It’s Not Fair ….

I’ve just returned from a wonderful week’s holiday on the beautiful Isle of Mull in Scotland.  It’s a place which holds special memories for me as I grew up in Glengorm on the island’s remote northern coast.  In fact we stayed in the same house that I lived in as a child – it’s now a holiday let.  We travelled there with two of my grandchildren, five year old Kyle and Charlie who’s nearly three.      Both children loved their short taste of island life.  Charlie is a huge fan of ‘Balamory’, the children’s TV programme, some of which was filmed in Tobermory - the island’s main town.  He thoroughly enjoyed a tour of the town looking out for the places where his favourite characters might just be lurking…

The highlight of Kyle’s holiday came one evening.  Just behind the cottage is a hill and from its summit there’s a magnificent view across the sea towards the distant islands of Rhum, Eigg and Canna.  It’s not big, probably about 20 metres high, but very rocky and there’s no discernible path to the top.  He wanted to climb it, not for the view, but because it looked difficult.  I’d told him how I used to climb up there as a child and he was unable to resist the challenge. 

There was a problem though.  Charlie was too small to take part in this adventure, his little legs just wouldn’t cope with the climb and I didn’t fancy the idea of carrying him.  So, to Charlie’s utter dismay, Kyle and I set off alone to tackle the ‘mountain’.  As we got ready, Charlie, who was being left behind with his grandfather, was distraught.  His sobs and cries of ‘it’s not fair, me go too’ echoed in our ears as we left the house. 

We made it to the top just in time to see a glorious sunset.  Clambering up the rocks, looking for suitable hand and foot-holes was a revelation to Kyle, who lives in a large town near London and had never experienced such an activity before.  He was very proud of his achievement and insisted on being photographed so that he could show off to everyone back home.  By the time we got back to the cottage, it was nearly dark.  Charlie was curled up on the sofa, fast asleep, but still clutching the toy he’d been given as ‘compensation’ for not being able to go with us. 

‘It’s not fair..’.  How many times do we, as HR professionals hear that plea?  Whether it’s someone who didn’t get that promotion or pay rise or holiday request.  Whether a disparity in benefits, working hours or terms and conditions, employees invariably complain to us about whatever it may be and expect us to put things right. 

Often we do but sometimes we simply can’t.  There are many situations where, much as we may want to change things, circumstances outwith our control mean that we have to accept that we can’t solve a problem to everyone’s satisfaction.  Luckily we don’t often have to deal with a toddler’s tantrum, although sometimes it feels that way …. 

To paraphrase the words of Niebuhr - ‘Grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference’.

Sheena McLullich

Has this inspired you to discuss HR?  Leave your comments here.

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Here we go again…

It’s that time of the year once more.  Business planning, budgeting, forecasting, setting objectives.  Our financial year begins in September, so we’re now well into our 4th quarter and the management team are queuing up with capex requests and headcount plans to appeal to the CFO.  It’s a slick, well-practised routine and one which I’ve followed for several years in several different companies, irrespective of when the financial year actually begins.

I quite like the fact that our FY runs from September to August.  Our final quarter covers June, July and August and, despite the need to plan around holidays, it’s a quieter period for finding time for all those strategic planning activities.  This is one of the reasons why we chose to do our annual appraisals during Q4 although, of course, the main reason is that it fits with the business planning cycle. 

In other companies, I’ve worked with both March and December Financial Year-ends.  To me, both have some major disadvantages.  In December, everyone’s thinking about Christmas and in March, both Finance and HR have other deadlines around the tax year-end to contend with.  In August, however, it’s quite refreshing to have a new (business) year to look forward to just as the summer holidays are coming to an end and everyone’s feeling a bit jaded. 

For us, this coming year will be a challenging one.  Our auto-enrolment staging date is in October and, with a large cohort of casual workers, we’ll be rolling out a new pension scheme.  We’ve also taken the opportunity to harmonise and refresh several of our benefits which, over time and as a result of some significant acquisition activity, have become fragmented and cumbersome.  At the start of this financial year we had three pension schemes and four PMI policies.  We also had no less than seven different payrolls – an administrative nightmare!  Almost one year on, those numbers are reducing fast with some significant overhead cost savings (I hope our CFO is reading this..!)

Despite an improvement in levels of optimism throughout the UK economy, there’s still a need to control costs.  In our own case we also need to manage expectations.  We’re on target for a successful financial year, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got limitless funds to support an expansion of our employee benefits programme.  My team and I have had to be creative in order to find cost savings to fund each improvement to the benefits we currently offer. 

