Category Archives: Work Related Posts

Posts on work topics that aren’t specifically HR related – they may be on economics, world events or something in the news at the time!

Custom and Practice is no Yolk

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“It’s Custom and Practice” is a phrase that I used to hear a lot when negotiating with trade unions. And even though today far fewer workplaces are unionised, virtually every one has its own customs and practices. It could be the company gives people a day off pre-Christmas; it could be that the company always gives enhanced redundancy terms; it could be that staff can swap shifts between themselves without reference to managers. Whatever it is, it’s almost certainly not written down as part of the organisation’s policies and procedures.

Trying to change these things can be one of the hardest parts of employee relations – not because there are any particular legal difficulties but because people have an expectation of these practices. And the argument that “it’s not written down” simply does not wash. I had very little sympathy with Mondelez, the firm that owns Cadbury’s Chocolate, when the furore over the chocolate used in Creme Eggs broke last week. As consumers complained that the company was now using a cheap substitute rather than Cadbury’s signature Dairy Milk brand, the company spokesman pointed out that Creme Eggs weren’t marketed as “Dairy Milk Creme Eggs”. Factually of course, he’s correct –  the company have done nothing ‘wrong’ in changing the type of chocolate. But consumer egg-spectations (sorry) were that if they bought the product, they would get a particular type of chocolate, the same they had had for over 40 years.

It shows, yet again, that imposing change on people – even if you have a good reason for doing it – is likely to lead to a backlash. If you need to make changes within your business, don’t make the same mistake as Mondelez

Is Leadership overrated?

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Leadership is a big deal in the modern world. We don’t want people to be managers these days, we need them to be leaders. Almost every management qualification has an assignment question about the difference between leadership and management, and social media is awash with motivational quotes from people classed as leaders, while the people who used to be called management gurus are now referred to, in Orwellian terms, as “thought leaders”.

But what is “leadership”? And do we really need it? It often seems a bit of a Humpty Dumpty word, in that it can mean what we choose it to mean. The people we tend to define as leaders fall into different categories depending on our mood: entrepreneurs with a flair for self-publicity (Richard Branson, Steve Jobs), good crisis managers (Churchill), single-minded autocrats (Thatcher/Blair) or simply those with positional power (the CEOs of major corporations who regularly appear in the media as “business leaders”).

I have two problems with this current obsession with “leadership”. Firstly it inevitably tends to a cult of personality – Kim Jong Un may be an extreme example but there are many who will slavishly follow the latest musings of a particular writer, businessman, politician or “guru”. It must be a horrible job being a leader in such circumstances, where – like Peter Sellers’ character in Being There – every slight comment is treated as a pearl of wisdom and you spend your life surrounded by flatterers, toadies and hangers-on.

Secondly, the implication is that if you’re not a leader you must be one of the led. A mere drone, unable to think, waiting for your instructions to come down on tablets of stone. And since leaders are apparently born not made, your fate is determined at the moment of birth.

Wait! I hear you say. A “good” leader is one who inspires people to better things, and helps create a sense of purpose. They aren’t all dictators. But inspiration lies within individuals, it can’t be externally imposed, and while the spark that releases it may come from a leader, it can just as easily come from another person, a book, a film, or a piece of music. And a sense of purpose is stronger if it comes from within the people in a team rather than being imposed from outside.

So maybe in 2015 we can drop the obsession with leadership. Facilitation, co-ordination,collaboration and teamwork may not be as glamorous or “sexy” as leadership but they’re far more effective.

Wheelchairs, Buses and Prams

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It’s impossible not to feel sympathy for Doug Paulley, the wheelchair user who was denied access to a bus because the wheelchair space was occupied by a passenger with a pushchair who refused to move. And I’ve no doubt that many will see the court victory by First Bus as evidence that disability rights are pushed to one side when big business comes to call.

But those criticising First Bus (of whom there are many on social media) need to remember one thing. It’s not some highly paid executive, or faceless corporation, who would be responsible for enforcing the ruling, had the court upheld Mr Paulley’s claim. Individual bus drivers are the ones who would have to police the decision, and they are the ones who would have to face the abuse from passengers if they delay the journey while trying to resolve the situation. And what is the driver expected to do if the passenger refuses to move? Physically eject them from the bus? Can you imagine the headlines?

Bus drivers – and others who provide frontline public services – already face a good deal of both verbal and physical abuse from their customers. From an HR and employment perspective, we have a responsibility to protect the health and safety of our employees. That might be a minor “admin” task for those who work in offices but is a big deal if your staff do a more dangerous job.

