholders the acceptance of the Sainsbury’s bid to buy Argos and Habitat. It is of course what we’ve all been expecting over recent weeks, especially when Steinhof bowed out of the race. The move by Sainsbury’s is so it can extend its retail reach beyond food to general merchandising as it intends to place Argos in its major stores – stores which just don’t have the same footfall since we changed our food shopping habit from a big weekly shop to smaller more frequent shops, hence the advent of the small express supermarkets. So this purchase is twofold for Sainsbury’s – it will absorb empty space, but moreover entice customers back into its larger shops. Here’s a good article that talks about it more fully:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/01/home-retail-backs-sainsburys-argos-takeover-bid

Sainsbury’s is also in the news for both a good and a bad story. Good story: it’s continued to increase its sales month on month, and so is back on the top of the Big Four league. And this is despite making a risky move to phase out its multi-buy offers – interestingly this seems to be paying off perhaps because it’s restoring consumer confidence after regulators criticised these sorts of deals as being misleading. Bad story: the Unite union says Sainsbury’s is planning to shed 850 jobs. Sainsbury’s response is that it hopes to deploy most if not all of the affected staff, including through the creation of training manager jobs. Here’s a couple of articles on both of these stories:

http://news.sky.com/story/1673070/sainsburys-places-850-jobs-at-risk-union

http://www.theweek.co.uk/sainsburys/65514/sainsburys-best-of-the-big-four-once-more-as-sales-growth-increases

DOGS IN THE WORKPLACE

A few weeks ago, we reported on the growing evidence that dog friendly workplaces are more productive. We think this will be a growing trend – indeed, Saatchi & Saatchi have had a ‘puppy day’ when a special company bought in some puppies for staff to have a cuddle and a play – a very progressive move. Here’s a report by Purina that says that of those respondents who owned a dog, 50% of them would take it to work if they were allowed to. And nearly half of respondents aged between 18-24 said that a dog friendly company would be an incentive to join. The report also cites benefits such as people taking a lunch break to walk their dog – so not only getting exercise, but also getting away from their work which alleviates stress. We say there’s no downsides to dogs at work – but then we would wouldn’t we?! We have our own office dog, Jack, as you can see here. Also, check him out on our website https://thehubrecruitment.co.uk/about-us/

And a final note on our four legged friends – it’s now law that they must be micro-chipped before they’re eight weeks old – about time too.

http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/34-believe-pets-in-workplace-boost-health/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35972480

PARENTAL LEAVE: It’s a year since Shared Parental Leave (SPL) came into being, and this article reports on research that suggests the take up is not only small, it’s minuscule – between 0.5-1% of men have used it. Of course SPL is in addition to the 2 weeks paid parental leave that has proved popular. The purpose of SPL was to give parents more flexibility during the first 12 months after birth about who stays at home to look after the baby. The report points to two factors: money as for many they would receive only the statutory £139.59; and promotion as many felt that taking SPL would be frowned upon by their employer. What further surprised us is that 55% of mothers said they didn’t want to share their leave! Anyway, have a read, it’s not only an important issue now, but as reported last week, the Government is consulting on extended parental leave to include grandparents.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/apr/05/shared-parental-leave-slow-take-up-fathers-paternity