Dame Carol Black, national director for health and work, has urged more employers to sign up to the government’s Health at Work Pledge, according to People Management. The initiative has clocked up 172 signatories since its launch in March.

Employers that sign the pledge agree to publish their sickness absence rates, take proactive measures on diet and smoking, and offer flexible working to staff with chronic illnesses. Signatories also agree to only use occupational health services that meet the new OH standard by 2012/13.

For more information visit the People Management website.

Photo by Kathryn Decker-Krauth

Spending by UK employers on talent acquisition rose 6% in 2011, primarily driven by expectations for business growth, according to HR Magazine. Bersin & Associates finds benchmarks and trends in spending, staffing, and key recruiting metrics. It contains responses from nearly 100 organisations and was conducted via qualitative interviews and online surveys of organisations from the Bersin & Associates database and the LinkedIn network.

For more information visit the HR Magazine website.

Photo by GavJof

Unemployment is the world's fastest-rising worry, a BBC World Service survey covering 11,000 people in 23 countries suggests. The annual poll, called The World Speaks, gave people a list of concerns and asked which they had discussed with friends or family in the past month.

For more information visit the BBC website.

Photo by Steve Cadman

In this competitive job market, it is important that individual organisations take the time to make themselves appeal to candidates. Though the unemployment rate is high, the number of experienced and skilled workers out of work is not as high, as companies begin to understand the value of retaining their best and brightest. In an effort to retain the best staff and to recruit the most qualified candidates to any new roles, more and more companies in the UK are starting to offer some kind of employee benefit scheme to their staff.

If you were to poll potential employees about their priorities when choosing a new role you would find a variety of answers but always in the top five will be pay, conditions and holidays. These are the three things that it is vital to tackle in order to ensure a happy, productive workforce. Any benefits over and above these three key categories will not be helpful in the longer term if you don't get these ones right in the first place.

Offering a competitive salary is an obvious tactic when it comes to recruiting the best staff but it is also important to remember that, depending on the sector, many companies also offer bonus schemes in addition to the basic wage. Everyone likes to know that the guaranteed sum they will walk out with every month is a decent one but people are competitive by nature and offering performance-related bonus schemes can help to bring out the best in your workers. Not only does it offer an incentive but bonuses are also a way for employees to 'keep score' and monitor how well they are doing in comparison with their colleagues.

Conditions are also very important to your workforce. Are their breaks paid? Is there a pension plan? Are the hours they are required to work reasonable and is there any flexibility with these hours? With most people taking on more and more commitments, it is important for people to know that they can occasionally attend a personal appointment during the workday, so long as they work the hours back elsewhere. It is also worth looking into an employee assistance programme and offering this as part of the basic terms and conditions if you can afford to. If not, look internally and create a subset of your staff who can act as confidential contacts for employees having difficulty.

Holidays are also an important factor in choosing one position over another and can often be the deal breaker in this type of decision. Offering over the minimum is always a wise choice. People feel that creating a good work/life balance should be a very high priority and recognition of this is in your best interest.

Over and above these basic categories, there are a number of benefits you can offer to attract high quality staff. If you are prepared to spend the money, two of the most popular benefits are private medical insurance and free, or heavily discounted, gym memberships. If you are not in a position to offer these types of benefits for financial reasons there are a number of staff 'perks' you can employ for little or no cost.

Something as simple as offering free tea and coffee facilities can make a huge difference to an employee's day and pocket book. Buying in bulk means that this will not be a huge cost to the company but workers who need to use vending machines or go to coffee shops find this to be a very expensive part of their day. Employee discounts are very popular and, if you are in command of a large workforce, very easy to organise with local businesses. Many companies are struggling and agreements such as this can be mutually beneficial. This works well with staff as they see you have organised something on their behalf and they therefore feel valued but also just because everyone loves a bargain.

Small incentives such as 'prizes' offered at the end of competitions can also be incredibly motivating. Purchasing items such as TVs and short breaks through discount sites and offering these up for the most sales or the best ideas offer your staff the opportunity to earn something outside their basic wage and therefore prove themselves to their bosses and colleagues.

There are many options available in order to make your company stand out from the crowd and attract the most highly qualified and motivated candidates. In the same poll discussed above you will find that another of the top five answers will always be 'job satisfaction' so the most important benefit you can offer to any employee is the promise to make them feel valued and respected as often as you can.

