Guru

Guru has noted that the one organisation doing particularly well out of the recession is the CIPD.

The institute has been getting some fantastic media coverage over the past few weeks with its chief number cruncher, John Philpott, becoming almost Robert Peston like in his omnipotence.

Need a quote about how tough things are going to get? Want to know how many workers face the chop in 2009? Then speak to Philpott... Guru half expects him to be wearing a large black cloak and carrying a scythe such is the grim nature of his message.

When Guru was a jobbing HR director he was always looking for different ways to motivate the workforce.

Duvet Days, free sweets, boozy Fridays, quiz nights, naked Wednesdays were all trialed - with varying degrees of success. One piece of advice Guru can offer disciples is don't try and combine boozy Fridays with naked Wednesdays; the results are not at all pleasant.

So Guru's interested was piqued when he received an email from an organisation called Culinary Teambuilding, claiming it was introducing the UK's first 'Teppanyaki' teambuilding event.

When Yours Truly first saw the word Teppanyaki he thought Manchester City had splashed the cash and signed a new striker, but further investigation (ie. a Wikipedia search) found that it is, in fact, Japanese cuisine cooked over an iron griddle of blazing flames and tossed in the air. 

Ah a new year. All those old problems put behind us, a brand new start to embrace.

Or maybe not.

A rather chill wind of reality swept across the UK yesterday, blowing aside all too easily that cosy, sleepy Christmas break. Suddenly Guru was back on the streets at 7am, in minus temperatures, reading newspapers filled with doom and gloom about job prospects. It was all rather early December 2008.

Guru has been alerted to a campaign by cough and cold medicine maker Benylin which apparenty encourages employees on how to throw a sickie.

The TV ad - which disciples can watch below - tells workers to 'Take a Benylin day' if they are suffering from a cold. What's more, the company has also put together a website which gives staff with the sniffles advice on how to call in sick.

Earlier this week Guru's favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail, quoted employers' organisations moaning that the ad could encourage employees to stay at home even if they had only minor complaints. As if people need any encouragement...  

Guru had a bad case of man-flu over the Christmas break and not once did he let it disrupt his usual daily routine; laying in bed until midday with Mrs Guru bringing regular cups of tea and biscuits. 

Guru was just throwing back the duvet when disciple Andrew got in touch to alert him to the 2009 Sick Day Calendar, produced by US career advice blog Jobacle.

According to the site, the calendar is designed so employees can strategically plan sickies in order to maximize time away from the office. But the calendar can actually aid embattled HR folk as it highlights days that have 'optimal sick day potential' - the days that bridge standard holidays or weekends. 

Here are some examples of the 2009 dates...

Friday 16 & Tuesday 20 January: You have a dream. And it's five straight days away from your boss's ugly mug and Microsoft Outlook. Call in sick on Friday, January 16 and Tuesday, January 20. Winter's in full swing and the "flu" is hard to fight.

Friday 13 February: Romance has a price. You think it's easy work laying down all those rose petals, honey? Better take off before V-Day to prep.

Tuesday 17 March: Too many drunks on the road for St. Patrick's Day. Better phone this one in.

Guru congratulates Andrew on producing such a fine piece of work, something worthy of Yours Truly himself. Despite being US-focused it can easily be adapted for use by UK workers, er, sorry... used by employers to get a heads up on likely trends in sickness absence.

Help is at hand - or more precisely, foot - for office staff suffering from repetitive strain injury (RSI) - or as Guru likes to call it - shirkers' disease.

Guru has long been suspicious of workers who claim their hands or fingers are aching a bit after doing to much typing or using a mouse for too long. In Guru's experience it usually means they have been spending several hours on Facebook or checking out the celebrity gossip sites.

Now UK company Keytools has launched something which it claims can prevent all this. A 'slipper' worn on one foot controls the cursor while the other foot taps the equivalent of left and right mouse buttons.

But how long will it be before some chancer brings a claim for RSI of the foot or ankle? Surely this invention is just moving the focus of the problem elsewhere on the body?

Guru thinks it won't be long before we see an army of UK workers limping their way to work, ankle joints and toes weakened by this new machine.

