Sterling Performance

How do you cope with a bad assessment at work? Having been on both sides, I know there are good and bad ways of dealing with it.

Most, but not all, bosses are human: they hate giving bad assessments and will be desperate to get through it.

Handle it badly, and you just give your boss more evidence to use against you.  Handle it well, and they will be so relieved that you should be able to come out with a constructive outcome.

Here is how you can make a bad situation worse:

• Argue and deny. This keeps the discussion negative and backward looking. And since the boss has the power, you are unlikely to win the argument.
• Spread the blame. The “he said you said I said, so she said” discussion gets nowhere. It paints you as a poor team player who avoids responsibility: more evidence for the boss to use against you.
• Get emotional: become angry or weepy. This will simply be used as evidence by the boss that you are not up to the job.

Here is how to make it better (and to prepare, if you know what’s coming): (more…)

If you spent this morning strap-hanging in a stuffy, over-crowded carriage, you’ll be in favour of the latest calls to ease rush hour traffic, human and automotive.

UK business organisation the CBI is calling for major reforms to roads and public transport to ease peak-time bottlenecks, and its “fresh thinking” also calls on employers to break the nine-to-five routine.

In its report, “Tackling congestion, driving growth — a new approach to roads policy”, the CBI’s focus is the roads — which 80 percent of businesses refer to as “vital” to their success. But to ease traffic on the roads, the CBI’s recommending flexible working times and — gasp — car-pooling.

For this to work, says the CBI, government and business needs to deliver on its promise to provide every home with broadband by 2012. It claims the UK’s falling behind on broadband provision and that employers need to stump up some more cash for videoconferencing technology to help people work in “novel” ways.

This all makes perfect sense, although I’m not sure how ‘fresh’ the concept of flex working is — organisations like the Work Foundation and Working Families have long been advocates. It’s a happy convergence of the interests of environmental, employer and employee needs, but speaks volumes about how few companies are working flexibly already.

The fact that the CBI’s encouraging employers to offer staggered working hours suggests it’s not high on employers’ agendas already. Isn’t that surprising? Flexible hours are a simple way of according employees autonomy, they may save a small business on property costs, they encourage accountability, cut down on time-wasting commutes…  I’m curious as to why employers — or employees — don’t already recognise the benefits. Or is the CBI preaching to the converted. Let us know if you’ve got a view.

The recruitment freeze isn’t lifting any time soon, but companies are focusing more on keeping their existing key staff happy, so that their elite workers aren’t tempted to stray, according to a panel of HR bosses.

NSG Group (formerly Pilkington) human resources VP Luis Henrique Souza, Axa head of global resourcing Samantha Rich and De Beers Goup HR director Phil Volkovski aired their views on talent retention at the launch of a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit called Companies at a Crossroads. The report was sponsored by workforce management software company Stepstone, of which all three panellists are customers.

Issues arising from the report included:

• Organisations need to focus on talent retention at all levels of the business
• Talent drift is a becoming an increasing danger to company’s talent pools as key workers become disaffected. (more…)

Nick Hine, partner at law firm Thomas Eggar, responds to your employment law questions:

There is a restructure going on in my organisation at present, where they are getting rid of the current structure by making all roles redundant. My bosses have created what they say is a new set of roles. One of these roles is effectively my old job, but a few days ago I was told my current position is under threat of redundancy.  Is this correct?  Surely can’t be made redundent if my role is still there but just disguised as a new role.

– Name witheld

Redundancy occurs where there is a reduction or complete cessation of the need for you to carry out work of a particular type and at a particular location.

This can occur where there are restructures of organisations which normally also involve a reduction in a number of roles and headcount and normally result in a new reporting line.

Even though the position that you are performing is still required by the organisation, because of the restructure and the reduction in headcount there could well be a redundancy situation.

Often, people are invited to apply back for their roles in the new structure and it is possible that because of the restructure certain roles may have been combined and therefore different skill sets may be required.

So even though the work is still required there can be a redundancy situation.  That does’nt necessarily mean that you will be made redundant because a redundancy process involves consultation. Your employers are required to look at ways of avoiding redundancies and any suitable alternative employment that employees can be offered. 

If your old role is still effectively there in the new structure then you should be offered it as a suitable alternative role. Always get advice to clarify the situation.

Pharmaceutical business AstraZeneca’s announcement that it will close its R&D operation at Charnwood in Leicestershire by 2011 not only takes some 1,200 highly-skilled jobs out of the local economy. It raises a bigger question as to where the UK skilled jobs are in future.

