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Workplace bullying – not only at Number 10

Recent headlines have hit the Labour party with a book claiming Gordon Brown is a bully – an allegation seemingly backed up by a national hotline claiming they have received calls from ’several’ members of Number 10 staff.

 

However, this has now been hit with a backlash of its own as this has been percieved as a breach of confidentiality, which is discrediting the charity – so much so that engagement expert, Professor Cary Cooper has disengaged himself as their patron. Associated Press reported he resigned because he believed confidentiality had been breached despite the CEO, Christine Pratt, not ‘outing’ any employee by name. He was quoted as saying: “I am resigning now on the grounds that I think she breached confidentiality.”

He continued: “One of the things that is really important for any helpline or any counselling service is to retain confidentiality of the people calling up.”

He added: “Even though the names may not be revealed, particularly with something like bullying … an employer could maybe find out who they were.”

His resignation has been followed by TV presenter Sarah Cawood and Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, both of whom were patrons and have now resigned.

CEO Christine Pratt and her husband also run a consultancy, HR and Diversity Management Limited (HR&DM). This collaboration promotes the National Bullying Helpline as well as their business. Another charity, Bullying UK, have called on her to ‘consider her position’ after being ‘horrified’ by the story – especially after they were contacted by members of the public who believed it was their charity in the public eye over this incident.

The story has brought the continual problem of bullying at work once again firmly into the public eye. It’s not something which only happens at school. HR management and directors need to work together to prevent a culture developing where bullying is permissable.

The Association for Coaching UK (AC UK) says allegations about bullying in Downing Street should serve as a reminder about how common this issue is in the workplace and highlight the lack of awareness of the problem.

Gladeana McMahon, Chair of the AC UK said: “Nearly a third of all employees have witnessed or experienced workplace bullying.  The public sector is not exempt from this, in fact evidence suggests that bullying is particularly prevalent within public services, in spite of widespread anti-bullying policies and the desire for inclusive practice.”

Reports and speculation about Gordon Brown’s temper has appeared in the mainstream press frequently. As has been pointed out, many brilliant leaders have traits which are less than desirable, but this is no excuse to enable and tolerate bullying. Unfortunately today it is more common than ever – and this is partly put down to the effect of the recession.

The AC UK expalined some may be able to cope with bullying behaviour and accept it as a strong leadership style, but many others will find it intimidating. People being bullied can often feel undermined; humiliated; overloaded with excessive amounts of work; vulnerable; anxious, or even physically unwell.  

It is quite usual for people displaying bullying behaviour not to recognise it as such, according to the AC UK. Fortunately, it is possible to help people overcome this type of leadership style, provided they recognise negative behaviours and want to change.

City law firm Speechly Bircham and King’s College London HRM Learning Board conducted their annual survey of senior HR professionals late last year. Almost a third of respondents, 29%, identified that grievances lodged had gone up in 2009, and 23% anticipate future increases in grievances (owing to a rise in stress and employment-related problems) in the coming year. The biggest causes of grievances have been bullying and harassment, and relations with senior or line managers. Grievances around pay and conditions, workload, career development, and stress are anticipated to become more important in 2010. A third of those surveyed also predicted an increase in staff turnover.

Reports of workplace bullying have doubled over the past ten years and more than one in three employees have fallen victim to intimidation in the workplace in the past six months, according to figures from public sector union Unison.
 

Take action
If there are issues with bullying in an organisation, there are thing every employee can do. “In the current financial climate there is extra pressure on managers and workers to get results, which has led to more aggressive targets, increased pressure, more criticism of co-workers and a very real concern for job security”, says Dr Daniel Scott, author of ‘Verbal Self Defence in The Workplace’.

Source : HR Zone

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 Carlene
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Featured Occupation – Working in Payroll

Payroll clerks, supervisors and managers work as a team to administer their organisation’s payroll and ensure that every member of staff is paid the correct amount on the right date. A payroll clerk’s duties may involve checking time sheets and clock cards to see how many hours each employee has worked, calculating amounts of pay and making deductions to cover repayments such as salary advances or student loans. A payroll supervisor oversees the work of a payroll team and trains new staff, and a payroll managers responsibilities include managing the work of a number of payroll teams.

Payroll staff usually work around 37 hours a week, Monday to Friday. They may work overtime at busy times, such as the end of the financial year. They are usually office based and spend most of the day sitting at a desk using computers, calculators and the telephone. More senior staff spend some time attending meetings.

Salaries range from around £14,000 to £40,000 a year.

A payroll clerk, supervisor or manager should:

  • have good numeracy skills
  • have good computer skills
  • be discreet when handling confidential information
  • have leadership and management skills (managers and supervisors)
  • be able to understand and interpret complex information (managers and supervisors)
  • be interested in working with figures.

