Thursday, December 1, 2005
Employers urged to be on the lookout for dead job applicants
FRAUD prevention specialists are urging employers to be on the lookout for job applicants who are faking the dead.
Deceased impersonation fraud is now the fastest growing type of fraud in the UK, with over 70,000 cases recorded in 2004 and up to 100,000 expected this year. It accounts for around a third of all cases of identity theft meaning employers are more at risk than ever of unwittingly employing a fraudster.
Karen Webster is product director at deceased fraud prevention software specialist, Halo, which provides an identity screening service to businesses. She says checking applicants’ identities against deceased persons’ records should be a standard part of the recruitment process.
“Applicants may be ‘trading under a false name’ to cover up a criminal past, avoid detection for future criminal activity or simply assume the experience and qualifications of someone who has died. It’s amazing just how many people are prepared to try it
“The cost of employing someone who turns out to be a fraudster, dismissing them and then re-appointing someone else, far outweighs the cost of carrying out a check on every candidate.”
New technology including modern computers, scanners and printers mean it’s never been easier for sophisticated criminals to produce fake identification and certificates to fool employers in an interview.
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above: Deceased impersonation fraud is now the fastest growing type of fraud in the UK.
Nine out of ten UK workers would rather find a new boss than a new lover in their stocking this Christmas
Most of the UK put finding a new job and a new boss, higher on their list of priorities, than finding their true love this Christmas. The ‘Christmas Wishes’ survey carried out by Pitman Training.
And in situations reminiscent of the famous Hugh Grant scene, in the film ‘About A Boy’, where Grant’s character loses the attention of an attractive woman at a dinner party, simply because he feels he has nothing to contribute when asked about his professional life, 62% of the survey’s respondents admitted they dreaded the ‘so what do you do’ question at Christmas parties, 28% said they disliked being grilled on current affairs, and the final 20% said they hated talking about current relationships or lack of.
Pitman say, “Thankfully we’re finding that people are getting better at pinpointing the areas in their lives that need improving and are doing something to change their situation. Generally most would agree that if they’re happy in their work, then they’re also happy in their personal lives. Enjoying the working day and feeling fulfilled in a career, inevitably takes the stress off relationships.”
For more information on any Pitman Training courses call 0800 220454. More
New website aims to educate firms on business benefits of better health and safety standards
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, in partnership with a network of Euro Info Centres has launched a new website to provide businesses with good practice information on occupational safety and health at work.
Their website enables businesses to quickly find relevant information on health and safety legislation and includes a special section for SMEs to guide them to sources of advisory services and good practice to ease the compliance process. More
Man flu - it’s official
- Men take more time off for colds and flu than women
- Women are more prone to sickness and stomach bugs
- Colds and flu and sickness and stomach bugs account for 6.9 million people taking time off work
It’s official. As women have long suspected ‘man flu’ really does exist, with men taking more time off work for colds and flu than their female counterparts, new research from Benenden Healthcare shows.
Benenden’s research sought to find out the main reasons full and part-time workers take time off and established that colds and flu are the most common causes for sick leave with more than 3.6 million people — or 12.5 per cent of the working population — absent because of those conditions in the past year.
Workers in the East and West Midlands suffered from the most bouts of flu, with 961,000 people having taken time off in the last 12 months because of this. This compares to 17% of those in Greater London and just 12% of workers in the North East and Yorkshire area. However Scots and people in the North West were more prone to stomach bugs and sickness, notching up 894,000 absences among them.
Jakki Stubbington of Benenden Healthcare said: “All women know that ‘man flu’ exists and now here is official proof. Women have all seen men making a meal of a sniffle and claiming a bit of a cold is the latest deadly flu virus.
“It is not however entirely a laughing matter. Unfortunately there is no cure for the common cold and although a relatively unserious condition the symptoms can be very unpleasant and can make it hard to concentrate at work.
“Colds also have a nasty habit of working their way around the workplace so it is important that staff take time off when they are suffering to reduce the chances of passing it on to their colleagues.”
Proper hours date for 2006
Friday 24 February 2006 is the date for next year’s ‘Work your proper hours day’, the day in the year when people who do unpaid overtime stop working for free and start getting paid.
The TUC’s 2005 ‘Work your proper hours’ campaign won the ‘best research based campaign’ accolade at last month’s prestigious PR Week annual awards. Source
Pay gap
Research by PayWizard.co.uk, the online salary checker run by the TUC and pay specialist IDS, has found that more than a quarter of women are unhappy with their wages, compared with just one in five men.
But the survey of 4,000 people also discovered that fewer than two in five women had discussed reward with their manager in the past year, compared with nearly half of men. More
Harassment law
A new law has taken effect aimed at combating sexual harassment at work. In line with the European Equal Treatment Directive, UK legislation now says that women who are sexually harassed at work do not need to show that a man would have been treated differently, a change TUC believes will make it easier for women to prevent inappropriate behaviour and remarks of a lewd and sexual nature making their working lives a misery.
Gap years
Career gappers are joining the ranks of students by ditching their jobs for a year of travel, new research has revealed. Changing work patterns, from life-long to ‘portfolio’ careers, has enabled a wider number of people to take career breaks between jobs, a study by media information group Mintel has found, with between 1 and 1.5 million gap year trips a year. Source
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