End of internal email ?

Atos, a leading international IT services company is planning to ban internal email. Having conducted detailed research amongst their 80,000 international employees, they found that on average they were each receiving an average of 100+ emails per day.

Of these 15% were useful, but the other 85% were read anyway because people were afraid they would miss something! People are spending an average of 15-20 hours a week checking and answering internal emails, which represents a huge loss of potential productive time.

In place of internal email Atos are using new tools such as the cloud computing environment, social networks, instant messaging, micro blogging, document sharing, and knowledge communities. Atos intend to have completely eliminated internal email by 2014. For more on this story please see BBC website.

Pensions Survey commissioned by States of Guernsey Policy Council

The Policy Council have appointed research firm Island Analysis to conduct a survey about pension provision in the private sector. Our experience is that nearly all our clients have stopped offering defined benefit pension schemes to new members of staff, and many organisations have replaced their defined benefit schemes with lower cost "money purchase" schemes. It will be interesting to see what the survey finds, and hopefully it will help focus attention on this increasingly important issue.

For more information see website.

Employment Law changes in the UK

The qualifying limit for unfair dismissal claims in Guernsey is 12 months, so will be interesting to see if Guernsey follows UK lead on this.

For more information on changes to the UK legislation follow this link.

Atlas Recruitment supports Hope for Guernsey Swimmer

We were pleased to be able to support Guernsey swimmer Roger Allsopp on his World Record Channel Swim. All money raised goes to Hope for Guernsey. See a video about the swim at website.

Guernsey Investment Funds Conference - Invitation

"Ogier has joined forces with Offshore Professional Conferences again to stage the 5th Investment Funds Update Conference in Guernsey." For programme details and registration form see website.

Employment Compromise Agreements

Collas Crill held a seminar yesterday on "Compromise Agreements". These are written agreements to terminate employment in a way that should provide certainty and clarity for both employer and employee. Useful and topical information on other employment issues can be found in the Collas Crill September Employment Newsletter.

Filling the Pensions Black Hole

AO Hall held a seminar last week about the highly topical issue of pension deficits. Paul Buckle, Group Partner, spoke about the debate over, on the one hand, "the desirability for private pension arrangements" and on the other the importance of having arrangements for "giving an employer the financial flexibility to adapt or exit the arrangement it has established".

In the seminar he outlined some ideas and possible strategies for dealing with pension deficits. There was some open discussion on current pension issues, which David Thompson contributed to from a recruitment consultancy perspective.

For more information see the AO Hall website at website.

Channel Island Stock Exchange Championship

A record number of teams and players will compete in next weekend’s CISX Channel Islands’ Championship. The two-day tournament, which is now in its fourth year, will see teams from Guernsey, Jersey, England, Scotland and Wales take part. More than 150 players will play over the weekend including around 60 from off-island. For more information please see the Isle News website.

New Trustees for Lloyds TSB Foundation

Three new trustees have been appointed for the Lloyds TSB Foundation for the Channel Islands. Guernsey-based Jurat Dr John Ferguson, Sarah Bamford and Simon Howitt will join current trustees to consider requests from charities to take advantage of up to £1m. of giving made each year from the Foundation. For more information please see the Isle news website.

Kleinwort Benson purchase of Close Offshore Group as been completed.

The acquisition, which was announced in March, is for a cash consideration of £26.4 million, subject to post closing adjustments, and comprises Close Offshore Group’s private banking, fund administration, fund management, trust and asset management businesses across Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man.

For more information please see the Isle news website .

CIMA merge with American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

The governing bodies of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, headquartered in London, today agreed on creation of a new professional designation, the Chartered Global Management Accountant, that will be a worldwide standard of professional excellence in management accounting.

For more information see website.

Collas Crill Merger

Today sees the official launch of Channel Islands firm Collas Crill, formed through the merger of Collas Day and Crill Canavan. Atlas Recruitment would like to wish them every success for the future.

For more information see the new Collas Crill website.

Fund Administration Course

BPP are running a part time course in Fund Administration starting on 13th April until mid July 2011. Successful completion of the exam will give you the Certificate in Fund Administration, which is a widely recognised qualification for those working in the Fund Sector.

For more information see the BPP website.

The Lawyer's "Offshore Monthly" report

Leading local law firms feature prominently in the latest issue of The Lawyer's "Offshore Monthly" report. All the major firms are mentioned, particularly in connection with their work on various corporate deals. This is all very encouraging and indicative of the continued healthy state of the Channel Islands legal market.

You can view the fill report via The Lawyer's website.

Managing Guernsey's Population (2)

The Guernsey Chamber of Commerce held a a Breakfast Seminar today at which the key proposals impacting on business were explained by the Director of Population Policy, States of Guernsey.

The Seminar was very well received, and copies of the handouts available from the Chamber website. Also available from the website are links to the Consultation Document itself and a Chamber Response Form, which has kindly been produced by the event sponsors, AO Hall.

You can access the the various handouts via the Chamber website.

Managing Guernsey's Population

The long awaited Consultation document was released today - all 188 pages of it! You can view it online at http://www.gov.gg/  Copies are available from Frossard House, the library and Douzaine offices.  A leaflet about it will also be delivered to every household in Guernsey.

This is a vitally important Consultation, and we would encourage everyone to respond to it.

New Year, New Opportunities

We have an advert in today's Guernsey Press with a selection of new opportunities. You can view the advert here.

Fund Accounting Update

The GSCCA held a joint seminar with GIFA yesterday to provide an update on Fund Accounting issues. The presentations are available from the “Downloads” section of the GSCCA website at http://www.gscca.gg/

Put your glasses on for interview success...

According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, people are more likely to get a job if they wear glasses to their interview ! The report states that a third of British adults think glasses make someone look more professional and 43 per cent think glasses make people look more intelligent. Follow this link to the article http://tinyurl.com/wear-glasses.

Office open again…

Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. We are now back in the office and open for business as usual.