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Thursday 21 June 2012

Asda staff to share £51 million share scheme payout - Retail Bulletin

Asda staff to share £51 million share scheme payout - Retail Bulletin

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Almost 18,000 employees at the Walmart-owned Asda supermarket chain are to share a record windfall of 50.9 million after a share scheme matured.

Staff who saved £50 a month through the scheme will receive £2,808, a 56% increase on their investment, while those saving the maximum £250 a month will receive £14,008, £5,000 more than their original £9,000 investment.

The share save scheme has paid out more than £530 million since it launched in 1982.

Asda’s executive people director Hayley Tatum said: "Our in-store and depot colleagues are the heart of our business and work tirelessly, week-in week-out.

"Giving our colleagues the chance to have a stake in the company is just one of our ways of saying thank you and a great way to ensure that they share in the success that their hard work has achieved."

Asda staff can set aside between £5 and £250 from their monthly pay through the Walmart Sharesave scheme. After three years employees are given a tax-free bonus and are offered the chance to buy Walmart shares at a 20% discount. These can then be sold at the current market rate.


Tagged as: walmart | asda | share save schemes | staff benefits

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Source: www.theretailbulletin.com

London 2012: Jenny Meadows a doubt for Olympic Games - The Guardian

Jenny Meadows's participation in the London 2012 Olympics is in doubt after she was ruled out of this weekend's trials in Birmingham. The 800m runner has not raced at all this year because of an achilles injury.

Meadows is still recovering from the problem and will now need to rely on the discretion of the selectors to be awarded the third and final place on the team for London. "I am gutted to be missing out on the trials, but we always knew it would be a race against time to be fit enough," she said. "Every day of my recovery is like a week so the extra few days ahead of [the European championships in] Helsinki will make a big difference to the injury and ensure I am able to go out and compete and demonstrate my fitness ahead of selection for London 2012."

Jeanette Kwakye, a 2008 Olympic finalist in the 100m, will also miss the trials due to an achilles and ankle injury. "I have been working with the UKA medical team at Lee Valley and on their advice and in consultation with my coach Michael Afilaka we have decided to miss the trials," said Kwakye, who has a best of 11.68sec this year and sits well down the British rankings. "We will reassess the injury on Monday in relation to the European championships.

"I am eligible for selection for the Games and am still determined to be fit and ready for competing in my own backyard in Stratford."

The pair's withdrawal is worrying news with the Games six weeks away and comes just a day after Hannah England, the world championships silver medallist over 1500m, announced she too would miss the trials after suffering a spike to her achilles in a race in Holland three weeks ago.


Source: www.guardian.co.uk

London 2012: The Olympic torch auction is a crass and grubby mistake - Daily Telegraph Blogs

When Olympic torches started turning up on eBay last month there was general dismay at the thought of people profiting from their "moment to shine".

By comparison, the London organising committee’s reaction was muted. They said only that they hoped the torches “go to a good home”.

Now we know why. Locog was planning to cash in in precisely the same way.

Yesterday the organising committee announced that it will be auctioning off up to 1,000 torches to the highest bidder. And it is not just torches. Memorabilia from the Games will also be up for grabs, including the baton from the 4 x 100m relay, balls from Wimbledon, signed photos of Seb Coe and, one suspects, anything else that isn’t nailed down in the stadium when the flame goes out.

The proceeds of this Olympic boot sale, surely the most crass and transparently grasping initiative of London 2012, will not be going to charity. Nor will the money be used to recoup the £9.3bn taxpayer investment without which the Games would not be happening.

Instead the money will be used to “subsidise the costs of Torches to Torchbearers and contribute towards the staging of the Games.”

If this makes you feel better about the torch auction, think again. The torch relay is paid for by sponsors, and Coca-Cola, Samsung and Lloyds-TSB make unlikely candidates for subsidy. (You might even think that after a £17bn bail-out the bank has had quite enoughalready.)

The crashing disconnect between what Locog claims about the torch relay and this scuffling pursuit of a few hundred thousand pounds is deeply distasteful.

I travelled to Olympia for the lighting of the flame, and accompanied it home along with  a delegation including the Princess Royal and David Beckham on the yellow-liveried plane. (Another sponsor stunt that one, BA this time.)

