Monthly Archives: June 2020

Benefits, HR News, Wellbeing at Work

COVID19 lessons for employers: Key person protection and key worker benefits

Steve Herbert, Head of Benefits Strategy at Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing, considers what lessons employers have learned about employee protection

 

As the nation’s businesses return to work after the national lockdown, Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing (Howden) is strongly encouraging employers to learn some important lessons from the last few difficult months.  In particular the benefits intermediary believes that employers should perhaps more readily recognise two – often underinsured – people risks within their businesses.

Steve Herbert, Head of Benefits Strategy at Howden says;   “There are two significant risks at either end of the corporate structure and pay scales which employers may now more readily recognise.  At executive level there is the risk to the organisation’s Key-people, and within the wider workforce there is the evident need to provide adequate protection for all employees (including Key-workers) and their families.”

 

Lesson 1 – Ill-health and key people

An early lesson from the crisis was that illness is no respecter of status or seniority.  The nation witnessed high profile scientists, government ministers, and even the Prime Minister contracting coronavirus.  Herbert says; “Often senior people believe they are invincible, but this pandemic has provided ample evidence that this is simply not the case. This should act as a powerful reminder to all employers to review their protection insurances for employees deemed of major importance to the business.”

Howden suggests that most organisations have at least some “key” people who would be very difficult to rapidly replace without significant challenges to the employer’s business plans.  The damage caused might be in the form of lost revenues, lost relationships, lost skills, or possibly all the above.

The company recommends that key individuals should be protected by at least one of the range of business protection insurances which are widely available to employers.  These policies are designed to protect the employer rather than the employee, and are a vital item of risk planning for employers of any size.

Lesson 2 – All workers are key workers

For the first time in many years there has been some much-needed recognition of lower earning employees across the country.  Such individuals may  fill what are sometimes perceived as more routine roles,, yet many were pivotal to looking after and feeding the nation during the long weeks of lockdown.

Herbert continues, “Low paid does not equal low skills or low importance.  Every employee represents an important cog in the corporate machine, even if that role often goes unnoticed.  So it is to be hoped that more businesses will now readily accept this simple truth, and accordingly aim to level-up employee benefits to protect all workers and their dependents in the future.”

Howden point out that routinely providing core benefits to lower-paid workers will also potentially shorten illness absences, improve engagement and productivity, and can be a valuable recruitment and retention tool too.

Herbert concluded; “It would be a mistake for businesses not to learn from the unique challenges of recent months.  Having adequate protection for workers of all grades is one important area that we hope many more businesses will now recognise and address.”   

For more information, please visit www.howdengroup.co.uk

Cybersecurity, News

Modern Bank Heist: from smash and grab to hostage situation as cyberthieves evolve

Written by Tom Kellermann, Head of Cybersecurity Strategy, VMware Carbon Black

The financial sector is historically one of the most secure industries in the world. It needs to earn trust and convince customers that their hard-earned money is safe. Nevertheless, the fact that banks are guardians of the one thing cyber criminals typically desire most (money) means security teams are under relentless pressure.

Attackers are prepared to invest time, resources and collaborate to develop new and more effective ways to reach the digital vault and make off with money. Our third Modern Bank Heist report collected the views of 25 security leaders and found that attackers are evolving and getting more sophisticated as they aim to secure long-term illicit access to banking systems. And they are capitalising on the disruption of COVID-19 to help. So, what can we learn from the data revealed in the report, and how can we combat the emerging threats?

COVID-19 surge hits financial sector

Among the CISOs we surveyed, 80% said they had experienced an increase in cyberattacks over the past twelve months, up 13% compared with a year ago. Some of this is attributable to the COVID-19 surge – separate VMware Carbon Black data showed there has been an increase in attacks on finance sector targets of 238% from February to April 2020, and we saw ransomware attacks on the sector increase by a multiple of 9 during the same period. Closer analysis shows that notable alerts observed in VMware Carbon Black data spiked in correlation with significant moments in the COVID-19 news cycle, indicating that attackers are capitalising on disruption to attack while the world looks the other way.

The majority (82%) of our CISOs noted an increase in attack sophistication over the past year, and the ways attacks are developing gives us a valuable insight into attacker behaviours that should inform our response. Overall, we’re seeing attackers moving past inelegant “smash and grab” tactics, and towards more of a “hostage situation” where their motivation is to gain and retain footholds in target networks for long term campaigns.

