Who is Managing?

One of the biggest challenges HR face, is encouraging Managers to be honest. For too long Managers have feared being honest incase they are accused of harrassment or bullying. Whilst neither of these is acceptable, nor is dishonesty. Failure to change this can lead to poor performance, erratic attendance or the all-out dreaded conflict.

We all know of teams where someone is not performing, but if you look closer, is it a performance issue with the individual, or is it a performance issue with the Manager?

Managers seem to have confused managing with being nice. Maybe political correctness hasn't helped, I'm not sure. Managing is being supportive and honest.  How much time and energy is being wasted by this in your organisation? How much money will it cost if this ends up with a Settlement Agreement, or worse, ends up in court? Can you afford the bad publicity?

So whats the answer?
I have developed a five step process which I have successfully used with Managers to enable them to stop, change and circumvent escalation. More importantly this can avoid the organisation being faced with costly legal fees and settlement payments.

I would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate how this approach adds value to your organisation.

Getting Britain back to work

The news that unemployed people will have to start visiting the Job Centre daily made my heart sink. With two recent periods of unemployment, I've visited the Job Centre regularly. I can say hand on heart its the most demoralising experience ever. I can see the idea behind the recent headlines, but unless the job centre has a complete shake up, rebrand and new purpose then I can't see how it could work.

The whole process is a tick box exercise carried out by demoralised staff. "Have you got a copy of your CV?" The CV is then folded and put onto your file - its not even glanced at to see if its yours, let alone read and commented on. When did the staff last apply for a job in the outside world? How do they know what recruitment is like now?

It always annoyed me that each visit my form was checked, and the advisor counted how many steps I had taken to find work. The form had around 6 lines to write everything I had done in the last week. I could never fit it all in. One week I was advised I hadn't carried out enough steps so they wouldn't be able to pay my Job Seekers Allowance. The fact that the form was full, and I couldn't write anymore on it didn't matter. Luckily I keep a diary, and had carried out around 3 times more than the required number of steps.  So a basic starting point would be look at the form, and allow the space needed to complete it to your requirements.

The Job Centre has its own centralised job database. You are expected to check it daily, and the advisor has access to check that you are checking it daily. Now it may have improved but when I was looking, there were never any HR roles on it, they are on the specialist HR websites. However the rules say you have to log in and check daily so thats what i had to do, check for the jobs that aren't posted on the website.

Some motivated career coaches in the job centre would help - giving real advise and encouragement. The whole environment needs to be positive. Maybe some ex HR Managers in there, to give advice on what companies are looking for, how to handle interviews, what to expect when you start work. Unless you have been through the Job Centre system, you can't possibly know what a depressing, de-motivating experience it is. 

There are so many improvements that need to be made at the Job Centre - I would love to help improve it, because unless it changes Britain won't get back to work.  

Are you HR Healthy?

An HR Healthcheck is a good way of giving business owners peace of mind.  Given the choice of a maximum Employment Tribunal Award for Unfair Dismissal of £74200 or prevention by making sure your policies and procedures are correct for no more than a few hundred pounds, I know which one I would choose!

During an HR Healthcheck I will look at all of your policies and procedures. I will look to see if you have the essentials, and that they meet current legislation and good practice. For example do you follow the correct procedure for disciplinary hearings? If you don’t a tribunal could say it was automatically unfair, even if you only missed out one little sentence in your process but everything else was right.

I’ll check you’re calculating annual leave correctly – pro rating bank holidays for part time staff.  I’ll be looking to see if you have the processes to deal with absence and performance management. I’ll be looking to see what you do about Email and Internet abuse, how you handle data protection, what your process is for flexible working requests.

At the end of the healthcheck I will make recommendations so that you not only meet legislation, but good practice too. As an extra to the health check I can either update your policies or provide you with new policies and processes that suit your business. Not all businesses are the same, so it is important to make sure we get it right for you, whilst still meeting legislation. When there are changes to legislation that will impact on your HR Policies and procedures, I will let you know about them in advance. I can then update your policies, at an additional fee depending on what changes are needed.

If you do need new policies, I will make sure you understand them and your clear how to implement them. There’s nothing worse than having to waste time trying to work out what a policy means and how to use it.

SPECIAL OFFER 10 % off all HR Healthchecks, booked before 30 September 2013