Author Archives: Simon Jones

Away from the Numbers

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Originally posted February 2014

I’m going to let you into a not-so-secret secret. HR people don’t, on the whole, like numbers. We might do stuff with them if we really have to (“You want sickness absence statistics, Mr Finance Director? Ok, if we must”) but deep down we’d much sooner be dealing with people, whether it’s developing systems and processes or analysing their interactions.

Don’t get me wrong – people matters are very important and if HR didn’t do them no-one else in business would – but,  while avoiding numbers,  one of the things HR people do is agonise endlessly about why the senior team/C-Suite/top table don’t take them seriously. Perhaps the two are not unconnected.

We talk a lot in HR about effective communication and talking in appropriate and meaningful language. Usually however it’s in the context of talking “down” to employees – we rarely consider it in relation to talking “up” to Directors.

So if you want to be taken seriously by business leaders, you need to be able to explain things in their language.  And that means understanding the numbers and being comfortable discussing them. It’s no wonder that HR lacks credibility when I read a debate on LinkedIn (about the CIPD’s recent survey on zero hours contracts) in which a CIPD qualified professional stated that a survey of 456 out of 1000000 wasn’t significant and that the findings (which he disagreed with) could therefore be discounted.  As anyone with a vague knowledge of statistics could tell you, a sample that size is more than 95% certain to give a true reflection of the total population – indeed you could be confident of the findings with a smaller sample size.  Similarly when discussing salaries, it amazes me that many in HR don’t know the difference between mean, mode and median when they talk about “averages” – or could explain which one is used and why.  And too often we quote meaningless figures as having some authority; one I spotted recently on Twitter was that “HR spends 2% of time on recruitment and 98% on dealing with the consequences of poor hires”. Is that meant to suggest some sort of relationship between those 2 figures? If so, what, and how?

I’m not suggesting that to work in HR you need to be a maths genius – simply that to be effective in HR it’s one of the many skills you need a working knowledge of. Wilfully displaying our ignorance damages the authority of the profession.

 

Everybody’s HR nowadays

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Originally posted February 2014

“What do you do?” asked my new contact at a networking event

“I provide HR support for smaller companies” I replied

“Don’t envy you that” he said “I can’t be doing with all that people stuff”

“So what’s your role?” I asked

“I’m the Operations Manager for a company that makes and installs widgets. We’re growing, just won a big new contract and taking on a dozen new staff”

I’ve had that conversation (or variations of it) dozens of times over the years. It always intrigues me that “HR” is seen as something distinct and separate from the day to day running of a business. I’ve even heard HR described as a Black Art.

Fundamentally, the “Human Resources” of a business are the people who work within it. If you’re a manager, you are interacting with those people daily. For your direct team, you are talking to them about their work objectives and how well they are (or aren’t) doing. You may want to discuss whether they need extra training. Sometimes you may find that you don’t like or get on with colleagues and that is affecting how you work together. On occasions you might recognise yourself that you aren’t performing as well as you can and need some development. In short, you’re a people manager and you achieve your results through the people you work with. Put it another way – you’re doing HR!

So what do “HR” people do? Why do businesses even employ us? Once you strip away all the jargon ultimately it’s because we provide specialist skills and/or knowledge that the business needs. That could be technical stuff around employment law; it could be dealing with the mechanics of paying people correctly; it might be looking at how the business should be organised to achieve its objectives; or issues that are wider than just an individual manager or department (such as pay levels, recruitment strategy etc). And occasionally it does involve supporting managers in situations where they have less experience or which occur infrequently (such as dismissals).

HR – it’s what you do – and I support you with.

