Absence management can slash time lost by 80%, survey finds.

Making changes to the way an organisation deals with absence can reduce working time lost because of it by as much as 80%, according to new research by XpertHR.

Plans to require employers to auto-enrol their staff into a pension will go ahead from 2012, the government has confirmed.

Under the plans, firms will have to offer workers a company pension or enrol them in the government-owned National Employment Savings Trust (Nest) scheme instead. Staff will be automatically entered into whichever pension arrangement applies, unless they opt out.

Confusion remains as Equality Act comes into force. According to an online 'quiz' conducted by Personnel Today, readers are still unsure about the implications of the Equality Act 2010, elements of which came into force today.

The quiz posed five key questions about issues covered by the Act, with multiple choice answers for each one. Only half (50.5%) of respondents answered all of the questions correctly.

The right to request flexible working is to be extended to parents of all children aged under 18 from next April, as an 'interim measure', the government has announced.

Ministers said that extending the right to request – which is currently available for parents of children aged up to 17 – by an extra year would benefit an estimated 300,000 people and help create more flexible, family-friendly workplaces. With a consultation due on whether to make the right to request a universal benefit, Employment Relations Minister Ed Davey hinted that there is much more to come in this area of coalition policy.