AstraZeneca uses the research facility, based near Loughborough, for drug development work, which will now be moved to the company’s Cheshire base, Alderley Park. It also looks set to close similar, smaller bases in Cambridge and near Bristol as part of a longer-term restructuring plan which has seen 8,000 jobs go worldwide this year with a further 3,500 to come.

AZ’s not the first to cut its drug development costs worldwide — Pfizer’s cut R&D jobs and GlaxoSmithKline’s cost-cutting target is likely to mean job losses among UK R&D professionals. The rationalisation trend — cutting jobs and ‘peripheral’ costs to get a business back to its core, money-making activities — is reminiscent of the aggressive re-engineering that took place post-1990s recession.

What’s worrisome about this is that individual companies emerged from the 1990s re-engineering spate to find they’d pared back too far — and that some skills (specialist engineering, for example) were pretty thin on the ground. Arguably, this also hastened the UK’s shift to a ’service economy’ — and influenced what students focused on at university.

Science and Innovation minister Lord Drayson has argued that AstraZeneca’s decision to put its main activities under one roof — Alderley Park — is a sign that the UK remains a top choice for big pharma investment. And local government representatives are working with the company to find a way of softening the blow for Leicestershire.

But it’s a reminder of how significant inward investor decisions can be for the UK’s economy as a whole. Without big pharma to offer internships and graduate jobs, will British science grads look elsewhere for work? One company’s decision won’t tip the scales, of course, but the trend away from drug discovery is dispiriting.

There is one silver lining for brave entrepreneurs in the sector. Big pharma’s loss could be the smaller start-up’s gain. Given the amount of time and trialling behind drug development, though, any entrepreneurs in this sector will need serious backers, both from the private and public sectors.

Addition: After writing this, I noticed a response to a report by none other than the Science for Careers Expert Group. This group’s aim is to “better communicate the value of  science skills in the workplace and therefore the opportunities that are available to those who study science… “, to build partnerships with business and to generally get more of the workforce into science-based industries. Assuming someone is hiring.

Did you mark Work Your Proper Hours Day last week? Last Friday was the day that, if the average employee did all their unpaid overtime at the beginning of the year, they actually started to get paid for the work they do.

The initiative launched by the TUC is designed to highlight research from the organisation that found the number of people working over ten hours a week (or extreme) unpaid overtime has increased over six-fold from 14,000 to nearly 900,000 over the last year.

The union calculates over five million employees clocked up over seven hours unpaid work, which is worth £27.4 billion to the UK economy and for those people who work the extreme, ten plus hours, it means effectively, they don’t start getting paid until 26 April.

It’s a chunk of productivity that probably doesn’t figure in many economists calculations, but one that might unexpectedly impact the government’s calculations on how many jobs the public sector should shed, as it’s these workers who are much more apt to work extra hours for no extra pay.

Over a quarter of public sector workers indulge in extreme overtime, compared to one in six private sector staff, according to the TUC’s research.

Teachers and lawyers are the professions most likely to work over ten hours of unpaid overtime and single women are more likely to do so than single men, or couples co-habiting, with or without children.

The figures highlight how much rank-and-file staff are taking on to share the pain of the recession and begs the question how much more will they take?

It also should humble some of the pundits in the private sector who have been baying for massive cuts in the public sector, if those cutbacks mean laying off people who actually provide some of their services for free.

Are you an extreme overtimer? Write in below and tell us.

(Pic: cell 105 cc2.0)

The long winter of pay and bonus stagnation is set to lift according to two reports from the CIPD and CMI, but the trade-off may be increased redundancies to pay for it.

The CIPD annual Reward Survey found 53 per cent of the 800 respondents expected salary spend to increase in 2010, while 15 per cent said it would shrink and 21 per cent said it would stay level.

The response towards bonus packages was positive, but there was an increased focus on aligning reward with business strategy and making it internally fair.

CIPD reward adviser Charles Cotton told BNET UK that this did not necessarily mean the pre-crunch bonus culture was coming back and employees could not expect big payouts regardless of their impact on the business.

Key performers would do well, which leaves the question of whether employees who are not stars, but nonetheless are critical in keeping the company afloat, will be left out. Cotton advised it was essential these employees’ efforts were recognised in their basic pay. (more…)

Portsmouth University is one of a number of colleges kicking off an initiative to boost graduate recruitment amongst small and medium businesses (SMBs) in their area with a government funded internship subsidy.

Earlier this year, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announced £13.6m for a graduate internship scheme designed to give new entrants a way into the job market and at the same time, provide support for local businesses by giving them access to educated interns for a limited time.