The Kryptik trojan and Emotet malware continue to feature among the top attack types experienced, our research has found, and these are often used in longer, complex campaigns aimed at leveraging native operating systems tools to remain undetected or gain a base to island hop to a larger and more lucrative target. Another indication that attackers are operating for the long term is the fact that the most prevalent MITRE threat ID affecting the finance sector over the past year is T1507 – Process Discovery (comprising 64% of attacks). This shows attackers are investing in increasing their knowledge of policies and procedures in financial institutions, the better to work out how to infiltrate them undetected. They are also ramping up their awareness of incident response tactics and seeking blind spots that they can exploit to remain invisible.

Island Hopping experienced by one third

33% of the CISOs surveyed reported experiencing island hopping, where supply chains and partners have been unwitting vectors for attacks. The most common type of attack is network-to-network, but one fifth reported suffering watering hole type attacks, where hackers target a website frequently visited by customers of the target and attempt to gain access credentials, or the site of the financial institution itself to launch malware into visitors’ browsers.

Island hopping-as-a-service is also on the rise. In 2019 our analysts uncovered a secondary component in a well-known cryptomining campaign that was designed to exfiltrate system access information that was destined for sale on the dark web. This is a significant change in behaviour that defenders need to keep on the radar as what looks like one type of attack may be cover for another.

“Virtual Invasions” on the rise

Almost two thirds (64%) of those surveyed said that they had seen increased attempts at wire fraud transfer, up 17% compared with 2019. These attacks rely on attackers’ knowledge of business process gaps in the verification process, or on direct social engineering of customers or customer service representatives.

Counter-incident response up as attackers evade detection

Almost a quarter (24%) of our surveyed CISOs had witnessed counter-incident response as attackers prioritise persistence and seek to retain their foothold in the financial institution’s network. This is something we expect to see escalate in the coming year. Tactics such as log deletion, manipulation of time stamps and disabling of security controls will all feature as attackers cover their tracks. Related to this are destructive wiper attacks designed to “burn the evidence” of infiltration and prevent defenders conducting forensic analysis to stop the same vectors being used in future. This has major implications for incident response: we need to get more clandestine.

VMware Carbon Black Senior Threat Researcher Greg Foss has five tips for incident response to avoid alerting adversaries:

  1. Stand up a secondary line of secure communications

This is vital to discuss the ongoing incident. Assume all internal communications are compromised and visible to the adversary.

  1. Assume adversaries have multiple entry points

Shutting off one entry point may not remove the attacker and may have the opposite effect by notifying the attacker you are aware of their presence.

  1. Watch and wait

Don’t immediately start blocking malware activity and access, or terminating the C2. You need to monitor closely to assess the scope of the intrusion to work out exactly what to do to fully remove the adversary.

  1. Deploy agents in monitor-only mode

If you begin blocking or otherwise impending activities, they will realise and change tactics, possibly leaving you in the dark.

  1. Deploy honey tokens or deception grids

Particularly on attack paths that cannot be hardened.

The financial sector is facing a threat that evolves as fast as it can adapt. To combat the tactics adversaries are developing, we need to understand more about their behaviour. That means that kneejerk shutting down of attacks must be exchanged for a more clandestine and nuanced approach that allows us to learn, combined with our own collaborations across the cybersecurity and financial sector. The digital vault is hostage to persistent, resilient attackers who have strategic plans for getting into and remaining in the network, so defenders need to think strategically too, if we are to stand a chance of mounting a successful counterinsurgency.

COVID-19, Healthcare News, News, NHS News

Aegon UK donates supplies to hospitals fighting coronavirus pandemic

Aegon UK has donated supplies to NHS hospitals across the UK as they continue to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

With the help of Aramark, Aegon’s catering and facilities partner, crates of cold drinks, energy drinks, crisps, tray bakes, water, chocolate and hand creams were sent to hospitals in Peterborough, Colchester, Salford, Chelmsford and Edinburgh.

The hospital in Peterborough made a specific request for coffee cups and sugar sachets which was also delivered.
In London, Aegon’s local charity partner, the London Air Ambulance Service, took delivery of the goods and shared them with the Royal Hospital London.