Still, at least their hands will be working fine and they can fill out the complaint form to the occupational health department - and their personal injury solicitor.

Last week's publication of Stonewall's Top 100 Employers for gay people got Guru thinking about where the best places to work for straight men would be.

Stonewall ranked employers according to "implementation of effective equality policies to practical demonstration of good practice in recruitment and mentoring and how they engage with lesbian and gay staff, customers and service users".

Guru's list - while in no particular order - ranks workplaces that red-blooded, beer swilling, rootin' tootin', girl-loving guys want to work. Disciples are free to add their own suggestions to the list by commenting below.

• Hooters
• Spearmint Rhino
• Stella Artois
• Nintendo
• Zoo magazine
• Walkers Crisps
• Virgin Atlantic - following the TV ad currently airing
• Tourism Queensland - for the so-called 'Best Job in the World' on the Great Barrier Reef

Any other suggestions?

Yet more workforce motivational blurb to kick off 2009. Guru has already informed disciples of the Teppanyaki cooking teambuilding day, now the folks at Sodexho have created a viral marketing campaign targeting HR professionals, entitled 'Bad Gifts'.

The You Tube clip shows a David Brent-style manager (don't they always) trying to motivate his staff to achieve higher targets with the promise of uninspiring rewards, including a garden gnome, Atomic Kitten video, Mr Motivator DVD and cuddly toy.

Guru was amazed because the last time he ran an employee reward scheme, these gifts bore a resemblance to the crappiness of those he offered to team members. If Guru recalls correctly, it was a Bananarama LP and Gremlins video that were the top prizes.

In his experience, Yours Truly finds the carrot and stick method of management works the best when it comes to staff motivation. Carrots served in the canteen and a big stick held menacingly by the security guard. 

Never one to miss out on a free booze-up, slap up meal and opportunity to exhibit his particular brand of drunken dad dancing, Guru is thinking of responding to an advert he came across for wedding guests.

Yes, an anonymous bride-to-be has reportedly placed an ad on website Gumtree.com calling for 30 people to sit on her side of the church. 

Events people are always looking for that killer venue that will attract delegates in their droves. In Guru's experience, it's amazing how much a swanky venue can persuade people to give up their evening or drag themselves out the office at lunchtime.

So what about this for something a little bit different? Dinner in the Sky is hosted at a table suspended at a height of 50 metres, with a chef and waiters serving the guests as they would in a normal restaurant setting.

As soon as Guru saw this, he just had one question: What happens if you need the loo? 

Is it just a case of unzipping, turning around and peeing off the side? I'm sure that would be fine if the table was suspended above a river; maybe not so good if you're above an area with high footfall.

Forget all this nonsense about how the government can hit its Leitch skills targets: the answer to training people in GCSE-level maths and giving the workforce basic numerancy skills is simple - step up to the oche and teach them how to play darts.

Guru enjoyed watching Phil "The Power" Taylor win another world championship at Alexandra Palace recently, as well as the not-much-better-than-your-local-pub-player event at Lakeside earlier this month.

But he couldn't imagine that while these 'elite sportsmen' were throwing the arrows at the dart board, the government was thinking: 'Hang on, these fine gents could inspire adults who have poor maths skills'.

Guru's favourite breakfast trougher Digby Jones has once again upset the unions by putting his large foot into his even larger mouth.

Lord Diggers - the former CBI chief - was being quizzed by a group of MPs about his role as a junior minister, before he resigned after realising it wasn't as fun as he thought it would be. He told the MPs he thought the Civil Service could be run with "half as many people", and that he was amazed how many civil servants "deserved the sack".

These comments have pushed Digby even further up Guru's list of top business blokes. He is, after all, only articulating what most people in the UK actually think. It's funny how he waited until he had left the government though before expressing his views.

Civil service unions have predictably come out and attacked Digby, saying most would find his views insulting. Guru is sure his lordship was referring to the vast numbers of Sir Humphries that populate the corridors of Whitehall, rather than the admin assistants working at the DVLA.

Calm down guys, all Digby is saying is there are too many Chiefs and not enough Indians. In Guru's experience, that's not a problem unique to the Civil Service.