Throughout my HR career, I’ve found that each new business year brings some great opportunities to improve things and I always feel a sense of optimism and excitement about what the future year will bring.  Even in organisations where I’ve worked for a number of years, there’s still been something new to look forward to each time.  I certainly don’t subscribe to the view that my fifteen years’ HR experience is one year’s experience repeated 15 times, as some cynics would have it. 

So, even if it isn’t your time yet to start the business planning cycle, I wish you a very happy and successful New Year!

Sheena McLullich

Has this inspired you to discuss HR?  Leave your comment here telling us about your new business year experiences. I bet you’ve got some good tales!

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Small (Business) is Beautiful

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

Sheena McLullich may have not switched off yet (see her last post!) which fortunately for us means she has taken the time to write this post about why HR is so important in small business.  (Ed Scrivener)

Small (Business) is Beautiful

It wasn’t intentional, but I seem to have spent almost all of my career working for SMEs.  Small  to Medium Enterprises with anything up to 250 employees are an established part of the British economy with over 4.8 million small businesses employing almost 24 million people, according to the Federation of Small Businesses. 

Perhaps the seeds of my destiny were sown when I worked as a Training Consultant for a local Chamber of Commerce.  I worked with many businesses in the local area offering bespoke training advice and solutions.  From there it was almost a natural progression to running my own HR and Training Consultancy and focussing more on the needs of smaller organisations who didn’t have their own specialist advisors.  Eventually I started working full-time for one of my clients and, although this led me to working with several major household names, it was always as an external consultant and I was never directly on the payroll of one of these titans.

It angers me when I see articles in the HR press which advocate HR best practice as being the province of big businesses only.  Some recruitment consultants are equally guilty of such misconceptions.  I was actually turned down for a job with a small company a couple of years ago because they wanted someone with experience of large organisations who ‘knew what best practice looked like’.  Oh, come on!  The inference seems very much that small businesses are second class and not the ideal environment in which to pursue a valid HR career.

I would argue that my role as HR Director in each of the SME businesses I’ve worked for has been far more demanding and challenging than a cushy number as nominal Head of HR in a huge, impersonal monolith.   I work very closely with senior leaders at the heart of the business – and the HR buck stops with me.  I don’t have a team of expert advisors around me and I don’t have the means to buy in such expertise (except in very extreme cases).  That means that if it needs to be known, then I need to know it – or at least know where to find out about it.  I don’t have long to do any research into unfamiliar issues either.  In my experience, smaller organisations move much more quickly than larger ones and the CEO’s idea can become reality in hours rather than months of Board ratification, shareholder approval etc.

Admittedly I don’t have a multi-million pound training or recruitment budget (I wish!) to be responsible for.   It is, however, much more difficult to spend £50k wisely and to get real value for money from suppliers than knowing that you have an almost limitless supply of money to throw at a problem.  I don’t have responsibility for thousands of anonymous, distant employees.  I can count our workforce in hundreds and they all know who I am.  There’s nowhere to hide in a small business. 

My role is certainly varied and my caseload can move from ER issues to strategic organisational development to sorting out why we’ve run out of coffee in the blink of an eye.  I have to be hands-on.  Resource constraints exist in all sizes of organisation but in a small one, there often isn’t anyone else available to deal with a problem and I can’t cite ‘not in my job description’ as a reason to delegate something that I don’t see as important. 

I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Although it is sometimes frustrating to have my strategic planning activities interrupted by a request for ‘how much holiday do I have left?’ this surely is the ‘raison d’etre’ of HR – a function that provides a valid, and valued, service to all its employees. 

Read about Sheena and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 26^th August.

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Always on ….

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

Following on from her last post our original HRD Sheena McLullich writes about a topic many of us will be able to relate to. (Ed Scrivener)

Always on ….

When I went on holiday last year, I did something really radical.  I left my blackberry at home.  I also left my glasses in the car and had to make an undignified dash after check-in from the terminal back to the long-stay car park at Gatwick airport, but that’s another story…  The blackberry was both deliberate and planned. 