Mike Holliday-Williams, CEO, Aegon UK comments:
“The coronavirus pandemic is affecting every part of society and for those of us on the side lines it’s easy to feel helpless. But our communities all depend on the work being done in hospitals which is why it’s so important that we all do our bit to help where we can.

“We received a few requests from employees in the business to help local NHS hospitals working on the front line. Our charity committee couldn’t wait to get stuck into the challenge and contacted the hospitals local to Aegon offices to ask how to help. The message came back clearly that snacks and drinks staff could grab to keep them going during long shifts, and hand cream, would be a huge help.

“Working together with Aramark, supplies were successfully delivered to hospitals in six different cities across the UK.”

Lawrence Shirazian, Managing Director, Food Services & Defence Services, Aramark Northern Europe concluded:
“Aramark is proud to support our client Aegon with such an impactful initiative. We have seen extraordinary examples of bravery and sacrifice from healthcare and first responders on the frontline of this pandemic. We are honoured to play our part to support and thank frontline NHS workers for their tireless efforts.”

In May Aegon donated £250,000 to various charities to aid the coronavirus relief effort and support the Aegon corporate charity partners.

Some of the hospitals that received the goods directly:
• Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford
• Colchester Hospital
• Peterborough City Hospital
• Salford Royal Hospital

Environment, Fashion, FInance, News

Loopster secures Development Bank of Wales led funding for platform offering sustainable shopping solutions

Loopster, the online platform which closes the loop between the use and reuse of second-hand clothes, has secured a six-figure seed equity funding round led by the Development Bank of Wales

Investing alongside the Development Bank is business angel Jim Lewcock, who owns the internet-focused venture capital Blue14, and experienced non-executive director and angel investor Kate Methuen-Ley. The funding will help Loopster to further develop and commercialise their technology, enabling their platform to catalogue second-hand clothes faster. The Newport-based company will also use the funding to recruit six members of staff. This process is currently underway.

A recent survey by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce[1] found during the coronavirus crisis 50% of consumers believed the fashion industry should do whatever it takes to become more environmentally sustainable.

Extending the life of one garment through second-hand use by just nine months reduces its carbon and water footprint by 20 to 30%.

This is where technology company Loopster has stepped in.

Starting with children’s wear, Loopster offers customers a quick and convenient way to buy and sell quality second-hand clothes.

To sell to Loopster, customers order the Loopy Clear Out Bag and fill it up with unwanted clothes. Loopster then hand-checks every donated item to ensure they are good quality. Parents are paid for items which make the grade which are then sold on at a fraction of new high street prices. Clothes which do not pass the hand-check are returned to the seller, or if they agree, donated to the charity Traid.

Following the success of their children’s clothing service Loopster are now scaling up to include womenswear on their platform.

Founder and CEO Jane Fellner said: “People are starting to be more conscious of the importance of sustainable clothing. We’ve already seen a 50% increase in sales this financial year as consumers seek out more environmentally conscious fashion options.

“With the Welsh Government leading the charge to tackle the climate crisis we are thrilled to have the support of the Development Bank of Wales as our lead investor. Their equity finance is helping us grow our team and our platform further. We really hope as we enter the new normal, that one silver-lining will be creating a more sustainable future.”

Technology Investment Executive Alex Leigh who led the deal on behalf of Development Bank of Wales said:  “Loopster has a really scalable hardware-software solution that addresses an important need within the babywear and children’s fashion sector. They’re helping clothes have an extra lease of life instead of ending up in landfill, which will have a positive environmental impact. We’re looking forward to working with the team and company as they grow and move in to other fashion retail markets.”

BLUE14 is a digital marketing and investment group specialising in the direct-to-consumer market. Managing Director and investor Jim Lewcock said: “This purposeful start-up is delivering value-innovation for its customers. I’m delighted to be supporting Loopster build a sustainable fashion brand that helps its customers save money and the planet. What’s not to like?”

[1] https://www.thersa.org/action-and-research/rsa-projects/economy-enterprise-manufacturing-folder/the-great-recovery

Benefits, FInance, HR News

Path to recovery remains unclear, warns

Quantum Advisory is warning businesses that, whilst markets have rebounded strongly from March’s lows, significant risks remain and the global economic outlook remains highly uncertain.