The British public apparently couldn't give a f*ck about swearing in the workplace.

A survey of more than 2,000 people found that an overwhelming majority are unfazed by swearing, with 87% confessing to swearing on a daily basis. Guru was surprised it was as low as that, judging by some of the places he has worked in previously.

The poll was conducted by the makers of Guru's new favourite product - Start Ya Bastard engine starter (an Australian company, predictably).

According to our Australian cousins, the UK's top five 'favourite' swearwords are:

1. Shit - 90% (of people have used in the past week)
2. Fuck - 88%
3. Bastard - 86%
4. Twat - 83%
5. Bollocks - 81%

The lovely people at Office Angels have sent Guru a document containing results of all the surveys and research they conducted over the past year.

From what makes office workers tick, to what ticks them off, the document reveals a plethora of useless but not uninteresting stats. Here are Guru's top examples:

• Almost half of office workers worry whether to kiss or shake hands when greeting clients and colleagues.
• The average Brit will spend a whopping 59,274 hours sitting in their office chair over the course of their working life.
• Employees who are technologically enabled by their employers with WiFi, a Blackberry and mobile phone are working an extra 20 days per year - effectively giving the majority of their annual holiday back.

Every now and again a news story catches the eye of Yours Truly which beggars belief and this one certainly had Guru choking on a dry-roasted.

In a trial at Nottingham Crown Court, factory worker Paul Bentley is accused of sabotaging the bakery where he worked with, wait for it, peanuts.

In order to protect nut allergy sufferers, Pork Farms bakery, purveyors of fine pork pies that Guru occasionally purchases together with a tank of petrol, bans all nuts from the site. And rightly so.

So when Bentley was disciplined in July 2007 for have a "girlie calendar" (free with a copy of Nuts perchance?) in his workshop he allegedly decided to get his revenge by dropping nuts around the factory.

Upon discovering about 20 nuts in the locker room a cleaner "stood guard over them" until someone from human resources arrived.

Stood guard? When Guru read this he had visions of these nuts having legs, arms perhaps even top hats, canes and monocles rather like the imaginatively named Mr Peanut of Planters peanuts fame...

One of the deeply disturbing factors of travelling abroad - be it for business or pleasure - is that dreaded moment at the airport check in.

No, not when the woman with the pinned on smile asks you whether you packed your bag yourself (no, love, I got the head of an Al-Qaeda terror cell to do it for me). It's the point when you put your luggage on the conveyor belt and it disappears off through the back into the mysterious world populated by baggage handlers.

Guru stands there thinking: Will I ever see that bag again? If so, will it still be zipped up with its contents secure? Please be careful guys, it's got Guru's precious things in there.  

Baggage handlers suffer from a bad rep. Most people, Guru included, think they are a bunch of neanderthals who spend most of the day sitting around slurping tea, reading The Daily Star, and only when prodded to rise and chuck your bags onto a plane being careful to cause maximum damage. 

Disciple Caroline has dropped Guru a line to aid the continuing search for silly job titles and colossal big heads.

Guru has blogged about this subject before - and how those in the HR sector seem guiltier than others when it comes to being 'creative' with what's on their business cards. 'Chief People Officer' has a horrible American feel to it, 'HR leader' seems wishful thinking and 'Human Solutions Director' is just plain wrong, wrong, wrong.

With that in mind, may Guru introduce you to Salvatore Calabrese - who is apparently a renowned 'mixologist' (basically, a bartender). Salvatore calls himself 'The Maestro" because of his ability to mix a great cocktail. He is also owner of one of the most self-indulgent websites ever produced; a sample quote: "I have immortalized myself with my Breakfast Martini".

This chap would give McDonald's chief people officer (aahhhh!) and rent-a-quote David Fairhurst a run for his money when it comes to self promotion; he is after all the only man in the HR sector with his own stylist (apart from Guru, of course).

If disciples come across any other ridiculous job titles then feel free to comment or drop Guru a line at guru@personneltoday.com

The boob jobs market that is...

Blair and Brown always promised to do away with the boom and bust economics of the past. News today makes Guru feel compelled to jump to their defence as New Labour finds itself in these unprecedented financial times. For now there is a bust boom.

