Sterling Performance

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…)

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)

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

For the last year, one of my team has been off on maternity leave. She was a capable worker who was missed at first, but we had a temporary replacement to fill the breach. My permanent employee is now planning to come back part time three days a week, which means I stand to lose some resources in the team.  Do I have to agree this?

– Name witheld.

An employee on return from maternity leave has a statutory right to request to work flexibly to help look after their child. 

It is not a right though, there is simply a statutory framework in place through which an eligible employee can request to work flexibly.

The request can be made by an adult to care for a child or another adult, but they must have at least 26 weeks continuous service and they should not have made a request to work flexibly in the past year.

The nature of this request could involve hours of work, when they arrive and leave and where they work.

Any eligible employee who wants to change their working conditions in these ways must make their request in writing. 

An employer must meet with the employee within 28 days of receiving the request to discuss the application and within 14 days after the date of that meeting write to the employee to either agree to the new proposed work pattern and set a start date, or to provide grounds for rejecting the application. 

If you reject the application then your employee has a right of appeal and must do so within 14 days of the original application being refused.

You must arrange an appeal meeting within 14 days of receiving that notice and then 14 days after that appeal meeting you must notify the employee of your decision.

There are effectively eight grounds for rejecting a request and these include:

• Burden of additional costs.
• Detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand.
• Inability to re-organise work amongst existing staff.
• Inability to recruit additional staff.
• Detrimental impact on the employee’s quality of work.
• Detrimental impact on the employee’s performance.
• Insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work.
• Planned structural changes that would render the employee’s proposed pattern unworkable. 

If you refuse a request then your employee can make a complaint to an Employment Tribunal potentially for sex discrimination and also for constructive unfair dismissal if they resign as a result.

The Employment Tribunal would expect you to have properly considered the request and so if any employer refuses any application they must have a sound reason for doing so. This area is quite complex and I would suggest you take advice if these circumstances arise.

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.

Should companies be part of the state welfare system or left to get on with making goods or supplying services? Not content with collecting taxes from corporations, governments expect them to implement social policies too. The latest imposition on UK employers is to make them give fathers six months’ paternity leave.

Perhaps this is part of the price of progress. No-one envies the Victorian days of six-day weeks without holidays. It is the role of a civilized state to set rules for the improvement of society and those will include conditions at work. But when commerce is the engine of an economy, it is dangerous to overload the motor so much it risks stalling. (more…)

The Equality and Human Rights Commission call for employees to be allowed to continue working after official retirement age is a vital aid to our ability to compete in international markets. Employers who remove more “expensive” older workers and get in cheaper, younger workers and think this gives them an advantage are wrong.

Even if older workers cost more, the evidence shows they often produce a greater return on investment than younger staff. Most current world leaders are over 50, a substantial proportion of CEOs of major organisations are over 50 and many are over retirement age. Why is that acceptable for them but not for others?

Research shows older workers – anyone over 50 – are often more flexible than younger ones, better with customers and capable of developing the skills of others, thus increasing the performance of all. Their valuable organisational experience also keeps the organisation running well from day to day.

 Many have been through difficult experiences, which increases their determination to succeed and survive the present difficult economic conditions. So if older workers are also less likely to give up on their organisation why should some organisations give up on them? (more…)

Legislation on equal opportunities in business, going through the House of Lords next week could increase procurers’ – especially in the public sector — powers and obligations to demand diversity strategies from suppliers.

The UK legislation over the past 40 years, designed to tackle discrimination has created a confusing legal landscape but, more importantly, there is evidence that this legislation is simply not working.

Discrimination remains a significant problem and people from some disadvantaged groups still find it harder to find employment:

• Despite progress since 1997 to reduce the gender pay gap, women still earn, on average, 22.6 per cent less per hour than men, if the current trend continues, the pay gap between men and women will not close until 2085,
• The gap between the employment rate of disabled people and the overall employment rate has decreased from 34.5 per cent to 26.3 per cent since 1998, but disabled people are still more than twice as likely to be out of work than non-disabled people,
• If you are from an ethnic minority, you were 17.9 per cent less likely to find work in 1997 than a white person. The difference is still 13 per cent

This data has been taken from the UK Parliament website.

The new single Equality Bill tackles these issues by bringing together a number of requirements under a single act. It is intended to strengthen the current legislation by: (more…)

BA’s fight with its cabin crews is clearly having an impact on its business performance and its value in the market, but there could also be longer term damage too.

In July, the airline was seen as the paragon of conciliation by hammering out a pay cut deal with pilots, in return for shares and asking for employees to work voluntarily for no money.

It was a daring strategy that everyone applauded.

This willingness to share the pain of recession by employees was cited as a contributory factor

in the UK economy not diving to expected lows in the autumn, but there were warnings that this goodwill might not last for too much longer.

This prediction appears to be coming true as the détente between BA management and a section of its employees has broken down.

Cabin crews at the airline have not walked out on strike since 1997, suggesting they are hardly the most militant of workforces and act only in times of dire disaffection.

Out of desperation to maintain its struggling commercial performance, BA has opted to go through the courts, rather than negotiate with workers. This is going to do nothing to repair obviously lost employee engagement, which is a shame considering the gains BA made earlier in the year.

BA may yet head off the 12-day strike over the holiday period, the timing of which has lost the union consumers’ support.

But, the message it has sent out to its 42,000 employees is one of confrontation, not conciliation that probably won’t be forgotten, long after this present dispute has.

Early in 2009, ZD Net asked a group of chief information officers to rate the iPhone against that most beloved of business tools, the BlackBerry.

The quote from pharma company Roche’s CIO said it all: “iPhone is not a business tool, but a nice to have. The backbone is BlackBerry [for heavy email users].”

Eleven months later, though, have attitudes changed? It was a  brave CNETUK that took issue with the iPhone’s call quality, battery life, overheating touchscreen and its strangely passive way with a ring tone.

But what does the finicky, not-easily-sold-to business user make of it now?

Well, put it this way: Stuart Cross, our strategy blogger and a frequent transatlantic traveller, is totally sold: (more…)

How much longer can the employee goodwill that has propped up many companies over the recession last? Not much longer if predictions from the Hay Group are anything to go by, which warns of a possible employee exodus.

According to Hay, many companies who instigated pay freezes will be forced to buckle next year, but the resulting average UK pay rise will not rise above 1.6 per cent — far below the predicted rate of inflation of at least 3 per cent. This is bound to undermine employee engagement as businesses start to feel growth and this could lead to a talent exodus just when key employees are needed to take advantage of the upturn.

According to an worker attitudes survey conducted by the consultancy The Loyalty Deficit, over a third of employees are dissatisfied with their roles and 45 per cent would not recommend their current employer to a friend or family member. (more…)