The Employee benefits and pension actuaries has told businesses that, whilst markets have rebounded strongly from March’s lows, significant risks remain and the global economic outlook remains highly uncertain. Stuart Price and Dan Redwood from Quantum shared an informative insight into the world of pensions and investments, paying particular attention to how financial markets have reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic and how the pension and investment industry has responded. They also relayed their views from a financial perspective as to what will happen as we emerge out of the current crisis and reach some form of ‘normality’.

Investment Consultant, Dan Redwood, said: “Equity markets fell by around 35% which isn’t unusual in times of crisis. What was unusual, was the speed at which they fell; taking just 20 days from peak to trough.

“Following a raft of monetary and fiscal measures from central banks and governments, global markets have seen a swift bounce back in Q2 so far. However, volatility remains and the strength of the rebound varies dramatically between sectors. Oil and gas has fallen by 35.7% since 31 December 2019, while the technology sector has seen a 15% increase. Healthcare has also unsurprisingly fared relatively well with just a 0.5% dip.

“In April, the UK GDP fell 20.4% – the biggest ever fall – and Eurozone industrial production fell 17.1% in the same month. Unfortunately, we must brace ourselves to see a lot more numbers like this over the coming months and recessions will be inevitable.

“Although the path to recovery remains unclear at present, looking ahead, there appear to be three possible outcomes; V-shaped, U or W-shaped or L shaped. In the former possibility, the virus is quickly contained and we can expect risk assets to perform well and there will be the potential for a reversal of interest rate cuts in the medium term. The middle option, which we see as the most probable, sees a longer recovery, potentially accompanied by volatility driven by a second wave. The latter outcome is the most pessimistic and could spell a prolonged or no recovery and large scale unemployment.

“So what are the implications for investors? Diversification remains key, which we have been saying for years, and it will be crucial to focus on quality and hedge unrewarded risks. Ensure sound cashflow management so you’re not caught out when liquidity dries up and remain dynamic. Remember, with volatility, comes opportunities.”

For more information https://quantumadvisory.co.uk

Hair and Beauty, Health

Clinic prepares to emerge from lockdown with new technology and innovative treatments

PURE PERFECTION CLINIC is preparing for life after lockdown by unveiling revolutionary new treatments and technology.

The award-winning Rossett clinic has been closed for months due to the Coronavirus pandemic and staff have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to support patients by offering free advice and guidance via online tutorials and social media.

Owner Sara Cheeney – who was crowned Aesthetic Nurse of the Year at the Safety in Beauty Diamond Awards last summer – says the health and wellbeing of employees and customers remains paramount, so social distancing measures will be in place when they reopen on July 13, and virtual consultations shall continue.

The clinic, based between Wrexham and Chester, is also introducing Hydrafacial Kerarive, a ground-breaking scalp treatment combatting hair loss, hair thinning and dry skin, unavailable anywhere else in Wales and the north west.

“Being in lockdown has been challenging, as it has for all businesses, which is why we have been communicating with patients and the public while in quarantine, helping them to look after their skin,” said Sara, from Llangollen.

“Their safety comes first, so guidelines will be in place for when people start returning to clinic, including a Covid-19 appointment protocol, social distancing, a hand sanitiser station and more.

“It will be a new way of working, but our dedication and commitment will be as professional as ever and we will be unveiling some exciting new packages and technology that will appeal to current and prospective patients.”

She added: “The Hydrafacial Kerarive is a treatment we had planned to introduce earlier this year, and it’s something both men and women will benefit from.

“It’s soothing and therapeutic, targeting hair loss and improving scalp health, which is a serious issue for many.

“We exfoliate the skin on our faces every day, but not the scalp, despite the build-up from products and shampoos. Keravive can prevent hair falling out and thinning, restore blood flow and remove debris, including dandruff.

“The results are quite phenomenal so we’re sure this will be a popular treatment in the months ahead.”

Pure Perfection has been lauded in past weeks for advising people struggling with the health of their skin – especially on their hands after continual washing – while in self-isolation.

Sara says it is vitally important that continues in the short term before customers return to clinic.

“A lot of people were unable to keep to health and beauty regimes while in lockdown, which in turn had an impact on mental health – that’s the feedback we’ve had,” she said.

“Beauty isn’t skin deep, and many people have felt down and unhappy because they’ve been unable to keep to their previous routines; reopening will be a relief for them.