Opportunities exist throughout the UK. Large organisations, such as local authorities, retail chains, manufacturers, airlines, financial institutions and the NHS, often have their own payroll departments. There are also opportunities in payroll bureaux, which offer payroll services to other organisations.

Although there are no minimum qualifications for this kind of work, many employers prefer applicants with GCSEs (A*-C), including English and maths. The Diploma in business, administration and finance may be relevant for this area of work and apprenticeships may be available.

Entrants learn through a combination of on-the-job training and internal and external courses. Qualifications include NVQ Levels 2/3 in payroll administration, BTEC Advanced Certificate in payroll techniques, BTEC Advanced Award in payroll procedures and NVQ Levels 2 to 4 in financial services.

With experience and qualifications, payroll clerks may become supervisors and managers. More experience and responsibility may be gained by moving to a different organisation.

View Simply HR Jobs latest Payroll Jobs and Payroll Manager Jobs or all the other Jobs in HR

Thursday, February 11th, 2010 Carlene
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Memorable Firsts in Human Resources Management

Anyone who works in human resources management knows that the job comes with great joys and great sorrows. And all along the way, memorable first moments with people occur. Sometimes you feel prepared for the moments; some sneak up and surprise you. But whatever memorable human resources management moment you are experiencing for the first time, these resources will help you. Hire an employee, fire an employee, give an employee a pay raise, or perform performance improvement coaching. Your interactions with people will never be boring when you practice in any field of human resource management

1. How to Break Into a Career in Human Resources

No matter how you managed to do it, breaking into the field of Human Resource Management is definitely a memorable HR first. Whether you studied and prepared long term for your career in Human Resources Management or transferred from another line of work, you have the opportunity to transform workplaces in the Human Resources Management profession. Congratulations on achieving your first memorable Human Resources Management moment.

A memorable moment in human resources management is the first time you hire an employee – especially if the employee turns out to be a good employee. Want to recruit and hire a superior workforce? This checklist for hiring employees will help you systematize your process for hiring employees, whether it’s your first employee or one of many employees you are hiring. This hiring employees checklist helps you keep track of your recruiting efforts. This hiring employees checklist communicates both the recruiting and the hiring process and progress in recruiting to the hiring manager.
When you work in human resources management, you set an example and you have much influence over how people are treated and the company culture. You can tell your colleagues, coworkers and employees how much you value them and their contribution any day of the year. Trust me. No occasion is necessary. In fact, small surprises, verbal expressions, and tokens of your appreciation spread throughout the year help the people in your work life feel valued all year long. Human resources management can be fun, fulfilling and have an impact.
Human resources management focuses first on providing a motivational work environment in which employees choose success. In a motivational work environment, employee recognition is not just a nice thing to do for people. Employee recognition is a communication tool that reinforces and rewards the most important outcomes people create for your business. When you recognize people effectively, you reinforce, with your chosen means of recognition, the actions and behaviors you most want to see people repeat. An effective employee recognition system is simple, immediate, and powerfully reinforcing.
In human resource management, you and your managers need to lead in terms of organizing the workplace for best organization success. You want to have the necessary policies and procedures to ensure a safe, organized, convivial, empowering, nondiscriminatory workplace. Yet, you do not want to write a policy for every exception to accepted and expected behavior. Policy development is for the many employees not for the few exceptions. When you develop your policies, these are the human resources management considerations.
Do you have the responsibility for supervising the work of others? If so, you know that employees don’t always do what you want them to do. On the one hand, they act as if they are competent professionals. On the other, they procrastinate, miss deadlines, and wait for instructions. They blame others when their work is unsuccessful. And worst of all, employees become defensive when you try to coach them to perform excellent, goal-accomplishing work. So, what’s a supervisor to do?
Looking for a step-by-step coaching approach you can use to help an employee improve his work performance? This approach avoids the need for discipline and produces great results. Your human resources management skills will improve when you use these steps to coach employees.
Progressive discipline is a process for dealing with job-related behavior that does not meet expected and communicated performance standards. The primary purpose for progressive discipline is to assist the employee to understand that a performance problem or opportunity for improvement exists. The process features increasingly formal efforts to provide feedback to the employee so he or she can correct the problem. The goal of progressive discipline is to improve employee performance.
Not a fun moment when you work in human resources management, but the day will come when you need to fire an employee. Never the first step in human resources management, firing an employee is potentially conflict ridden, uncomfortable, and sometimes results in lawsuits. But, assuming that you have taken steps to help an employee improve his work performance – and they are not working – it may be time to fire the employee. These are the legal, ethical steps in how to fire an employee. Ensure that the company’s actions, as you prepare, are above reproach. How you fire an employee sends a powerful message to your remaining staff – either positive or negative. Fire an employee as a last resort, but, do not jeopardize your company success.
Face it. Sooner or later, even the best employer has employees resign. They think they’ve found a better opportunity or their spouse has accepted a job out-of-state. The reasons are endless for an employee resignation. But, each employee resignation poses the employer with a series of questions. Find out how to handle an employee resignation. Find out how to handle an employee resignation when you’re happy to see the employee go – and, when the resignation makes you sad.
 
