Tag Archives: HR

A quiet week

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I was sitting at my desk, thinking that this week had been comparatively quiet, but then I started to list a few of the things I’ve done:

·         Advised a client on a recruitment issue, including how to develop what they want and where they might source candidates

·         Worked with a small public sector organisation to review its restructure and recommend some improvements to it

·         Drafted a staff handbook for a growing professional practice

·         Helped a new start-up understand their ‘basic’ HR responsibilities

·         Assisted a client in a hi-tech field to deal with a performance management issue

·         Acting as the adviser for a charity client in a disciplinary issue

·         Dealing with a query about the Apprenticeship levy

·         Writing the script for, and recording a CIPD Level 7 training webinar (not entirely convinced that voiceover artist is a likely career move for me)

·         Finalising the edits for my book (of which more here)

It made me realise that even in the ‘quieter’ periods,  the variety of ‘people’ issues that crop up  in organisations are what makes my work so interesting. So, if your business or organisation needs some HR help, why not get in touch?

 

Frames of Reference (Part 2)

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About 10 days ago, I posted a blog post which consisted of a series of images and the simple question: What do you see?

The reactions it gained, both in the comments and on social media, were interesting and varied – as I’d suspected, everyone saw the images in a slightly different way – some saw them individually, some saw them thematically, and the same picture could elicit different reactions.

The differences occur because we all perceive things based on our own knowledge, experiences and values – everyone has a different frame of reference. And these frames of reference transfer into the workplace as much as any other aspect of life.

Sociologist Alan Fox broke these workplace frames of reference down into 3 broad categories:

·         Unitarist – everyone in the organisation shares similar values and culture and they are all working to the same end

·         Pluralist  –  people have different aims and objectives, which may depend on where they are in the organisation and as a result organisations become a coalition of interests –  and these interests can and do sometimes conflict

·         Radical (or Marxist) – the groups in a workforce (which can crudely be split into ‘managers’ and ‘workers’) are inherently in conflict – if one gains the other loses.

For the last 30 years, the dominant viewpoint in HR and business has been the Unitarist one – whether it’s Tom Peters and his “excellent” companies, or HR concepts like ‘best practice’ and ‘employee engagement’. But is it time to reconsider the idea that “we’re all in it together”? The increasing numbers of industrial disputes – which I highlighted here – suggest that increasingly groups of employees are considering that their interests are better served by opposing the wishes of their managers. While the so-called Uber model of employment distances people from their organisation even further.

After all if we interpret 5 photographs differently, why on earth should we all interpret something as complex as a business in a unified and agreed way?

Strikes, Strictly and Brexit

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I heard an interesting theory put forward recently (by comedian Frank Skinner) that Strictly Come Dancing led to Brexit. In the 2008 series, journalist John Sergeant was possibly the most hopeless contestant to ever appear on the programme. However despite the  frequent condemnation of the dance judges, the public voted week after week to keep him in the show. Skinner suggested that it was perhaps the moment that people realised they could ignore “experts” and get the result they wanted through voting in sufficient numbers.

In common with every other area of business, HR professionals are currently grappling with the implications of Brexit. Much of the debate surrounds employment law (will it change or not, and if so how?), recruitment (what will be the rules on recruiting EU nationals, will they be required to have work permits), and skill shortages (will we still be able to employ existing EU staff, and if not how will we fill the skills gap?).

However, one overlooked area is that of Employee Relations. We’re currently seeing a wave of industrial disputes – railways, airline staff, Post Office workers, airport baggage handlers, Weetabix factory workers. While some suggest this is some wave of 1970s style union militancy, the fact is that the majority of these disputes are over ‘old-fashioned’ pay and conditions matters, and they are overwhelming supported by affected staff in secret ballots. Perhaps the Brexit vote has convinced ‘ordinary workers’ that they can change things by voting?

What it has also revealed is the poor approach of management in most of these situations. It may be arrogance – a belief that management proposals can always be implemented because the employer wants to, irrespective of the views of employees. Or it could be a refusal to believe that people will do something so ‘stupid’  – they won’t vote to strike and lose pay before Christmas (just like they won’t vote to leave the EU or for a dancer as poor as John Sergeant). Mostly however I suspect it’s a lack of competence – managers, including many in HR, just don’t know how to negotiate on a collective basis. It’s interesting that several of the disputes have been quickly solved when expert negotiators from ACAS have become involved.

So perhaps that’s another Brexit issue for HR people – the need to brush up on, or even gain in the first place, the knowledge and skills to manage employee relations. As someone who cut their HR teeth in this area, I’m looking forward to some full and frank discussions with trade union colleagues in the coming months and years!

Thinking Outside the Payroll

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What exactly are the “Human Resources” of an organisation? 

The easy answer is that they are the people who work for a business, charity or public body. But while in the past, for the overwhelming majority of organisations, this term was synonymous with “employee”, these days that’s frequently not the case. And I’m not just talking about trendy hi-tech firms either – the chances are that if you’ve ordered anything for delivery recently, whether online or from a store, it will have been delivered by a self-employed contractor, not an employee of the company. Nor is it uncommon in many organisations to have sub-contracted out ‘ancillary’ services to others (indeed, that’s how I make my living!!)

So why is that an issue for those of us who work in HR? Well, there are lots of reasons:

·         It won’t be enough to know about “employment law” – HR professionals will need to understand the full range of legal relationships that people can have with organisations, and be able to advise on them. The excuse that “x is a freelance, nothing to do with us” won’t wash in future

·         How will we hire and fire in the future? Some of the time-consuming processes that we use to recruit, or dismiss, are not only not necessary but don’t fit with those who are working in a non-traditional way. And given that recruiting consultants or freelancers has been a traditional responsibility of procurement departments or line managers, how do we get involved without creating a turf war?

·         If we have to recruit people differently, do we also need to start rethinking how we develop them? And indeed, exactly who do we need to consider developing?

·         We talk a lot in HR about behaving “ethically”. If we start to use labour as a resource to be taken up and dropped when necessary for our business, how does that square with behaving in an ethical manner?

·         Even if you don’t accept the ethical arguments, there are several clear business reasons why HR will need to change. The whole “psychological contract” between businesses and their workforces will change and our practices will need to as a consequence

·         Things that we devote a lot of time to currently – like the nebulous concept of “employee engagement” – may become pointless; if workers aren’t all employees then chasing after engagement becomes a meaningless exercise.

That’s not to say we need to throw out everything we do in HR. Nor am I suggesting traditional employees will disappear – they will still form the majority of the workforce for the foreseeable future (at least for the remainder of my working life anyway!). But what I am suggesting is that we need to rethink exactly how – and why – we do a lot of things if the profession is to remain relevant in 21st century organisations.