Staff surveys in almost any organisation will show that employees feel undervalued, under-appreciated and disengaged in their workplace. Recognising hard work and ensuring that praise is given where due can go much further than impersonal benefits in improving morale and productivity. Take the time at one-to-ones and performance reviews to ask your employees what they want from their careers and where they think their skills and talents lie. This will not only give them the opportunity to engage with the organisation but you may also find that they would be better suited in other departments which, in the long run, can save the organisation time and money on hiring new staff.

Photo by Images of Money

The year 2011 represented something of a seismic shift for HR, as the ramifications of the Equality Act, abolition of the default retirement age (DRA) and new legislation for Temporary Workers all brought their challenges. However, 2012 promises to be just as much - if not more - of a watershed. The combination of constant technological innovation, continued social change and even more workplace legislation will add further impetus to the HR Revolution.

So what can practitioners expect to be the key areas for HR in the New Year? We asked Steve McNally of the Work and Inclusion consultancy Equality Law, to give an overview of what to expect.

Employee engagement Employee engagement will get even closer to centre stage. Given its comparative dominance in HR circles over the last few years, it could be argued that “employee engagement” is a wee bit ‘yesterday’. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Only now are organisations fully embracing the importance of engagement to employee performance and productivity. This means that companies’ boards and executives are only now looking beyond survey results to what they need to actually do to respond appropriately to survey findings and meet employee needs. So expect more innovations that help make engagement happen, such as rewards programmes that actually give employees the type of rewards they want, at no extra cost to the organisation but of greater value to the employee.

Isn’t this a rather perverse prediction, given the dark economic clouds that appear to be gathering for 2012? Not at all. A quite startling set of statistics has just been released by Mercer. In late 2011, its global research - which had more than 10,000 employees responding - found that 32% of employees are “planning on leaving” their employers (as opposed to just 19% in 2009).

It appears that much of the workforce is simply “hanging on to their jobs”, waiting for the economy to recover - then jumping ship. That’s the problem: low engagement leads to low employee performance.

Social media The year 2011 was the year of ‘social’ - social recruiting, social rewards, social learning, social performance management and social career management. ‘Social’ will be the biggest buzzword of 2012, closely followed by ‘mobile’. Your Employees are already interacting through social media. And you’re probably utilising social as an effective recruitment tool. It’s an obvious step to make it possible for employees to recognise each other through a social platform as well. In 2012, we will see the practices of ‘social’ start to revolutionise rewards and recognition, as well as learning, performance management and even career management.

For most HR functions the starting point is recruitment. Some 66% of HR professionals rely on LinkedIn to headhunt individuals and fulfill roles, according to Paul Ashford, operations director at online HR software provider Vaado Software, while Facebook is used to actively promote a company’s profile. “Individuals looking to work within a particular organisation can log on and see what the company is about, have access to images and videos and generally get a feel for the company structure.”

But this is beginning to change. “Organisations are definitely moving beyond having a quick check on Facebook and starting to be more structured and systematic,” says Chris Phillips, VP EMEA marketing for talent management firm Taleo.

Looking beyond recruitment, the key opportunity for HR is to exploit social media’s credentials as a communications medium. It could transform communications in a change management programme, for example. “Traditional management of communications is one way. This is a way of engaging people involved in that change,” explains Stephen Brooks, specialist in people management, PA Consulting Group. “You have to think about whether social media could help you engage with people you need to change and get messages over in a better way and make communication more continuous. Most change management programmes make a big communication at the beginning, and then there’s nothing.”

Instead, companies can easily keep people informed with short messages and updates. Rather than go through focus groups, the company will then get instant feedback about what people really think. Although that may well turn up some unpleasant comments or awkward questions, it is better to have them in an open forum than people festering resentment in private or complaining to people outside the organisation. Brooks also points out that such open forums tend to be self-moderating. “When people whinge, other employees will say no that’s not right,” he says. “Work is a society and if you behave badly, your peer group will take against you.”

So in 2012 use ‘social’ for what it is: a universe in which you can communicate, influence, learn and drive development.

Performance management Performance management will turn upside down. Talent management guru Josh Bersin expects the world of performance management to be “turned upside down” in 2012, with an increasing number of companies recognising the need to “rethink their traditional (often hated) performance appraisal processes”.

In 2011, Bersin and his team discovered that companies which regularly revisit their goals (quarterly or even more often) dramatically outperform those which create annual cascading-goal programmes. The dynamic nature of modern business makes it necessary for performance management to become “agile” and “real time”.

So what is “agile” performance management? The concept is very similar to agile software development - rather than put the manager in the middle of the appraisal process and use a “waterfall” approach which reviews employees once per year, it creates a more continuous, dynamic and transparent model of feedback”, explains Bersin.

