July 25, 2025
This Week in CX: Formulas for Success and Workforce Friction
Happy Friday! ‘This week in CX’ brings you the latest roundup of industry news.
This week, we’ve explored how retirement plans are getting reshaped, why is F1 such a big deal, and how can employees actually keep their productivity and heads up during all this uncertainty.
We’re also discussing new updates from Tesla, the European Central Bank, and more.
Key news
- After seven consecutive interest rate cuts, the European Central Bank is leaving the deposit rate at 2%. The move comes as no surprise to market observers. The ECB considers one of its most important goals to have been achieved: bringing inflation in the eurozone to around 2%. Another factor is that policymakers are taking a “wait-and-see approach” as they await the outcome of EU-US trade talks. Inflation is expected to continue to decline over the course of the year.
- The rollout of low-carbon hydrogen projects is falling far short of what’s needed to meet global net zero targets by 2050, reports Reuters. High costs for green hydrogen – a fuel produced by splitting water using renewable electricity – are dampening demand. In the EU, only around 20% of planned hydrogen projects are expected to be operational by 2030, according to Westwood Global Energy. While countries like the UK, Germany and Spain have announced hydrogen investment, others — including France, Italy and the Netherlands — have recently scaled back or redirected funding.
- Tesla posted its second straight quarter of declining automotive revenue, with a 16% drop in the latest period, as demand receded for the electric carmaker’s products. Its deliveries slid 14% during the quarter. Total revenue fell 12% to $22.5bn (£16.6bn; €19.1bn), while net income plunged 16%. In Europe, Tesla’s sales have fallen by one third this year. More broadly, new car sales across Europe decreased by more than 5% in June, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.
- Google’s DeepMind lab has unveiled a new AI tool that helps historians date and decode ancient Latin inscriptions. Dubbed Aeneas and co-developed with the University of Nottingham, the AI model was trained on a massive dataset of over 176,000 inscriptions and helps scholars more easily draw parallels between, as well as contextualize, historical engravings. The AI aide can also be used to help restore lost text in damaged materials, boasting an impressive 73% accuracy in gaps up to ten characters.
CXM news stories
Here’s the full news stories that CXM have reported on in the past week. Learn all about the latest news about the workplace friction and what’s going on with retirement plans, why is F1 such a big deal and how to make sustainable change and also keep your customers happy.
Government revives Pensions Commission as 15 million workers undersave for retirement
The government has announced the re-establishment of the Pensions Commission as it revealed that four in 10, or nearly 15 million people, were not saving enough for their retirement. The newly reinstated commission will conduct a review of the pensions system and make proposals to tackle the barriers preventing people from saving, with its final report due in 2027.
Originally established in 2002, the commission’s previous recommendations led to the introduction of automatic enrolment into workplace pension schemes. Liz Kendall, work and pensions secretary, said: “People deserve to know that they will have a decent income in retirement – with all the security, dignity and freedom that brings. But the truth is, that is not the reality facing many people, especially if you’re low paid or self employed.
“The Pensions Commission laid the groundwork, and now, two decades later, we are reviving it to tackle the barriers that stop too many saving in the first place.”
The announcement comes as government analysis has found that nearly half (45 per cent) of working age adults were not saving anything at all into a pension, while around half of workers in the private sector only saved around the minimum contribution level of 8 per cent or less of earnings. The problem is only set to worsen, with retirees in 2050 set to have 8 per cent less private pension income than those retiring today, according to government figures.
Independent review to guide future state pension decisions
The government has also launched the State Pension Age Review, as required by law, commissioning two independent reports that will look at factors the government should consider relating to state pension age and the proportion of adult life in retirement.
The announcements follow the release of the pension schemes bill, under which defined contribution pension schemes will be required to demonstrate that they offer good value for money, as well as provide default options for converting savings into retirement income. Additionally, pension pots under £1,000 will be automatically consolidated into a single account, helping workers keep better track of their money.
The bill has also introduced pension ‘megafunds’ – large pooled schemes with at least £25bn in assets, shared by multiple employers. These are designed to reduce fees and offer more diverse, higher-yielding investment opportunities.
HR’s role in promoting pension engagement
“One of the biggest challenges with pensions is that they are so far in the future when you start work that they aren’t on the priority list for most employees who use their salary to get by on a day-to-day basis,” said Justine Woolf, director of consulting at Innecto.
She explained that HR definitely had a role to play in helping employees understand the value of contributions, “both in terms of the actual money they receive on a matching basis and what this would mean for their future”.
“HR doesn’t have to be the expert – there are plenty of financial advisers in the market qualified to do this – but it needs to be considered a core part of the total reward communication plan and it should be discussed more regularly than just at induction,” Woolf added.