“We can’t wait to see everyone when the time is right, but for now please stay safe and be sure when you do return to Pure Perfection it will be a safe, secure and welcoming environment for our staff and patients.”

Appointments are now being taken, with priority given to patients whose previous bookings were cancelled. Demand is so high they are recruiting a new aesthetician.

For more information about online consultations and to receive help and advice, visit the website www.pureperfectionclinic.com or follow Pure Perfection Clinic (@purepclinic and @pureperfectionrossett) on social media. Alternatively, call 01244 917259 or email hello@pureperfectionclinic.com

You can also join the Pure Perfection Club, an online community where you can discuss the aforementioned issues: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pureperfectionclub/

Environment, Environment News, News, Retail

Too Good To Go reduces food waste with SPAR in Wales

From today (the 29 June), 14 A.F. Blakemore SPAR stores will be preventing unsold food from going to waste through the Too Good To Go app.

The stores will make up ‘Magic Bags’ of surplus fresh food and groceries, which Too Good to Go’s 2.8 million users in the UK will be able to find and purchase for £3.09. The Magic Bags will include a mixture of food items from fruit and veg to ready meals and fresh meat worth at least £10.

Consumers can download the free app from the App Store or Google Play to find a store near them with surplus food available. Once purchased through the app, customers will then be allocated a time to come and collect their ‘Magic Bag’ of goodies, reducing the daily food waste of stores and ensuring the perfectly edible food is enjoyed.

The stores in Wales that will go live on the app on the 29th are as follows:

  • SPAR – Brackla
  • SPAR – Bridgend TC
  • SPAR – Cefn Glas
  • SPAR – Ewenny Road
  • SPAR – Pontycymmer
  • SPAR – Loughor
  • SPAR – Mount Crescent
  • SPAR – Oystermouth
  • SPAR – Penlan
  • SPAR – Porthcawl
  • SPAR – Baglan
  • SPAR – Aberavon
  • SPAR – St. Clears
  • SPAR – Presteigne

Too Good To Go and A.F. Blakemore first trialled their partnership in 15 stores across Lincolnshire in January and the 15 in Wales joined 24 others across the country in the latest partnership rollout.

Jamie Crummie, co-founder of Too Good To Go UK, said: “We are delighted to announce the roll out of our partnership with A.F. Blakemore’s SPAR convenience stores to include the 15 stores in Wales. Fighting food waste is a critical step in tackling climate change and having businesses like A.F. Blakemore join our 3,000 plus partners allows us to increase our impact. Convenience stores are at the heart of many communities and we’re sure that locals will enjoy preventing perfectly edible food from going to waste from their local SPAR store.”

Find out more at www.toogoodtogo.co.uk,

News

4 ways that HR teams can use Identity and Access Management (IAM) for secure remote working

Written by Gomathy Kumarakuruparan, Technical Writer at WSO2

As businesses start to take tentative steps out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are still understanding what our ‘new normal’ is.  In the backdrop of an ongoing pandemic, we’re taking a heightened risk-based approach to living our lives and working.

Businesses and departments that were unable to work remotely shutting down during the lockdown led to a negative impact on businesses, industries, and the economy as a whole – you only have to look at the retail and hospitality sectors to see this.  A paradigm shift has occurred, particularly with technology and its use in a post-pandemic world.

Technology is no longer viewed as solely for the purposes of the IT team, or certain departments or roles. From ordering essentials online, making secure payments online, and converting our homes into virtual offices, these recent experiences have one strong message for all of us – IT is no longer niche but a necessity, embraced by the whole nation.

This means that if you are not a technical person, you are still expected to understand the basics. The good news is that organisations who purely focused on clients in particular roles and departments are now looking at a much wider opportunity where their products could be made in a way that is slightly less technical or sophisticated, more user friendly, and serves a variety of business units as opposed to just IT.

Human resources is a great example.  During the pandemic, one-to-one communication opportunities for hiring, conflict resolutions, resignation processes, and plenty of other HR-based activities couldn’t function as they normally do; workarounds were needed.  We had to interview via Zoom, we were required to handle conflict resolutions remotely and virtually and so much more.  This was also harder for the HR team who were having to reinvent their processes to fit a virtual world, with some being less tech savvy than other departments or teams.