Throughout Locog stressed that the torch relay was the moment the UK would come alive to the magic of the Games,  inspired by the sacred flame lit from the Greek sun. The 8,000 torch bearers, we were told, were truly special people, privileged to be taking part, and only they would be allowed to buy the torches, at £199 a pop to keep the momento of a lifetime.

That spirit was embraced by the public on the road when I followed the relay around the west country last month. The crowds thronging Cotswold villages were willing to ignore the dismal racket of the sponsors' buses and embrace the purer principles claimed for the torch.

It turns out they were being take for a ride. Now anyone can buy a torch because Locog needs every penny, and not at an equable flat-fee but in an auction that will best exploit the market.

The man responsible for this catastrophically misjudged initiative, Locog commercial director Chris Townsend, said this yesterday: “The Flame will carry with it the values and spirit of the Olympic Games across the UK.”

We can only conclude that the “spirit” to which Townsend refers is a desire to wring every last penny from the British public via cheap stunts with high price tags.

Nobody expects the Olympics to operate without commercial support but in the race for revenue Locog has lost sight of what is appropriate, and demeaned the relay.

The defence offered yesterday was equally misguided. Locog argues that it needs the cash, and if misses its £2bn revenue target the taxpayer will have to make up the difference. This is from the “one more step and the baby gets it” school of corporate justification, and translates thus: Either way the public pays, but at least with the auction you get a momento, even if it is now tainted.

Even experienced Olympic figures are shocked. Michael Payne, the former IOC marketing director responsible for turning the Games into a formidable commercial machine, tweeted today that the auction was “demeaning”.

If Locog had done the decent thing and used the sell-off to raise money for sport, or any of the numerous charities in receipt of Lottery cash who have seen reduced grants because of the Games, they would be cheered to the echo here.

Instead they have contrived the biggest  own-goal of the Olympics so far. The market may yet prove Locog right. The torches and memorabilia may fly off the (officially licensed) auction site. But that will not make it anything other than a grubby misjudgment.


Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

London amongst the most congested cities in Europe - The Independent

London, Manchester and Liverpool were all among the most congested cities in Europe last year, statistics from traffic information company INRIX showed.

Based on rush-hour commute-to-city travel in 2011, the figures revealed that UK drivers spent 32 hours of the year stuck in traffic, although this was four hours less than in 2010.

Heading the congestion list last year was Belgium where drivers wasted 55 hours in traffic. The Netherlands was the next-worst country for jams, followed by Italy.

The INRIX figures also showed that in the London commuter zone last year, drivers wasted 66 hours in traffic, with the Greater Manchester figure being 45 hours and Liverpool being 39 hours.

The worst time for congestion in London was Friday from 4pm to 5pm, while Greater Manchester's worst time was Tuesday from 9am to 10am, with Liverpool's jams being at their worst between 4pm and 5pm on Wednesdays.

Nationwide, the worst time to be on the roads was in London between 4pm and 5pm, when it took an average of 33% longer to complete a journey than in uncongested conditions.

Overall, a journey along a UK major motorway during peak-time driving hours took, on average, 17% longer than in jam-free conditions.

All 18 UK cities analysed had fewer jams last year than in 2010, with Friday being the worst traffic day and Tuesday being the worst weekday morning.

The best weekday for traffic in the UK last year was Monday, with the worst commuting hour being 9am to 10am on Tuesdays and the best being 7am to 8am on Fridays.

Among UK cities, the biggest decline in hours wasted in traffic last year was in Birmingham, where drivers spent eight hours less in queues than in 2010.

Londoners spent seven hours less, with drivers in Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham and Glasgow all spending five hours less.

For European countries, the biggest drops in congestion between 2010 and 2011 were in Portugal (down 49%), Ireland (down 25%), Spain (down 12%) and Italy (down 12%).

INRIX Europe senior vice president Stuart Marks said: "So goes traffic, so goes the economy.

"Traffic congestion is an excellent economic indicator telling us whether people are going to work, businesses are shipping products and consumers are spending money."

These were the 10 most congested areas in the UK in terms of hours drivers spent stuck in traffic in 2011:

1. London commuter zone 66

2. Greater Manchester 45

3. Liverpool 39

4. Birmingham 34

5= Belfast-Lisburn 33

5= Newcastle upon Tyne 33

7. South Nottinghamshire 32

8. Leeds-Bradford-Harrogate 30

9= Sheffield 29

9= Edinburgh-Lothian 29


Source: www.independent.co.uk

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