2010 January 07 | Simply HR Jobs Blog

UK Border Agency hires illegal immigrants

By Carlene

The UK Border Agency (UKBA), which screens immigrants prior to entry into the UK, has hired ten illegal immigrants, and two more were employed at the Home Office.

According to details obtained by The Mail on Sunday, under the Freedom of Information Act, hundreds more illegal immigrants have been employed at 34 local authorities and 54 NHS trusts across the UK.

The news follows only months after attourney general Baroness Scotland was fined £5,000 for employing a house keeper who was not legally entitled to work in the UK.

But a Home Office spokesman told HR magazine: “The 12 illegal workers identified since 2006 were all sub-contractors, none of them were directly employed by the Home Office.

“It was our checks and the strict regime we operate on illegal working in the UK that brought these cases to light. We are doing more than ever before to crack down on illegal working, with raids taking place up and down the country every week, and thousands of rule breakers deported.”

Eight of the 12 illegal immigrants employed by the Home Office have already been deported.

Source : HR Magazine

Royal Bank of Scotland’s HR director denies his department was to blame for the company’s reward failings

By Carlene

After a year of maintaining a low profile, RBS HR director Neil Roden emerges to deny HR strategy was in any way responsible for the group’s reward failures.

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s HR strategy was not in any way to blame for the financial mire the group found itself in, Neil Roden, group director, human resources, has stressed. And the financial crisis was “not all the fault of bankers’ bonuses or the fault of Fred Goodwin either”.

“There is a danger of simplifying the analysis,” Roden said. “That is not to say bonuses or Fred were not a problem, but banks not lending and liquidity drying up are not HR issues.”

RBS had specific problems that meant it was poorly placed when the crisis came, he said. These included lack of capital in the business; a ballooning balance sheet, especially in the global banking and markets business; too much exposure in sectors such as property; and the acquisition of ABN Amro.

Of the latter Roden said: “If we hadn’t bought ABN we would have made a profit last year. It tipped us over the edge.”

Roden argued only 300 people out of the 155,000 staff employed by RBS were involved in businesses that caused these problems. The bank was at the beginning of a new phase and HR had a “critical role to play” he said. “We have done a huge amount of restructuring, in every business unit and every geography across the world. People are pivotal in the recovery – we need to get them to do a lot more and to do different things in different ways.

“What HR can do is to look at the issues that created problems and find ways to help avoid them in the future,” he added. “I doubt there is a more interesting place to do HR at the moment than in RBS.”

However, HR is not immune to changes in the business. It has been tasked to take 25% of cost out before 2011. The company has lost 150 jobs out of 2,400 in HR worldwide and Roden conceded there was still some “shaving of headcount” to do. But the majority of cost savings will come from other efficiencies, in particular the increased use of technology as well as harnessing group buying power and examining preferred suppliers.

“In the next 18 months technology investment will come on stream,” said Roden, “and we are looking at lean processes. I am always examining ways of becoming slimmer and have always believed you should be a master of this, rather than waiting for the FD to come knocking on your door.”

Source : HR Magazine

Blog

Businesses ignoring talented Parents

By Carlene

A new survey for Family Friendly Working shows that talented parents are leaving the world of employment.

Britain’s bosses are missing out on skilled employees due to a combination of the lack of flexible hours and the cost of childcare. And
the parents who are leaving are continuing to develop their skills too both with the family, by retraining, and in their own businesses.

Unsurprisingly the top talents developed by parents are Multitasking (68.4 percent) and Time Management (65.3 percent). But more than half (55.3 percent) of the parents who responded to the survey have developed Promotion and Marketing Skills and almost as many (45.3 percent) have developed better Communication Skills. Mums and Dads are getting better at managing money too, with nearly four in 10 (39.2 percent) saying that they have developed their Financial Management Skills after leaving work. A similar number (37.6 percent) have improved Project Planning Skills since quitting employment. Parents’ people skills are getting a great workout too. Three in 10 (30.7 percent) parents claim to have developed better Conflict Management Skills, and one in five (20 percent) have better Team Management Skills since leaving employment.