There are a few areas where an identity and access management solution (IAM) can help those less technical individuals who are perhaps not quite so used to remote working get through the learning curve of using technology – particularly if they are working from home.  Here are four top tips that I picked up which helped me:

 

Signing into your systems once

For example, with a lot of the questions I have, I can get answers via different applications launched in an internal cloud. This has resources that I need for our day to day HR activities as well as inquiries relating to payroll, partners, and customers. However, signing into each and every one of these applications is time-consuming and can get frustrating. This is where IAM comes into the picture. The single sign on (SSO) feature in IAM allows me to access all the applications within a given session, using a single secure authentication. When I sign in to one application, it authenticates me to proceed to all my other applications without having to sign into them again.

Moreover, I can safely log out of all my applications using the single logout feature. This way, I am not worried about having to log out of everything properly.  Additionally, we utilise IAM to access conference apps like Zoom using the organisation-level user credentials so that employees need not create separate accounts every time they want to use Zoom.

 

If proof is not satisfactory, use another factor

Since many of us are working from home, the chances of intruders and imposters trying to act as if they are part of the business can put the organisation at risk. This is where multi factor authentication (MFA) comes into play. In addition to basic authentication, you can include something that the user knows (like a password), something that the user has (like an RSA token), or something that the user is (any biometric references like retina scans or fingerprints). But while adding this additional element brings more security, it can be super annoying for an average user – like me. This is why there is adaptive authentication. You can choose the MFA factors depending on how prominent the resources that a certain user handles are, the user’s geographical location (if the user is stuck somewhere other than their home or business due to the situation), the user’s access privileges, or in other words, what the user can do with the accessed data, the user’s IP address and many more factors. This proves to be secure while still being user friendly.

 

Go passwordless!

It can be a real struggle if we forget passwords in these circumstances. Imagine the plight of the IT team if a number of people forget their passwords on a daily basis. Also, writing these passwords down is not particularly smart when you can’t remember them by heart. Having weak passwords, or having the same passwords for multiple applications for convenience, can all lead to a hacker’s paradise. Passwordless authentication protocols like FIDO2 depend on security key mechanisms instead of passwords. This is both user friendly and secure.

 

Onboard, promote, transfer

Onboarding, promoting, or transferring an employee requires IT to give them access to certain applications and rights; and modify them whenever required. This is not a hassle with identity and access management since the users and roles exist in the system and creating new employees, promoting employees to another role, and transferring the department of an employee can all be done easily. These functions can also be enhanced using the workflow feature in IAM.

These are just a few simple ways that an IAM solution can manage secure access to your applications. Technology and remote working is not a short-term fix for the pandemic. This is going to be the way of life going forward since organisations now have a greater understanding of its benefits and how feasible it is for many non-IT departments and functions.

News, Retail

Over 6.9 million online shoppers buy personal care items on Amazon for first-time during lockdown

Since lockdown began, more than three quarters (77%) of frequent Amazon shoppers, an estimated 15m people, used Amazon to buy a product they’d not purchased on the platform before. According to new research commissioned by Molzi, the top categories that Amazon shoppers ventured into for the first time were personal care (e.g. toothbrushes, make-up, hair-dye)(34%), hobbies (e.g. puzzles, painting) (30%), technology (e.g. keyboard, headphones) (25%), clothes (23%), and cooking/baking (22%) with the average value of purchases (spent on products which were not bought on Amazon before) totalling £117.60. But now, as lockdown ends, 97% of online shoppers will continue using Amazon for these new categories with 15% saying they will not return to physical stores and will use Amazon only.

Before lockdown, the most common barriers from buying from these products, included shoppers preferring to physically see or try products before buying them (37%), wanting to support local shops (25%) and not realising items were available on the site (24%).

Amazon has been so widely adopted by shoppers since March 23rd it ranked ahead of the following for the most valuable lockdown service: Amazon (60%), online food delivery (30%), streaming services like Netflix (25%), video conferencing services like Zoom (19%), and gas/electricity providers (14%).

In fact, the perception of Amazon has greatly benefited during the pandemic: 42% of respondents say their impression of Amazon has improved and only five in a hundred (5%) say its worsened. When asked, respondents have valued the most about buying on Amazon during lockdown, nearly two thirds (63%) say how quick and easy it is to make orders followed by the speed of delivery (62%), finding products that weren’t available in local shops (36%) and the greater number of choices than in a physical shop (32%).