A couple of confessions here – firstly, I have two blackberries.  One personal and one for work.  I took my personal one with me as I knew I would need it to check-in for the second leg of the flights.  Secondly, I am not addicted to my smartphone(s) unlike almost half of users, according to a recent Post Office survey.  Some of my fellow Discuss HR writers may disagree with me on that point as, when we met up for lunch the other week, I did check my phone a few times.  I was the contact point for anyone who was running late or couldn’t find the restaurant – right?  But then there was that fascinating message about a car hi-jacking outside one of our offices and I was waiting for news of a legal settlement …

I resisted getting a mobile phone for some time after they first became popular (and portable!).  At that time, my job involved travelling throughout Scotland visiting our other offices and various client sites, often being away from home overnight.  Eventually I figured it would be easier for the kids to have one single phone number they could contact me on rather than working their way down the list of possible numbers that I’d left for them.   It made life easier for me as well.  I didn’t need to make sure that I had a stack of change to make a nightly call home or deduct major ‘sundry’ amounts from my hotel bills prior to submitting expenses claims. 

Sometimes there were problems.  I was working in New York at the same time as we were buying a house back in England.  The solicitors called me one morning to say that they were ready to exchange contracts.  It was 9:00 am in England – 4:00 am in New York when my mobile burst into life!  The strains of my ‘Scotland the Brave’ ringtone probably disturbed quite a few residents in that particular hotel that night.  I did explain to the lawyers where I was and they did apologise – and then they phoned me back half an hour later to say that they’d exchanged.  I was, of course, delighted …

So, did I miss having my phone with me on holiday last year?  Well, yes actually.  There was a problem with an expense claim and I ended up having to call our Finance Director from the top of a mountain in Corsica – the only place I could get a signal.  I didn’t have his number in my personal mobile so I had to make several calls to our various offices before I was able to track him down.  However, it was the assorted reactions of people that I related this tale to that I found most interesting.  Many were surprised, some incredulous, that I could even consider not taking my blackberry with me – despite the fact I was on holiday.  I’d left other members of the HR team in charge during my absence, they were fully briefed on any relevant issues and they had my personal number in case of any insurmountable problems. 

So why do some people find it difficult, or even impossible, to do the same?  Is it fear of missing out (apparently ‘FEMO’ is a recognised social malaise in these days of 24/7 connectivity) or a mis-placed sense that our employers can’t (or shouldn’t be able to) survive without us for a few days?  One Director I worked with phoned the office several times a day from his Indian Ocean ‘hideaway’ – until his girlfriend chucked the offending mobile to the bottom of the swimming pool.  If you don’t find that anecdote at all funny, perhaps you too need to check your ability to switch off – or are you ‘always on’?

Read about Sheena and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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Tears, Tissues, Tea and Sympathy

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

Today’s post is by our regular writer Sheena McLullich who asks an excellent question about whether HR is over-looking a traditional area of responsibility in the pursuit to appear credible. (Ed Scrivener)

Tears, Tissues, Tea and Sympathy

Apparently last Monday (21^st January) was Blue Monday – the most depressing day of the year.  Christmas is a rapidly fading memory, New Year’s resolutions have already been abandoned, credit card statements are due for payment, it’s still at least a week until pay day and almost 2 months until the next bank holiday.  Coupled with the usual miserable weather at this time of year, the dark mornings … did you struggle to get up and face the world on Monday morning?

What about your employees?  Is that miserable face at the desk opposite the result of a delayed  train, a sick pet or a symptom of something more serious?  Do you know?  Did you ask?  Should you care…?

As an HR professional, I’ve lost count of the number of times that someone has come into my office and said “can I talk to you …?” before bursting into tears and pouring out details of a tragic event in their lives.  Often their close colleagues had no idea that anything was amiss until the person concerned reached the point where they just had to talk to someone.  It could be money worries, relationship problems, an ill relative, concerns about a child … the list is endless and it often has nothing to do with work. 

Actually, the work ‘stuff’ is usually quite easy to sort out and, in most cases, comes to my attention via a manager who has noticed a problem with performance and comes to ask for advice on how to handle matters. 

Personal problems on the other hand, almost always come from the employee themselves and things have often reached crisis point before they look for help.  It’s one of the reasons why I always have a box of tissues on my desk.  It may not be fashionable in these days of transactional, hard-nosed HR but, believe me, they get used a lot.  That’s something that worries me on occasions.  I’m certainly not the cuddly, maternal ‘Auntie Sheena’ type (cue for howls of laughter from anyone reading this who knows me!) but people do tend to come to me when they feel they’ve no-one else to talk to.  What happens in organisations where there is no HR function or, worse, where there’s an HR function that’s under too much pressure and can’t or won’t take the time to deal with these often time-consuming problems?