Director of Family Friendly Working Antonia Chitty says, “I know that I’ve developed my skills since I left employment and it looks like I’m not alone. Britain’s’ bosses need to think hard about offering more flexible work opportunities in order to make the most of talented parents.” Parents completing the survey have commented on their post-employment experiences: “I have learnt a lot since then! More importantly I have learnt a lot about myself, maintaining a positive mental attitude, social networking, enterprise and more.”

Source : The HR director

Strategy to arrest youth unemployment

By Carlene

The National Minimum Wage for younger workers should be frozen in absolute terms in 2010 to ensure welcome government efforts to combat soaring youth unemployment.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). The call is contained in Platform 2010 – A Recovery That Works, the CIPD’s pre-election ‘manifesto for work’. Other calls include: Delay fiscal deficit reduction measures, but freeze public sector pay bill and conduct efficiency review of all quangos, Abandon the increase in employers’ NICs planned for 2011, Remove the default retirement age and extend the right to request flexible working to all employees from 2013, Extend the job guarantee scheme to the long-term unemployed aged over 50, Lead a national awareness campaign on the importance of good people management skills among line managers.

The call for a freeze in the National Minimum Wage for younger workers recognises the efforts that have already been made by government and employers to tackle youth unemployment, but also takes into account expectations of a slow and weak recovery in the labour market.

John Philpott, CIPD Chief Economic Adviser, says: “We strongly welcome the steps the Government has taken to avoid the creation of a ‘lost generation’ in the UK. But freezing the National Minimum Wage for younger workers is necessary to ensure that all this good work is not fatally undermined just as the economy begins to recover. Pay restraint is likely to be a feature of the year ahead as employers and employees continue to work together to minimise job losses. It is right that you workers lucky enough to have jobs should play their collective part in helping maximise the chances for those who do not.

“Platform 2010 sets out the CIPD’s policy priorities for work in a year which is likely to see economic recovery – but in a slow and faltering form. Our priorities combine the macroeconomic steps needed to create a platform for job creation and policies aimed at improving the quality and availability of work for all.”

Source : The HR Director

Is your office empty?

By Carlene

New year is the worst time for staff pulling sickies, warns the Institute of Payroll Professionals (IPP).

Research shows that the month of January is when the highest number of sickness absences occur. A 2008 survey revealed that 13 of the 20 most popular days for sickness absence occurred in January; six of these were taken between 2 and 9 January. On 3 and 4 January, nearly 5 percent of the total UK employee population was absent on sick leave*.

According to the IPP, sick days cause a headache for payroll staff because they have to cover the salaries of absent employees, pay overtime and provide the wages for temporary cover. By law, if an employee is unable to work because of illness, they may be entitled to receive Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) but some organisations offer their own Occupational Sick Pay scheme instead.

Lindsay Melvin, Chief Executive of the IPP, said: “Over recent years it has been frequently documented that there are more staff absences during January than in any other month of the year. This can potentially lead to a lot of extra hours by the payroll department who have to work out each person’s eligibility. “By law you are only entitled to SSP if you’re sick for at least four days in a row, (including weekends and bank holidays), and you must earn no less than £95 a week.

“Your employer will pay SSP for a maximum of 28 weeks. It is not paid for specific illness or treatment but to all employees who are incapable of work and who satisfy the conditions for payment. “If your employer has an Occupational Sick Pay scheme, speak to your HR and payroll department to make sure that you understand and follow the rules, which may be different.

“In this type of scheme, your employer provides pay based on your earnings, whilst you are off sick, on some or all of your normal earnings. Your entitlement depends on the rules drawn up by your organisation. Occupational sick pay usually starts after a minimum period of service, for example, after three months.

“Once you qualify, employers usually provide full pay for a set number of weeks, followed by a period of half-pay.”

Source : The HR Director