Chris Mole, CEO of Molzi, said: “For many people, lockdown has turned Amazon into a necessity. Consumers stuck at home have relied on the platform to buy essential and non-essential products for the first time and hugely valued the service. This is no accident. Jeff Bezos has built the entire business on delivering an unrivalled customer experience and it’s paying off. Clearly Brits’ appetite for Amazon is here to stay.”

Mole, who manages more than £100m of annualised Amazon spend, works with some of the world’s biggest brands. He continues: “There could be a real opportunity for brand trying to tap into the grey pound. The data shows that, whilst young people spent more during lockdown on new products than any other age group, the older generations are more likely to continue the trend.

“As the Amazon Summer Sale starts, the implication for brands is clear. To capitalise on the surge in new Amazon shoppers, they must invest in ensuring pages are optimised and products are in stock. Whilst admittedly, Amazon can appear complex to navigate, the potential rewards are huge.”

Number of shoppers buying products from new categories during lockdown

Personal care (e.g. make-up, hair dye, grooming products, toothpaste) 6.9 Million
Hobbies (puzzles, painting etc) 6.1 Million
Technology (laptop, speakers, keyboard) 5.1 Million
Clothes 4.6 Million
Cooking/baking products (e.g. baking trays, cake tins etc.) 4.5 Million
Medicine/pharmaceutical products 3.8 Million
Food 3.7 Million
Household furniture (including garden) 3.4 Million
Fashion accessories e.g. jewellery, bags etc.) 3.2 Million
Gift card 2.7 Million
Alcoholic drinks (e.g. beer, wine, spirits) 2.1 Million
Non-alcoholic drinks 1.2 Million

The online survey, conducted by Censuswide, polled 1,007 respondents who shop on Amazon at least twice a month. This data was based on nationally representative data of 2,003 respondents, of which 763 shop on Amazon at least twice a month (38%). These 763 respondents were then boosted with 242 respondents who use shop on Amazon at least twice a month using natural fall out. All respondents were then weighted to the Nationally Representative demographic percentages of age, gender and region to confirm the data is representative.

HR News, News, Pay & Reward, Pay and Reward

Subdued pay awards reveal impact of pandemic

In the three months to the end of May 2020 the median basic pay award is worth 2.2%, according to the latest findings from pay analysts XpertHR.

As the UK starts to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, our headline pay award remains subdued as the impact on the economy hits organisations’ ability to reward their employees.

The research shows many employers cancelling or deferring 2020 pay awards, while others have had to introduce pay cuts and the fear of redundancies lingers. Among the pay deals recorded by XpertHR for the current three-month period, 15.2% resulted in a pay freeze.

 

Latest pay award findings

Based on a sample of 243 basic pay awards effective between 1 March and 31 May 2020, we find the following:

  • The median basic pay award is worth 2.2%, the same level as in the previous rolling quarter.
  • Almost one in four (23.9%) basic pay settlements is worth 2%, making it the most common pay award in our three-month sample, while deals worth 2.5% and 3% account for 11.9% and 9.9% of basic pay awards respectively.
  • The middle half of pay deals are worth between 2% (lower quartile) and 3% (upper quartile), unchanged from the previous rolling quarter.
  • In a matched sample analysis, 44.6% of the pay awards made are lower than the same employee group received in the previous year. More than one in four (28%) are at the same level, while a similar proportion (27.4%) are higher.
  • Among the total sample of pay settlements recorded, 15.2% are pay freezes, almost double the number recorded in the three months to the end of April 2020 (8.5%).

In the three months to the end of May 2020, pay awards in the manufacturing-and-production sector are at a median 2% and fall behind pay deals in the services sector, where the median is 2.3%.

Based on a 12-month measure, pay awards in the private sector – where the median is 2.3% – continue to be outstripped by those in the public sector, where the median is 2.5%.

XpertHR pay and benefits editor Sheila Attwood said:

“Across the private sector, alongside the many organisations delaying a decision on their annual pay review, the number reverting to a pay freeze is increasing. With the potential for redundancies looming, frozen or reduced pay is likely to be used as a way to minimise the number of job losses.”