 
Source : About.com – Susan Heathfield
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 Carlene
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Should employers have to pay staff who didn’t attend work in the snow?

The recent bad weather has meant that many people have failed to get to work due to school closures and travel difficulties. One question on the minds of many employers is do they have to pay employees who didn’t attend work

Generally, if the place of work is open for business, then employers do not have to pay the employees who do not attend work due to travel difficulties or bad weather.

The employer should also ask themselves whether the employee could have made it to work with some difficulty – but chose not to, or whether they were truly snowed in and unable to attend!  The employer must, however, revert to their contract of employment, as there can be contractual provisions about withholding pay.

Aside from the legal issues about pay, there are a number of other matters to consider:

 

  • Consider balancing your legal obligations to staff, with encouraging good work relations, morale and maintaining health and safety
  • Be aware that if you made the choice to close the business due to the snow, employees will be entitled to receive full pay unless the contract contains a temporary lay off clause – allowing employees to be laid off without pay
  • Be careful about forcing employees to take a day’s holiday – employers cannot force employees to use their holidays without consent, unless the contract of employment specifically allows it
  • Dealing with employees that phoned in sick during the snowy period will be a difficult issue. Sickness absences of staff can be dealt with by sickness absence management procedures and return to work interviews, which often deter employees taking the odd day off!
  • Be considerate of the reasons staff were absent during the bad weather – those with childcare responsibilities must not be treated less favourably than their colleagues without such responsibilities, although emergency leave to care for children is generally unpaid, unless a contract states otherwise.

Source : HR Magazine

Thursday, January 14th, 2010 Carlene
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124 million working hours lost because of snow

Britain lost up to 124 million working hours last week as 74% of the British workforce were affected by snow chaos.

As the snow returned to the UK this morning, according to a report by Citrix GoToMyPC and YouGov, 45% of employees were affected by travel disruption last week.
Some employees were also forced to stay at home due to school closures (8%) and 11% of workers had to postpone or cancel business meetings.  

Despite the difficult conditions, almost half (48%) of British workers felt under pressure to get to work and maintain ‘business as usual’, 11% couldn’t get to work but worked from home, while 12% were not able to work at all.

Andrew Millard, director of eCommerce, EMEA for Citrix Online’s GoToMyPC, said: “The weather seen in the first week of 2010 had a catastrophic effect on employees and businesses throughout the country, with millions of pounds lost and productivity severely hindered. In severe weather, being equipped with a virtual office that provides a ‘just like being there experience’ is the best insurance for businesses.

“Having collaboration and remote access tools is not only the ultimate ‘quality of work’ improvement, but the cornerstone of an effective business continuity plan that mitigates the devastating impact of lost productivity.”

Source : HR Magazine

 

Thursday, January 14th, 2010 Carlene
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Snow day skiving for half of British workers

Half of British workers surveyed by online courier matchmaking service www.Boxby.co.uk have exploited the recent cold snap to skive off work.

The survey of 1,029 people found that 49% of respondents used the snow as an excuse to have time off, citing issues such as problems with transport when they could in fact have made it in to work.

Over a third (36%) said they had taken more than one day off last week using transport issues as an excuse when they could have otherwise travelled into work.

Source : Recruiter

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 Carlene
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Royal Bank of Scotland’s HR director denies his department was to blame for the company’s reward failings

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

Thursday, January 7th, 2010 Carlene
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Avoid Secret Santa embarrassment

As the festive season strikes again human resources experts have come up with some sage advice… “When it comes to Secret Santa think PG-rating”.

Don’t buy anything for a colleague that you’d be embarrassed to show your mum. This advice from HR Consultancy Jaluch, follows a catalogue of Secret Santa blunders at local companies. Over the years Jaluch has heard of staff at local companies receiving chocolate body paint and other gifts with a sexual connotation, extra strong deodorant, a bottle of wine (given to a Muslim) and, in Scrooge-like fashion, an unwanted gift recycled from the year before.

Despite this 73 per cent of companies which responded to a recent Jaluch poll thought Secret Santa a great idea whilst only 17 percent believe it can cause more bad will than good and 10 percent deem it ‘highly inappropriate’.

Kathie-Louise Clarke, an HR Advisor at Jaluch, said: “Most people take Secret Santa in the spirit it is intended and we’d certainly encourage companies to continue the tradition. 