Yes folks, boob jobs are on the up. Not just boob jobs but plastic surgery generally, according to figures released today. Breast "augmentation" was once again the most popular procedure for women with 8,439 performed (up 30% on 2007) last year.

Guru has many disciples across the world, but even he was surprised to receive a note of admiration from as far away as Singapore.

Yours Truly knows that his blue shiny head and witty insights can prove very alluring to the ladies, but even he was shocked to know that appeal transcends HR and international borders.

Here's a copy of the email, from the delightful Nancy John, word for word:

Hello my dear,
How are you, hope fine, my dear i came aross your profile and i pick intrest on it, i am miss Nancy John i am a very loveing and carring girl with bright future, i love to know you better, i belive we can procced from here, i will tell you more about me when i heard from you, remember that colour does not matters, what matters most is love, i will like you to conatct me with this email address so that we can continue from there i will be waiting to hear from you.

Disciple Dave has emailed to alert Guru to this recent posting on graduate career site Here Comes The Boss.

It covers a story about people changing their accent in order to get a job or move up the career ladder. The Queen's English came out top in terms of being the easiest to understand and the most professional.

No surprise that the Liverpudlian, Mancunian and Midlands accents came out bottom. However, not one Irish person admitted to having changed their voice for either professional or personal reasons. Unbelievable isn't it? An Irish person in a professional situation... 

The implausably named David Crystal, professor of linguistics at the University of Bangor, said (presumably in a Welsh accent, boyo): "The survey shows that people have now learnt to use different accents and alter their speech, depending on the situations in which they find themselves, to their best advantage."

This brought to mind former England manager Steve McClaren's hilarious interview with Dutch TV - now a You Tube classic - where he attempts to adopt a native accent.

David Beckham has also been in on the act, in an interview with Italian TV following a recent AC Milan game. Strangely enough he starts sounding like Borat: "I score goal, make net flap, win win points for team."  

Guru enjoys a nice bit of classical music, nothing relieves the stress of a hard day at the office than blasting out Handel's Messiah while sipping a strong G&T. But little did he know that some poor chap in the string section would be suffering so much for our pleasure.

In perhaps what is one of the greatest ever medical wind-ups, two doctors have finally confessed to submitting a spoof letter to the British Medical Journal in 1974 describing a condition they dubbed 'cello scrotum'.

Their missive was prompted by a letter about a not-quite-as-painful sounding condition labelled 'guitar nipple' published in an earlier issue.

Cello scrotum was recently quoted in a BMJ article on health problems associated with making music, prompting the authors to finally admit they were talking a load of b*llocks.

The musician pictured here definitely IS NOT, despite facial appearances, suffering from Cello Scrotum. 

Here are the winners of the Washington Post's 2008 Mensa Invitational, which every year asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Guru has always been a keen purveyor of sarchasm, and is now a firm believer in reintarnation - and has the blue beard to prove it. Happy reading, y'all - and feel free to send in your own suggestions.

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.  The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17.  Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Disciples will probably be all too aware of the dreaded customer complaint letter, when some miserable member of the public moans about the service they received from one of your highly engaged workforce.

But how about this for a complaint letter, penned to His Royal Beardness, Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, no less. Guru bows down to this work of genius.

The author has been revealed as Oliver Beale, an advertising executive based in London. And Guru thought all ad execs were t*ssers - just shows there is always an exception to the rule. Branson was so stung by the criticism he personally phoned Beale to apologise and has offered him the chance of choosing the airline's food and wine.

Can being a bit chilly at work be classed as a disability? That was the tricky question the Employment Appeal Tribunal had to answer in a curious case that gave Guru goosebumps upon reading.

Jobcentre Plus employee A Sawyer claimed that he was intolerant to temperatures below 27 degrees Celsius and had recurrent chest problems.

Sawyer braved the positively Arctic mid-20s temperatures of mid-August last year protected by no more than a heavy overcoat and woolly hats, only to see his alleged condition ruthlessly dismissed in the EAT.

He claimed disability discrimination when bosses took away the personal heater that he had used (along with thick underwear, outer clothing and woolly hats) to keep him nice and toasty.