“Companies that revise and update goals quarterly generate more than 30 per cent greater impact from their performance management processes than those which implement the old-fashioned annual review." Josh notes that the single most valuable thing you can do to improve performance is to improve the quantity and quality of feedback.

Embracing diversity From the rallying cry of the Lord Davies report calling for more women to join British boardrooms, to the abolition of the official retirement age, inclusion and diversity has been in the full glare of the media spotlight over the last year.

Firms that do embrace diversity can reap rich rewards. A 2010 Harvard Business Review study found a direct link between business success and a commitment to diversity. Those identified as the top 50 diversity organisations saw net profit margins outstrip their peers by 2.7%.

As Peta Latimer, a senior consultant within Kenexa Leadership's Diversity & Inclusion group says: “Every time you talk to someone that’s different, you get different ideas.”

Gender first? For those firms that are tackling diversity issues, gender has been top of the agenda. But this is only one of the nine protected strands under the Equality Act. This year should see companies view diversity more holistically rather than picking out one specific group for special treatment or targeted initiatives. By focusing on one area - promoting women to the board for example - there’s a danger of fostering resentment among other workers. It should always be the talent that rises to the top, but companies need to broaden the ways to get to get there. For example, those people wanting flexible working shouldn’t be viewed any more negatively than those who work late in the office every night.

HR professionals should act by monitoring the diversity of their own workforce and people suggested for promotion and look at what their competitors are doing. HR professionals should also be increasingly aware of the importance of tackling the issue of unconscious bias. We all have prejudices; it is simply human nature. We cannot help but make unconscious judgements about people, which can affect who we recruit or how we deal with people in the workplace. Many studies into middle managers and performance showed that line managers favour people like themselves.

By recognising our unconscious bias, line managers and companies as a whole can create more diverse teams of workers and ensure that more diverse groups of people are promoted.

“We all tend to recruit people like us,” acknowledges Latimer. “HR should be pushing ‘objective recruitment’. Inclusion should be part of the fabric of the company”.

Managing generation challenge Two years ago, the number of people over 65 outstripped those under 16 for the first time. The abolition of the Default Retirement Age means that older workers are likely to stay working for longer, either through choice or economic necessity. Meanwhile, Generation Y-ers - the Facebook generation - are entering the workforce, with their focus on social media and instant gratification and their anti-authority stance.

This presents a challenge: how do you manage the aspirations and needs of these very different groups, and ensure both parties - and all other age groups in between - work together harmoniously? In fact, employers need to be addressing the 4-Generation Challenge, as Gen Y, Gen X, BabyBoomers and the Veterans all take their place and remain in work longer than ever before.

“The demographic mix found within departments today has never been more diverse. This brings as many challenges as benefits. Prospective areas of friction can include education styles, language, relationships with technology and even where people are in terms of their career goals,” says Ruth Jacobs, operations director for Randstad business support.

An end to the obligatory retirement at 65 requires companies to make subtle adjustments to help those older workers remain productive and stay focused. Rather than seeing this group as coasting towards retirement, requiring neither training nor fresh challenges, managers - with a helpful nudge from their HR departments - need to think about the needs of this group and how to keep them motivated. So this could mean conversations about reducing work hours, working flexibly, or training to help them do their jobs better.

Ultimately, age should not be the issue: it’s skills that count. Ensuring all staff have the right skills to match business goals is the key. Managing the 4 Generation Challenge to achieve that will be central to HR success in 2012.

You might assume that any organisation that increases output 20-fold with only a three-fold increase in staff must come from the private sector. Especially if it has also reduced staff turnover by half, reduced staff sick leave by one-third, and quadrupled income over four years? Well, according to Personnel Today, it's actually a charity.

For more information visit the Personnel Today website.

Photo by Uwe Hermann

Mobile internet usage will overtake PC-based usage within the next four years, according to forecasts released in September by market research firm IDC. According to HRmagazine.co.uk, the report also said sales of mobiles and tablets will soon overtake the sales of PCs.

For more information visit HRmagazine.co.uk.

Photo by Cheon Fong Liew

Pensions have been an increasingly important part of an employee's package in recent years but with not enough people preparing for their retirement, legislation is being introduced to ensure that more workers in the UK are provided with a pension scheme. Unlike some of the other pieces of legislation that has been introduced in the past, the new reforms are significant and will mean wholesale changes for nearly every employer.

Once the new rules take effect, every employer will be required to ascertain which of their employees are classed as 'eligible jobholders' and enrol them into a qualifying pension scheme. Once enrolled, the employer will have a duty to inform the employee of their new membership as well as make contributions on their behalf.