Back to Basics

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Originally Published in January 2014

Even in the smallest of businesses, there’s no excuse for not following basic employment procedures and for making what might be termed “schoolboy errors” when it comes to dealing with people. Recently I’ve been involved – at a very late stage – with companies that faced tribunal claims from relatively low paid staff.  In these cases, the potential compensation was more than doubled because they had got one or more of the following wrong:

  • Issuing a statement of terms and conditions. You have 2 months from the day the employee commences to give them this – and it doesn’t have to be a particularly complex or legalistic document. The excuse that “the employee never asked me for it” will not wash – this is your responsibility. Failing to do this, if coupled with another successful tribunal claim, means you could have to pay up to 4 weeks’ pay to the individual.
  • Giving out an itemised payslip. No matter how you pay the person, they are entitled to receive a pay slip before or around the time they are paid, showing their gross pay and any deductions from it (tax, national insurance, pension etc). Failing to do so could lead to a claim for….
  • Unauthorised Deductions from wages. You cannot (with a few limited exceptions involving shop workers) take money from someone’s wages or salary without them agreeing to it first, other than statutory deductions (tax etc). This applies even if the person agrees that they owe you the money. What’s more, if you do make an unauthorised deduction, then not only can the person reclaim the money but you lose the right to claim it from them another way (e.g. via debt collection)
  • Not giving notice. Someone who has worked for you for more than one month is entitled to at least a week’s notice (it increases by a week for each complete year’s service – 2 weeks for 2 years etc to a maximum of 12). If you don’t give correct notice the individual can claim breach of contract and be awarded compensation equivalent to the notice they should have received.  The only exception to this is a situation of gross misconduct, i.e. behaviour so appalling that you can consider the contract to have ended.

All of these situations are so easily avoided – and costly if they are missed. Moreover they’re areas where any employee, regardless of service, can make a claim to a Tribunal.

If you need further advice or information on this topic, contact me through the enquiry form here or find out more information here

The Value of Values

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Originally posted December 2013

My daughter’s primary school had its OFSTED inspection a few months ago and came out of it very well. What was particularly heartening from my perspective was not only that it was hitting good academic standards but that it achieved “outstanding” comments for issues such as pupil behaviour, cooperation and respect for others. There’s nothing particularly special about the school – it’s in what could be described as “working class” district of Liverpool and draws a significant number of pupils from socially deprived inner city areas.

But what is interesting, reading the OFSTED report, is the way it’s run.

  • Its whole ethos is based on a set of values (faith based ones in this particular case, but the important point is that it has values)
  • The school is led by a headteacher who ensures that targets and objectives are based in the context of those values
  • Teachers work within the values, set stretching but achievable targets and lead by example
  • Consequently pupils enjoy school, are interested in what’s going on and promote the culture themselves
  • And finally, as a relatively small school, communication is easier and there is less chance of individuals being “missed” or isolated.

So let’s try a bit of substitution. Change the words headteacher, teachers and pupils to Managing Director (or business owner), managers and employees. Sounds to me that it’s a successful recipe for building a sustainable and profitable business, with engaged and motivated employees. And it seems that smaller businesses may be more able to do this than larger ones – something which is also the subject of my contribution to the recent book of HR blogs “Humane, Resourced”.

If you want your business to be successful, then the question isn’t “why should we bother with values” – it’s “why don’t we have – and act on them – already?”

 

Edit: You might also enjoy this blog from HR blogger Helen Tracey on the same theme:

Are Values Valuable?

While You’re Capturing The Zeitgeist, They’re Widening the Motorway

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Originally posted November 2013

What do these business issues have in common?

A poor recruitment process leads to the appointment of a bank chairman who knows the price of cocaine better than the assets of his bank.

The government announces that hospitals must publish staffing ratios and recruit more if needed to ensure safe levels.

There is widespread condemnation at Executive pay-offs in the BBC.

The organisational “culture” is blamed for the ways in which newspapers behaved in adopting illegal practices to get stories,

Industrial relations “brinkmanship” leads to the threat of a major industry being closed.

A report talks about how businesses waste the skills and knowledge of older workers.

The simple answer is that they all reflect HR issues within a company. Not Finance. Not Marketing. Not Quality Control. Not Business Processes. But HR.

Despite the odd article prophesying the death of HR, the CIPD have recognised this sea-change within business and its Chief Executive Peter Cheese recently told its annual conference that “we can help shape the business agenda of the next decade and beyond”

But the real challenge is what is the HR profession going to do about it?  Are we simply going to luxuriate in the knowledge that we were right all along? Personally, I don’t want to look back in 5 years’ time at a business world where nothing much has changed, where the bean counters rule and HR people spend their time moaning that no-one takes them seriously. So what are we going to do to seize the moment?