The real culprit here is not the bus company but society’s attitudes toward the disabled. The whole situation would have probably been avoided, not just if the other passenger had not been selfish but if the rest of the bus passengers had made it clear that her behaviour was socially unacceptable. Passing legislation, and then expecting low-paid frontline employees to implement it, is no substitute for basic good manners or an unselfish attitude.

I Fought The Law

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Every so often, and usually despite my better judgement, I’ll read or even get involved in a LinkedIn debate about an employment law topic. One a few weeks ago concerned the applicability of the TUPE regulations in a particular situation. What annoyed me about the debate – on this occasion – was that the first few responses, from apparently experienced and qualified HR professionals, were “ask a lawyer”, often with a subtext of “much too complicated and risky for the likes of us”.

Now I’ve nothing against Employment Lawyers (some of my best friends… etc), and their expertise is always useful. But I do find it worrying when HR people – who ought to understand the organisational and cultural context the law is being applied to – refuse to comment on a basic query and kick it upstairs to the legal profession.

So here’s a little quiz:

  1. If an individual makes an employment tribunal claim against your company, what are the processes and timescales for responding?
  2. If one of your managers asks for advice about whether a restructuring situation will result in redundancies, how do you respond?
  3. Could you advise a manager on what the protected characteristics are under the Equality Act?
  4. What is the process for a Shared Parental Leave request? And how does it differ from Additional Paternity Leave?
  5. What are the big changes being planned in Employment Law and where would you find more information?

If you’ve a CIPD qualification* and you can’t answer all of those with ease, then you really should be concerned (and if you’re one of my non-HR readers, if your HR manager or consultant can’t answer them you should be equally concerned). That’s not me being a smart-arse – those questions are based on the CIPD’s own learning outcomes for the Employment Law module in the Advanced Diploma. As an HR professional, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of the wonderfully named “Daddy’s Dance Hall” case or whether there are legitimate grounds for appeal in the recent Holiday Pay case – that is a job for the lawyers. But the basic tenets of employment law? You bet.

(* I understand some CIPD qualified people are specialists in certain areas – such as Compensation & Benefits – and don’t need a detailed knowledge of general employment law. But they still need to know how the law impacts on their own specialism)

Roll Over Beethoven

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Government Minister Lord Freud got himself in hot water last week when a recording of a Conference Fringe meeting was revealed where he stated that some disabled people were not worth the minimum wage, and suggested that employers could pay them £2 per hour with a state benefit being used to top this up. While most criticised him, there were some who sought to defend his comments, with this Daily Mail article being a particular example. In summary, it makes two points; firstly that the author’s father, who was blind, accepted he should be paid less because he required support to carry out his work – despite the fact that he was a highly rated newspaper columnist; and secondly that “the market” would inevitably value some jobs (by implication those done by people with disabilities) below the current level of the minimum wage.

Taking the second point first, it is quite possible that, if we simply allowed the market to determine wages, some jobs might be paid less than the current minimum wage rate of £6.50 per hour. If Lord Freud and his supporters want to make the case for abolishing the minimum wage, then that’s a perfectly acceptable position to argue (though none of the mainstream political parties seem to support it) – but it does seem to me that dressing up this argument as some form of altruistic help for the disabled is at best disingenous.

What worries me though about the first point though is that it demonstrates how out of touch politicians and media “commentators” are with the modern world of work. Firstly they seem completely unaware of the Access to Work Scheme, which provides  support for those with disabilities in work. To take the example of the blind Mr Utley, these days he wouldn’t require his employers to provide him with a paid secretary to read the newspapers to him, since a) most modern software includes a “read aloud” feature (as well as other accessibility options) b) if he did need special equipment it would be paid for and c) even if he did require a full time support worker his employer would get assistance with the costs. Without making a political point, it seems as a taxpayer that the government spending £500-£1000 providing an employer with special equipment to support an employee with a disability to work  is a more cost-effective solution than subsidising the disabled employee through the benefits system. Even in the case of  severe disability, where the individual requires a full time support worker, the current system (though not perfect) seems a better option.

Secondly,  they assume that a disability means an inability to do anything. No-one (even his political opponents) seriously suggests that David Blunkett was less effective than any other Home Secretary because he was blind. Indeed, rather than paying him less, if Mr Utley Snr really was the “leading Tory thinker of his generation” you’d expect the Telegraph to be paying him top dollar (it’s that thing called the market again) rather than ripping him off. Just imagine how Beethoven would have managed under Lord Freud and his supporters. “I’m sorry Ludwig, I know this symphony is genius but as you’re deaf, we’re only going to give you a third of what we paid Schubert for his inferior composition”.