Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.
Firstly some news from the group. The latest round of networking events were announced at the weekend. We have 7 events in London, Uxbridge, Cambridge, Reading, Wootton Bassett, Bristol and Newcastle and hopefully we’ll add Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow to the list shortly. You can find more information at this link http://bit.ly/HKjYZl
Now to the post at hand. Our resident HR Director Sheena McLullich returns to draws upon her experience as only she can and looks at the parallels between our rotten summer and our rotten economy! (Ed Scrivener)
A little ray of sunshine – please!
It doesn’t feel like summer does it? I know there have been lots of theories about global warming driving the jet-stream further south, causing the unseasonable weather conditions we seem to have endured for ages now. All the other signs of summer are plentiful enough – the roads round here are deserted, most email requests are met with an ‘out of office’ response and when I arrived in one of our office car parks last week, I really thought I’d gone to work on a Saturday by mistake – the car park was almost empty at 9 o’clock in the morning!
I know this is an unusual year and the Olympics have had a distorting effect on London. Like many people, I heeded the warnings about travel chaos in the city and made plans to work at our other office locations for the duration. I needn’t have bothered – if the reports I’ve heard are correct, travel in and around central London has been a breeze recently.
Maybe it is the awful weather that’s making things feel a bit strange. Apart from one nice week here in the south-east of England (and with apologies to anyone north of Birmingham who didn’t even get that!), it’s rained nearly every day with temperatures way below what we normally expect. I now permanently carry a waterproof jacket in the back of the car and an umbrella in my handbag, having been caught out more than once in a sudden downpour between car park and office!
Maybe it’s more than that. As Brits, we all know that our weather patterns are unpredictable. We’ve all experienced the disappointment of cancelled events, spoiled days out and everyone constantly moaning about how awful things are. Unfortunately a lot of people have also experienced the heartbreak of flooded homes and businesses, the nightmare and delays of insurance claims and the uncertainty of not knowing when and if the same thing might happen again.
Is there a parallel between our washed-out summer and our washed-up economy?
There’s a plethora of grim economic news around just now. It looks like the recession is deepening, long-term unemployment remains high, economic growth is non-existent with most businesses deeply uncertain about what the future might bring and reluctant or unable to invest as a result.
For many of us who at least have a job, there’s a nagging worry about rising prices, how to make your income last until the end of each month, pay rising more slowly than inflation (or not at all) and continuing job insecurity. Yes, and everyone constantly moaning about how awful things are. Unfortunately, I know too many people who have suffered greatly during the four years since the banking crisis really began to have an effect. Whether unemployed or forced into part-time working ‘picking up enough bits of work just to scrape by’ as one of my contacts put it, it must seem to a lot of people that the sun hasn’t shone in their lives for a very long time.
I had occasion the other day to look through the personnel file of one of our longest serving employees. Intrigued by some of the older typewritten documents (and carbon paper!), I looked further back than I needed to and was fascinated to see a number of internal memos from the then Managing Director warning of poor trading conditions, and the likely effects on salary increases, bonuses and job security – all dated in the early 1990s. The tone of these was almost identical to the tone I’ve been using in similar communications for much of the past 4 years.
Yet as I read on and got to the middle of the decade, the annual review letters started to look more positive. Bonus payments and double-digit salary increases were back on the agenda and it stayed that way for quite some time.
Hopefully there is a parallel. I’m writing this (today is Saturday, 11th August – almost a week before you read it) from a sun lounger on the patio. A cold drink by my side, the sun blazing down from a nearly cloudless sky. Maybe summer has come back after all …..
(Sheena is away on holiday at the moment, I don’t know if I have the heart to tell her that we’re in the midst of torrential rain again! – Ed)
About the author
Sheena began her career in Training & Development before moving to a generalist HR position in 1998. Since then she has held senior HR roles for several SMEs in a wide range of industries. A Fellow of the CIPD and Member of the US SHRM, she has a keen interest in Employee Development, specifically in coaching and supporting managers to enable them to get the best from their people. She was appointed as Director of People for SPA Future Thinking in September 2011.
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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will we will welcome our latest guest writer Leadership Development Consultant Antoinette Oglethorpe.
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