An eligible jobholder has been defined as an individual who ordinarily works in the UK, even if they are not a UK national. The length of their intended stay in the UK is also not a factor in ascertaining eligibility. To qualify under the rules, the individual must be between the ages of 22 and retirement age and earning more than a defined amount. The final sum has yet to be agreed but has been provisionally set at £7,475. This figure includes adoption, maternity and paternity pay, overtime, sick pay, bonuses, overtime and commission.

Some workers who do not qualify as eligible jobholders under the auto-enrolment rules can ask to join the scheme but will not receive the benefit of employer contributions. The employer is obliged to comply with this request if made. Other workers have the right to opt-in to a scheme as well as receive employer contributions once they join.

The new legislation is likely to cause a large amount of work for most businesses to ensure they become compliant but the Pension Regulator has announced that there will be stiff penalties for any firm actively encouraging their employees to either opt out or providing them with an incentive to do so. This applies to candidates applying for vacancies as well as existing employees.

Although auto-enrolment is a key part of the reform, employees may opt out of the scheme if they wish to do so. There is a one month cooling off period at the original inception and if membership is cancelled during this time, any contributions made during this period must be refunded in full. The pension scheme must also refund the relevant contributions back to the employer as well. The employee may exit the scheme at any time but if they opt to leave after the one month period has expired, there may be no obligation to provide a refund of contributions.

If an employee wishes to opt out they must complete an 'opt out notice' and hand this in to their employer. Employers are not permitted to carry a stock of these forms. They must be obtained directly from the pension provider. This is to ensure employers are unable to apply any pressure to individuals to leave the scheme.

Every employer will be required to contribute a minimum of 3% of the eligible jobholder's earnings, although they are free to pay more into the scheme should they wish to do so. The total minimum contribution must be at least 8% and the individual must meet the rest. The contribution will be eligible for tax relief, which is expected to make up around 1% of the 8% minimum.

Rather than having one switching on date for everyone, the changes are being introduced gradually and every business will have their own cut off, known as their staging date. As a general rule, those with a greater number of PAYE employees will have an earlier cut off. The first staging dates will be around October 2012 but the Pensions Regulator will contact every company between 6 and 12 months before they are required to act. It is possible for a staging date to be brought earlier if requested but not deferred.

Some firms may already have a pension scheme in place and may be under the impression they need to take little or no action. However, to be compliant with the reform it is essential that the scheme meets the minimum criteria for a qualifying scheme. To qualify, the scheme must accrue benefits at a minimum specified rate as well as meeting the minimum level of contributions. It may be possible to adapt the terms of existing schemes if they would not currently meet the qualifying rules. The Pensions Regulator will provide certification for existing schemes to confirm they are compliant if a business contacts them with their details.

For those without a current pension scheme who have an auto-enrolment obligation, a provider will need to be found. The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) is an option worth considering, as it is a pension scheme established by the government and with an obligation to accept all employers that ask to join.

Employers must ensure they adhere to the Data Protection rules and keep copies of all documentation for a period of six years. The firm may choose to keep the records in either paper or electronic form, as long as they are accessible if requested and legible and stored securely with access only granted to those who have a professional need.

All members of staff must be provided with accurate communication about the changes and how it will affect them. This information must be provided in writing, but it is permissible to provide the information via email. A generic communication is acceptable providing it relays all of the necessary details. Personal details must not be included under any circumstances in a generic communication. If this is required, a personalised form of address will need to be generated. Simply advising staff to peruse a poster or check on an internet site will not be deemed as providing them with sufficient communication. It is the employer's responsibility to ensure that the information is provided accurately and in a timely manner.

Employers must register their scheme with the Pensions Regulator, which is the body responsible for overseeing the reforms. There is an email news service which employers can sign up to via the website that will keep them up to date on any changes in the legislation as well as the on-going process.

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What does the New Year hold for HR professionals - and what HR roles, and in which sectors, will be up for grabs in an Olympic Year?

If 2011 saw HR face a sustained increase in workplace unrest as austerity measures, longer working hours, stress and a genuine skills gap took their toll on the UK workforce, what can HR professionals expect in 2012?

Rising unemployment is sure to continue a growing trend of staff absence, sickness, stress-related problems and grievances, as revealed in the latest research undertaken by Speechly Bircham and the Management Learning Board at King’s College London.

The study concludes that future increases in working hours were only expected to result in higher staff turnover and even more workplace unrest this year. Two out of five of those questioned anticipated seeing a deterioration in employee relations during 2011, while 29% believed that the number of employee grievances would continue to rise.