I’m not a trained counsellor and I do know that there are times when serious issues must be referred on to a qualified professional or the employee assistance programme (where there is one).  Sometimes though, people just need to talk things through or may need persuading to contact a third party.  Sometimes I simply have to make them a cup of tea – and wait until they’re ready.  All these things can take time out of an already hectic schedule but I believe that they have to take priority. 

Tears and tissues.  Tea and sympathy.  They’re seen in many quarters as old-fashioned ‘personnel’ qualities but if HR doesn’tdeal with them, who will? 

Read about Sheena and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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Sheena McLullich - 2012

In the final review of the year we look back at the writing of our HR Director Sheena McLullich.  Sheena has written some of our most entertaining posts of the year.  One thing that is clear is that Sheena has a wonderful ability to be able to relate her experience to a topic. (Ed Scrivener)

2012

• What’s in a name? 23^rd February
• Bank Holiday3^rd May
• A little ray of sunshine – please! 15^th August
• Cruising in comfort and style 27^th September
• What did you do in the war Grannie? 29^th November

2011

• Full back catalogue

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.

Email | LinkedIn| Website

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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.  

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What Did You Do in the War, Grannie?

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.

This week we welcome back our resident HRD, Sheena McLullich who once again has written a thought provoking post.  Her article also heralds the last of the year from our panel of writers.  We will then be welcoming two guest writers before the end of the year.  In the meantime enjoy Sheena’s post. (Ed Scrivener)

What Did You Do in the War, Grannie?

Luckily I haven’t been asked this question – yet!

However, I’m about to make a confession which will, I fear, immediately invoke a prejudice in many people’s minds.  This could seriously impact my chances of ever being head-hunted or of being recruited into another company and could in fact destroy my future employability. 

Anyway, here goes …. I am a Grandmother – of five.

Actually, I’m called ‘Grannie’ (after my own Grannie who also spelt it that way) and, in my defence, I was 21 when my eldest son was born and my son was 22 when his son was born.  Do the maths, as they say.  Even though my oldest grandson is now five, this doesn’t make me old or even vaguely approaching retirement age, but it does invoke strong responses in some people when I’ve told them.  ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had a grandmother before’ was the response of one director and someone else suggested, in all seriousness, that I might want to reduce my working hours… he never got to finish that particular sentence!

My present CEO said to me during my interview ‘we have a young, metropolitan workforce and you don’t fit that model’.  He went on to say that in his view, that was a good thing as I’d been there and learned from the experience, which made me better able to advise and empathise with others and less afraid to make a  tough decision where necessary.  I’m really glad he did that as it gave me an opportunity to bring the subject into the open and to discuss how my life experiences could enhance the organisation.  Unfortunately not many CEOs share Jon’s candour or his attitude to diversity.  

I’ve been present at too many job interviews (both as candidate and interviewer) where someone has been rejected purely on the grounds of age.  ‘They won’t learn.’  ‘They won’t adapt.’ ‘They’ll be too slow’  ‘They won’t like change’ are common misconceptions. 

Like many ‘baby boomers’, I started my working life in the early ‘eighties.  Back then, the personal computer was just coming into common use.  There was no email, no social media, no internet.  If you wanted to find something out, you had to look up a reference book or ask someone else.  (Networking is not a new concept by the way!)  Since then we’ve mastered numerous versions of increasingly sophisticated software packages and coped with radically different ways of working – ‘won’t learn, won’t change’ – I think we’ve proved that exactly the opposite is the case. 

During my career I’ve had to deal with almost every challenge that working with people can throw at you.   I’ve struggled through recessions, coped with redundancy (from both sides) and had to handle some very traumatic situations, including some real human tragedies.   As you get older, I think you become less emotional and more resilient.  You’re less likely to panic when faced with something unfamiliar and more inclined to step back, assess the situation and decide on a course of action that won’t make things worse.   These are not skills that are taught in business schools – I know, because I’ve been there too. 

So, on my desk at work you’ll see a photo of five smiling little faces whose Grannie has a wealth of experience to share with them (when they’re old enough) but who isn’t ready to retire to a rocking chair for some considerable time yet.  

But I wonder, what will you see the next time you interview an older candidate?

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.

Email | LinkedIn | Website

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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.  

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What’s the Point?

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.

