Verbal Test

1. Increasingly, ambitious staff are looking to change jobs more frequently, with a recent survey indicating that more than 40 per cent of the workforce plan to change jobs within the next year. Career advancement was cited as the most popular reason for moving on with the concept of ‘a job for life’ no longer being considered attractive or viable. Perhaps surprisingly salary and flexible working arrangements were not the main factors serving to keep employees motivated, rather variety and the challenge of the role plus promotional and career advancement opportunities were considered of great import.

1. Ambitious staff are keen to move on to progress their career.
2. More than 60 per cent staff plan to stay in their jobs for the foreseeable future.
3. Flexi-time and job-share schemes are attractive options for employees with home commitments.
4. The concept of ‘a job for life’ is no longer considered realistic

1. Compulsory retirement age are soon to be abolished in the UK, allowing people to work beyond 65 if they so choose. This change has been made in response to the EU directive, which will outlaw age discrimination against older worker from next year. In anticipation of backlash from business directors some ministers suggested that they would have preferred to have longer to allow businesses to adjust to the change with an alternative of simply raising the retirement age to 70 being mooted. However others reacted by explaining that if it is already wrong to sack people on the grounds of gender race or religion then there could be no justification for delaying the prevention of age discrimination. After next year, firms will have to prove, beyond doubt, that older workers are incapable of doing their jobs if they want to pension them off.

1. From next year, UK employees will be able to work until any age they wish provided their employer cannot prove that they are not capable of doing their job.
2. The proposed change was accepted without any attempt to achieve a compromise.
3. Business will need time to adjust to the change in legislation.
4. The change will help to relieve the pensions crisis that has resulted from an increasingly aging population.

1. Stress at work is costing business significant sums of money as well as devastating the health and happiness of those directly affected. Stress can result in financial loss through many guises – it costs money through increased recruitment selection and training costs and reduced productivity as well as sickness absence. The escalating expense of compensation claims is an additional consideration. Many employers are being held responsible for employee stress due to the belief that they are doing little to reduce the stressful aspects of jobs. As a consequence, the number of stress audits and stress management programmes being conducted is on the increase – employers who are seen to be doing something to alleviate stress will be able to put forward a better defence in court.

1. Stress only has a financial impact on businesses through the cost of sickness absence and compensation claims.
2. The cost of stress to businesses is actually more significant than the cost to the individuals affected.
3. Employers are increasingly running stress audits and stress management programmes for fear of litigation.
4. Many employers are doing little to cut down the stressful elements of jobs.

Answers

 ABCA ABCC BCAC

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