Engagement remains high on the agenda, with just over two thirds stating that maintaining employee engagement was a priority this coming year, with the majority hoping to achieve it by ensuring that their leaders and managers were up to the job.

Sarah Malley, Director of Morton Steel, says: “I would hope that going into 2012, our clients would continue to be cautious but optimistic with their recruiting. I think everyone has gone through their restructuring now so I think next year should be stable”.

So what does that mean for members of Team HR – who stands to win, and who may fall back in the ratings?

Positions on the Podium The good news is that HR as a whole will be just as valued, and perhaps even more so, in 2012. Organisations will continue to reshape and restructure in the face of the economic climate – so the trend of the last three years, which has seen HR itself restructure more towards Change Management and Business Strategy, as opposed to ‘transactional and tactical’, will continue.

Gold At the top of the podium, HR roles that are central to Learning and Development; Compensation and Benefits; and in-House Recruitment will continue to perform strongly, with particular niches such as Global Mobility also positioned in the leading pack – all with a focus of leveraging the advantage of making organisations more agile and technologically efficient.

In Malley’s view, there is “a definite trend towards the rewards roles”. In fact, she goes on to say that she thinks her “clients want to focus on retaining their key people… I have seen an increase in those kinds of roles. Likewise, the percentage of LMD roles remains strong - and that seems to generally be the case across the board”.

Silver Just on the shoulder of that leading pack, Employee Relations – and the whole Employee Engagement angle – refuses to go away. Beyond that, Malley notes: “I’ve found that clients are looking for experienced interim recruiters who have good technological knowledge and can be creative with their recruiting – particularly using innovations such as social media.”

Bronze Whilst CSR responsibilities will continue to enjoy investment (particularly around Sustainability), Equality, Diversity and Inclusion roles will plateau and probably regress in 2012, though ‘Employee Wellbeing’ will become an increasingly familiar role within organisations in all sectors.

The Olympic opportunity The Olympic Games doubtless presents a huge opportunity and challenge for the HR community. It’s estimated that 34,000 permanent positions are expected to be created, together with 15,000 jobs in the construction phase (and this is only in the Stratford area).

We asked Steve McNally of Equality Law to summarise which sectors will benefit most from a HR perspective.

A boost for construction - but not a saviour for retail A number of key industries (and their HR functions) will doubtless benefit from the UK’s hosting of the Olympic games. There’s little doubt that it has already helped our construction industry weather the storms raging elsewhere – and, after all, it’s the regeneration aspect (with 4,500 new homes being constructed) that is widely credited with winning London the bid.

With over 2,000 new hotel rooms and a huge influx of international and national tourists there will be a substantial increase in the leisure, entertainment and hospitality sectors too.

However, the Olympics may not be quite the huge advantage hoped for by one of the largest existing UK employment sectors – Retail. When Mary Portas warned of the ‘death of the High Street’ she acknowledged that employers such as Morrisons continues to expand. But the contraction of retail jobs nationally means that the 6,000 jobs created in the retail element of the 1.5 million square feet of Stratford City, which will compromise 100+ retail units and three anchor stores, does little to lift the overall national gloom.

That said, looking at the longer term, the planning application for the Stratford City area includes over 2,900m2 of new retail floor space ready for the games and an additional 9,654m2 would occur as a legacy of the games. Stratford City is now just a 10 minute journey from Kings Cross. This will have a significant impact on the retail economy.

A key issue affecting HR professionals within the retail, and indeed hospitality sectors, is staff retention. Skills within these industries are often transferable – customer service, presentation and flexibility are essential for both types of work. With the increased job creation on a local London level, businesses are going to have to work harder to improve loyalty and hold on to their valued employees. Yet how is this to be achieved?

There may well be an increased need for Employee Engagement and additional Learning and Development, to help employees engage with their work and remain loyal to the organisation. Certainly, as retail activity increases across the board, it’s inevitable that a number of skills gaps will emerge. Unfortunately, the current economic outlook and continued Eurozone uncertainty has dampened what had been seen as one of HR’s biggest concentrated opportunities to help shape business success and build a long-lasting legacy of success.

Photo by Kenski1970

According to David Zinger, here are the 10 things managers must do if they want to increase employee engagement.

Achieve Results
Engagement is more than a feeling, survey number, or a YouTube happy dance. We engage in actions directed towards results. The first key to consider when acting to increase employee engagement is what results are you working to achieve and how can you involve all employees in formulating those results or achieving those results? Powerful results matter to managers, organizations, employees, and customers.

For more information go to David Zinger’s website.

Photo: Paul Downey