We’re now entering the final few posts of the year and will be shortly starting our 3^rdyear of existence and it’s moment like this that never cease to amaze me about how time flies!  Today is the final post of the year for Jill Hart-Sanderson who once again illustrates her ability to write about her experiences so that we can all relate to them. (Ed Scrivener)

What’s the Point?

How often do you watch the television with the subtitles switched on? When you are about to watch (and listen to) an important announcement, news story or documentary do you reach for the subtitle button? Unless you have a hearing impediment your answer is probably no.

Would seeing the words on the screen help you understand the message better, or would it distract you?

Recently I attended a series of workshops run by very knowledgeable professionals. Despite the fact that they were presenting to a group of people as part of their regular job role, they started the session by saying they weren’t presenters. They then took turns to speak to the group - reading from their pre-prepared PowerPoint slides which were projected onto a large screen.  A paper copy of the slides was also given to each of the attendees. The content of the presentations was very interesting but the way in which it was delivered made most of the attendees glaze over after about two minutes. The workshop lasted seven hours and at the end of it I was asked what exactly had I learnt and how could have the day been improved.

I’m sure most of you have experienced this type of scenario, and it still unfolds every day in many organisations around the country. So what did I learn and how could the day have been better?

PowerPoint can be a wonderful tool – but when it is used purely as a memory aid for the presenter it can be a real distraction. If the whole ‘speech’ is typed on a screen there are too many words to read while you are trying to listen at the same time. The element of surprise is also lost, as the attendee can read ahead and scan for that important piece of information. The audience has come to find out something in person. If it were merely about the words then they could have just read about it in their own time from the comfort of their own office. To attend a presentation, course of workshop of any kind is about the complete experience which makes the time, cost and effort of actually attending worthwhile.

Perhaps the workshop I attended could have been improved if the ‘presenters’ had considered Neil Fleming’s VAK model which claims that we all have a preferred learning style:

• Visual – thinking in pictures, diagrams etc.
• Auditory – listening and discussion
• Tactile – moving, touching, doing

Most people may have a preference to one of the styles but use parts of all three when receiving new information. I appreciate that how something is presented depends on time, type and size of the audience, but by being aware of the attendees’ diversity could have meant that some of these styles were incorporated instead of reading through text on a slide.

PowerPoint can be a brilliant way of presenting a clear chart, diagram, picture or even animation (which would also appeal to the visual learners amongst us!). Without the constraints of a script projected on a screen the presenter is free to talk about their subject with knowledgeable enthusiasm and really connect with their audience.

The next time you are preparing a presentation to the board, arranging a training course, or asking a candidate to produce a PowerPoint presentation at interview why not ask ‘what is the point of using  slides and will they enhance what is being said’?

The late Steve Jobs was famously quoted as saying “People who know what they're talking about don't need PowerPoint". What are your thoughts and experiences?

About the author

Jill is passionate about using creativity to unlock people's potential, finding practical solutions that make a real difference to organisations.  Her extensive management experience in both the public and private sectors combined with HR consultancy has given her a real insight into how great HR can transform individuals and businesses.

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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 be written by HR Director Sheena McLullich.

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Cruising in Comfort and Style

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.

Just a brief introduction from me today (hurrah I hear you cry!).  I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has been attending the networking events and today is the big networking day with events in London, Newcastle and Solihull, so I hope all of you going to these have a great time.

To business, today we welcome back our resident HR Director Sheena McLullich, who has a wonderful ability of relating her experience and today is no different. (Ed Scrivener)

Cruising in Comfort and Style

Sheena, coming to a motorway near you soon!

It was all my husband’s fault really.  He’s spent much of the last few months trawling round the Internet (he calls it ‘research’) looking for a new car.  Finally he found what he wanted but during his quest he also discovered that my ‘dream’ car was no longer available in the UK.  So that was why I ended up making a nine hundred mile round trip to Scotland last month to purchase one of the last remaining models.

I didn’t really want (or need) a new car.  For the past few years I’ve worked in central London where a car is a major inconvenience.  I mostly travel round London by public transport and rarely venture by road anywhere inside the North Circular.  In fact the last car I bought new, almost 7 years ago, had very few  miles on the clock and was mainly used to travel to and from the train station – less than 2 miles from my house. 

It hasn’t always been like that.  When I lived and worked in Scotland a reliable car was a necessity and I regularly clocked up over 25,000 business miles a year.   Back then I changed my car every 3 years, swapping each clapped-out wreck (via a contract hire scheme) for a brand new model – but always from the same supplier. 

