Workplace Journal

NCFE, the education charity, has urged leaders to make trauma-informed practice an organisation-wide priority rather than leaving it to individual employee. This comes after research from NHS England found 34.8% of adults had experienced at least one major trauma during their lifetime, equal to an estimated 16.2 million people across England. Claire Montague, sector manager for social care at NCFE, said: “Trauma-informed practice cannot be something we expect frontline staff to carry on their own.

Rising training, insurance and staffing costs could make it increasingly difficult for UK haulage firms to recruit and retain HGV drivers, according to Radius. Research cited by the telematics provider forecasts that 400,000 new drivers per year will be needed to match economic demand, while fewer than 2% of UK HGV drivers are aged under 24 and more than 55% are between 50 and 65.

De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has secured a Ministry of Justice contract to educate more than 1,000 future probation officers. The contract will run for up to 10.5 years across the Midlands, North East, Yorkshire and the Humber. DMU will deliver the university education required as part of the Professional Qualification in Probation. Practical workplace training will be provided by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS).

Seven in 10 junior staff find it difficult to feel motivated to train new starters earning almost as much as them, research from IRIS Software Group found. A third (32%) of HR leaders said this gap had narrowed over the previous two years. 46% expect salary bands to narrow further during the next two years. Among junior staff who had discovered what a new starter earned, 24% said the salary was the same as theirs and 38% said it was up to £1,000 lower.

Volkswagen Group has approved its Future Plan 2030, which includes plans for a “Group-wide workforce adjustment of approximately 50,000 positions” as part of what it describes as the most extensive transformation programme in its history. The Supervisory Board unanimously approved the plan, which sets out 12 initiatives intended to improve the Group’s competitiveness and profitability amid changing demand, technological developments and increasing global competition.

More people joined the Regular Armed Forces than left for the fourth consecutive quarter, marking the longest sustained period of positive recruitment and retention since 2021, Ministry of Defence (MoD) figures revealed. Regular strength increased across all three services over the past year, with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines gaining 440 personnel, the Army 170 and the RAF 840.

More than two in five (41%) employers are unaware of upcoming changes to workplace sexual harassment law, according to research from Acas. From 30th October, the Employment Rights Act 2025 will require employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment within their organisations. The YouGov survey of British businesses found that 59% were aware of the change, while 41% were not.

Point S International has brought together young automotive business leaders from nine countries for its second Next Generation Campus, focused on helping independent workshops manage growth amid changes across the aftermarket. Running from 31st August to 4th September in Provence, France, the programme followed the inaugural event in 2025 and is aimed at the next generation of family business leaders within the Point S network.

New labels for how candidates are behaving in the job market crop up all the time. The latest is “job hugging” – the idea that professionals are staying in their current roles rather than pursuing something new. While it is a convenient shorthand, it does not fully explain what’s driving candidate behaviour. It suggests professionals are staying put by default, when in fact their decisions are currently far more deliberate.

The Government has named nearly 660 employers that failed to pay staff the National Minimum Wage. Around £4m was returned to more than 27,000 workers, while the employers received penalties totalling £7m. The list included 658 employers, including B&Q, Serco Limited, Whitbread Group and Tesco Stores Limited. B&Q recorded the largest underpayment at £456,934.72 across 4,530 workers.