“However, it’s essential that Secret Santa is voluntary, not everyone celebrates Christmas and for some the cost of buying an extra present can be a burden. There’s also the potential to offend and what might seem a bit of light fun now could form a small part of a complex grievance later on.

“Part of the fun of Secret Santa is that staff all open their presents together at the Christmas party, choosing something with the potential to embarrass or offend or something that taps into a personal vulnerability could cause problems. If staff are in any doubt they should play it safe.” Other Secret Santa upsets include buying self-help guides, ‘how-to’ books, diet vouchers, nose and ear hair trimmers and political or religious joke gifts.

Source : The HR Director

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 Carlene
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HR Interviews – 3 Areas That Will Help You Ace HR Interviews

HR interviews can be stressful and unpredictable, so doing your homework is essential. Here are three areas you should be prepared in advance to talk about because you’ll certainly be asked about them in the interview.

1. Be prepared to explain why you’re leaving your current company.

Expect to have to answer this question in your first phone interview. The interviewer doesn’t want to hear all the gory details about why things didn’t work out in your last job. But the hiring company’s due diligence requirements compel the interviewer to ask – and you should have a brief, logical, professional answer that reflects well on you, your former boss and your former employer. When in doubt, be hard on the issues and soft on the people involved.

2. Be prepared to describe how your current HR job has contributed to your company’s results.

Recruiters know that the best predictor of future performance in Human Resources is a successful past track record. HR professionals who can link their work to the bottom line are in high demand. You don’t have to be an ex-CFO, but you need to be comfortable explaining how your job (and the job for which you are applying) will impact your company’s P&L, and be able to discuss it articulately.

3. Be prepared to talk about how you’ve built and led successful HR teams.

HR professionals who can lead teams effectively are attractive candidates. Leadership and team skills get more critical every year as companies seek to accomplish more with less. How many people report to you now? Under your leadership, how have your direct reports grown both personally and professionally? Be prepared to provide details.

Scripting and preparing yourself in advance to talk about these three areas comfortably will go a long ways towards helping you ace HR interviews.

Source : Alan Collins – EzineArticles

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 Carlene
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The year ahead: Age discrimination looks set to be a hot topic in 2010

 Employment law is always changing, and this shows no sign of slowing down in 2010. In the first of a series of articles looking at the main changes expected in 2010, Lorraine Heard, a partner in the employment team at law firm Dickinson Dees, sets out why age discrimination will remain high on the agenda for HR professionals next year.

If the past year is any indication – a year when Strictly Come Dancing’s Arlene Phillips was replaced by the younger Alesha Dixon and the BBC sought to recruit an older female newsreader – age discrimination will be a hot topic in 2010 for the public and HR professionals alike.

End of default retirement age?

We all watched as the High Court rejected the Heyday case, ending the challenge to the UK’s default retirement age of 65. However, the Government has brought forward its review of this area to 2010, signalling the likely end of the default retirement age. If this happens, HR professionals should be ready to adapt their policies and procedures to ensure that they record a ‘normal retirement age’ for the organisation, as this will then replace the default age.

Whether the retirement age is ‘default’ or ‘normal’, there will still be ways employers may be caught out by retirement-related issues. In one recent case a professional with 38 years’ experience was denied a top position because she was three years from retirement, and the employer had to pay around £35,000 for injuries to feelings.

It is also possible that increased focus on eliminating age discrimination may result in the questioning of practices such as the scheme for calculating redundancy payments. 

The statutory scheme can result in a higher payment to an employee who is over the age of 41 but who has fewer years’ service than an employee under the age of 41.  For example, 51 year-old with 10 years’ service is entitled to 15 weeks’ pay whereas 40 year-old with 14 years’ service is only entitled to 14 weeks’ pay. If the redundancy payment is enhanced, for example, by using twice the employee’s normal salary as the figure for a week’s pay instead of the capped statutory amount, the difference in the amount actually paid could be significant. 

An employer who seeks to reward loyalty by providing for an enhanced redundancy payment in respect of each year of service, regardless of the employee’s age, would not have the ‘statutory scheme’ protection and would have to justify its decision to avoid a finding of age discrimination.

End of ‘age bars’

Some organisations still set seemingly arbitrary age limits for jobs. At one end of the spectrum, an ‘age bar’ that excluded anyone aged 36 or over from training as an air traffic controller was found to be unjustifiable. At the other end, with much talent available for hire, organisations must be careful not to ‘over-specify’ roles, potentially leading graduates and new entrants to the market to feel discriminated against for a job they could do. Those responsible for recruitment need to ensure that candidates are recruited on merit, and job specification criteria are drafted in relation to skills. 

Source : HR Magazine

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 Carlene
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