The reason for this choice was simple.  Many years ago I was working in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands, delivering a major IT training roll-out to the local council.   Late one winter’s night, somewhere off the A85, disaster struck and a wheel-bearing seized.  I nursed the fairly new vehicle to my destination and phoned the contract-hire company in Glasgow.  They arranged for the car to be towed to the ‘nearest’ main dealer, some 50 miles away.  A couple of days later, the dealer phoned me to say that the car was fixed and could I please come and collect it.  No I couldn’t – the garage was an hour’s drive away, I’d no car (obviously!) and there wasn’t a reliable bus service.  In any case, I was delivering day-long training sessions from 9-5 and couldn’t possibly take time off work during the day.   The impasse was solved with another call to the contract hire company.  A couple of hours later, the car was parked outside my hotel, repaired, cleaned and with a huge bunch of flowers on the passenger seat by way of apology.  Now that’s how to win a customer for life!!

In fact, I’ve dealt with this particular company now for almost 20 years so it was logical that I would turn to them to see if it was really true that I wouldn’t be able to buy this particular marque in future and whether, by any chance, they still had one available.  They did, so I bought it.  Everything was done online from sorting out the insurance to the credit agreement.  I don’t have a car allowance in my present job so I had to pay for this one – the hard way!  The salesman sent down some photos of the car and all I had to do was to drive up to Scotland to trade in the old car and collect the new one.   That was no hardship as I could combine the trip with a short holiday to visit friends and family so everyone was happy.

To be honest, I’m not terribly interested in cars.  I’ve been responsible for the company car fleet in a couple of previous roles but I’ve always managed to avoid driving a company car, preferring instead to opt for a cash allowance so that I could make a free choice as to the make and model I drove.  I see a car simply as a tool that helps me to do my job –  as a means of getting to and from different locations, admittedly with a certain degree of comfort and style. 

So I wasn’t really listening as I stood in a thunderous downpour outside a car dealership in Stirling while the salesman enthused about ‘brake horse-power, cruise control and voice activated integral communications software’.  The car looked nice, a sleek, grey coloured, 3 door sports coupé.    The coupé bit was new to me.  All of my recent cars have been practical 5-door hatchbacks but, as the family have all grown up and left home, I thought it was time to treat myself to something sporty – and I’m now old enough to be able to afford the insurance!

My dream car in case anyone wants to buy me it?

It didn’t take too long to complete all the paperwork and I set off for the long journey back to south-east England.  However, a lot has changed in vehicle technology in the 7 years since I last drove a new car.  Somewhere south of Glasgow, I realised that I had a sixth gear (which did wonders for my petrol consumption!)  I managed to set off the alarm when I stopped at a service station on the M6 and I didn’t manage to turn it off again for quite a few embarrassing minutes.  The phone call from my son went unanswered when I remembered that I needed to ‘pair’ my Blackberry to the in-car phone system and I ‘accidently’ found out that the car would cruise quite happily at 120 mph – oops!!

There’s a salutary lesson there about listening to instructions, reading the manual and not blithely assuming that everything technical stays the same.  When I worked as an IT trainer, I always used to tell delegates that learning a new piece of software was like learning to drive a new car which required an investment in learning the basics.  A lesson that I should perhaps have remembered for myself.

I’m relieved to say that I made it back home with my sanity (and my driving licence!) intact.  A few evenings spent with the handbook in a stationary vehicle on the driveway mean that I have now figured out what the buttons and switches on the dashboard actually do.  I can now manage the entertainment and phone systems (apart from the voice-activated bit – I’m leaving that well-alone!) and cruise control..?  I’m cruising in comfort and style ….

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 be written by Leadership Coach Dorothy Nesbit.

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Vince Cable's "new" proposals

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.

Our HRUKLI events kicked off this week with an incredibly talkative group in Bristol!  There was an awful lot of networking and fun had by all, so thank you to everyone for attending.  Later today we have the Wootton Bassett event, which promises to be even bigger and better!