The scheme in Portsmouth has enough funding for 90 graduate internships. Employers will receive £1,200 towards the intern’s salary, provided they match that with a further £2,400. Internships have to last for at least 12 weeks. That’s a wage of around £8.50 per hour — more than the £5.80 per hour national minimum wage.

So far, 54 other colleges have received funding for between 20 and 700 placements in their area.

In total, just under 7,000 placements have been created, but there is still funding available for a further 1,500 internships to be created by colleges not yet applied to the scheme.

Although this won’t solve the problem of the chronic shortage of vacancies for the 22,000 graduates on Job Seekers Allowance, it will go some way to taking the heat off those who have just finished or are about to leave university.

Alice Hickman, recruitment manager at Purple Door Recruitment, the in-house recruitment agency at Portsmouth University explained how involved she was in the selection and ongoing development of the graduates she places. (more…)

The unemployment predictions in the CIPD/KPMG quarterly Labour Market Outlook survey paint a dismal picture for public sector workers, who may find better employment opportunities jumping ship into the private sector. Other public sector workers may find working short weeks or accepting pay cuts will help them avoid staff cuts.

The survey found one in three public sector employers expected to cut their workforce in the first quarter of 2010 — well over double the previous quarter, signalling a massive reverse in public sector employment prospects.

This compares to a modest increase of 5 per cent of private sector employment, the report found. Employment prospects in the private services sector are the most rosy, with 12 per cent expecting to take on staff.

Projected pay increases, though small are likely to be much higher in the private sector.

With a small capacity to take on extra staff, the private sector may be able to provide a safe haven for public sector workers who are able to make the cultural shift and accept losing benefits such as final salary pensions. That services companies are likely to be on the lookout for staff could play into the hands of those people who have developed their careers in public service.

Some may actually find themselves doing exactly the same job for a private employer, as the public sector sheds jobs to outsource services to private companies.

Alternatively, public sector employers may copy initiatives already proven in the private sector, by offering pay freezes or extra unpaid hours in an effort to keep the headcount. Public sector workers have a history of kicking back against erosions to established working conditions much more than their private sector counterparts, so the notions of employees sharing the pain may not work so well in the public sector.

For many public sector workers though, these options will not be available to them. Many of them will be unskilled, low-wage employees who cannot afford to take a pay cut and are not wanted by the private sector.

How would you be fixed if a crisis suddenly loomed — redundancy or a career disappointment?  Would there then be a sudden rush of blood to the head and a frenetic burst of unfocused activity?  You might find yourself with a deadline that you were unprepared for, with an out-of-date CV, networks neglected or overflowing with unknowns.

You wouldn’t take a poorly maintained boat out on the ocean with a risk of it sinking, so why would you allow your personal career path to be put at risk by having an un-maintained CV and a poor support network, let alone the same old skills you’ve had for a lifetime?

Beware of tunnel vision, and be prepared for all outcomes. Here are some suggestions to help you:

1. Self-development Many people don’t bother with self-development, especially in terms of their career opportunities.  You’ve probably spent more time planning a ski-holiday or tinkering with the engine of your car, than you’ve spent thinking about how you’re planning your career strategy.Think about what you’ve planned this year: are you going to take up golf, perhaps, or sky-diving, or learn to dance?  Where’s the self-development there? Where’s the career plan?An American business coach, Brian Tracey, offers this advice: “Invest three percent of your earnings every month back into yourself on personal and professional development, on becoming better at the most important things you do.” With laws on entitlement to training time at work, you can ask for the time off to upgrade your talents.
2. Online reputation. Make sure that you appear (in the right way) in Google searches, check out your online profiles and make sure they are saying what you want them to say.  Take control of what others are reading about you.
3. Strategic network-building. Just recently I saw a tweet, “I am being followed, therefore I am”. But what’s the point of being ‘followed’, or ‘existing’, if there is no mutual relationship? Don’t just collect names and email addresses with no purpose other than to say you have a huge network! Large is not necessarily great, it’s just unwieldy.Targeted connections are what matter if you want to develop visibility and gain mutual benefit. Networking is, of course, a strategy. It’s used to tell the world you exist, that you are valuable and remarkable, and to offer your help and expertise to others so that you become the go-to person — the name on everyone’s lips when it comes to your speciality.
4. Be authentic. Consider how authentically you come across and how you are developing relationships (or not) with people who see the strategic value in you and your business.

Are the people in your network prepared to invest their time in you? Think about what you can offer them — what can you do to demonstrate that you’re worth following?