So to the blog, this week we welcome our latest guest writer and solicitor Louise Taft.  Louise gives us her view on the recent changes to employment regulation. (Ed Scrivener)

Vince Cable’s “new” proposals to streamline employment law and boost business

The man in question

Employment law was all over the news again on Friday after a much hyped press release setting out proposals for changes to employment regulation. After waiting with bated breath well beyond the advertised time of 9.30am, employment lawyers found themselves looking at some very familiar proposals. Those proposals are:

• Greater use of settlement agreements, with proposals for an ACAS code of practice
• A reduction in the cap on unfair dismissal compensation
• Streamlining Employment Tribunals, making it easier for Judges to dismissal weak cases
• Consulting on changes to TUPE
• Recommending improved guidance for small businesses on the ACAS code of practice on discipline and grievances

My immediate reaction was that I had heard it all before.  Indeed, the proposals on settlement agreements and the unfair dismissal cap were made in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill back in May. News organisations were then more interested in the leaked Beecroft report advocating no fault dismissal, which BIS has now confirmed will not be pursued. Instead, it is suggested that the settlement agreement proposals will improve employer confidence and improved guidance on the ACAS code will reduce the fear of regulation.

It is my long held view that fear of employment regulation does far more damage to business confidence than the regulation itself. I am increasingly frustrated that BIS and employer organisations champion reform by claiming that employment law is a constraint on business. This only fuels the fear of regulation, dissuading small businesses from expanding by taking on new staff when those fears are rarely genuine.

 Whenever I have explained the rules on unfair dismissal to an employer, they are struck by how simple it sounds: act reasonably, give your employee the chance to improve their performance/behaviour (except where there is gross misconduct) and don’t take disciplinary action without first giving an employee a fair chance to state their case. More guidance on the ACAS code is a sensible suggestion and should, if drafted in plain English, help small businesses to understand what they can and cannot do. It is important that businesses understand that they can sack underperforming employees provided they give them opportunity to improve.

Friday’s announcement was followed by 2 separate consultations, one on “ending the employment relationship” on the use of settlement agreements and unfair dismissal compensation and one on the Employment Tribunal rules.

Settlement agreements are of course merely compromise agreements by another name. Whether or not the proposed standard form will reduce legal costs will depend entirely on the quality of that standard form. If it is badly drafted, legal advisors will suggest amendments, which may increase rather than reduce costs.

The proposed “protected conversations” have more holes than a string vest and could lead to years of satellite litigation. They will only be “protected” in unfair dismissal proceedings, not claims for discrimination or automatic unfair dismissal. Our advice will be to proceed, as now, on the basis that it is possible a settlement offer will be referred to in Tribunal proceedings so employers must be careful in what they say when making an offer.

There has been much debate over a cut in the maximum compensation available for unfair dismissal. In reality, this will take effect in only a minority of claims. In 2010/2011, the median award was only £4,591. The Impact Assessment accompanying the consultations states that 94% of awards between 2005/06 and 2010/11 were below £30000 and 98% were below £50000. Higher earners are likely to negotiate longer notice periods, allowing them to bring higher value breach of contract claims if their employment is terminated. Other than generating headlines, the impact of any change is likely to be minimal.

Employment lawyers were also aware of the fundamental review of Employment Tribunal rules finalised by Mr Justice Underhill back in June. This recommended several changes to streamline the process, including several designed to make it easier to strike out weak cases, hold shorter hearings and give greater powers to order costs. These proposed changes are sensible and will hopefully go some way to free up the overworked Tribunal system to give resources to realistic claims with a prospect of success.

We were also well aware of the call for evidence on the impact of TUPE, which closed as long ago as February. The announcement doesn’t set out any changes but promises a consultation later in the year. The major issue is of course that TUPE legislation is governed by European law, making changes difficult. I suspect the reason we haven’t seen anything thus far is that BIS are struggling to identify how changes can be made that don’t fall foul of European case law.

So in short, Friday’s press release will not herald an employment law revolution. If you want to have your say on the consulations, you can do so here. Otherwise, keep an eye on progress of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill.

About the author:

Louise Taft qualified in 2002 and has spent the past 10 years dealing with Employment Tribunal claims on behalf of both Claimants and Respondents. She has a particular interest in claims involving Discrimination and Whistleblowing. She also has experience in the Employment Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal. Louise has appeared as an advocate in the Employment Tribunal on many occasions and as such applies her knowledge of the practice of the Tribunals to ensure that cases are effectively prepared for hearing. She gives clients the best possible advice as to when it is appropriate to settle a case and at what level. Most importantly, her experience of Tribunals informs her advice to employers as to how to deal with employee issues so as to avoid claims.

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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 be written by experienced HR professional Sheena McLullich.

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