A survey by the Institute of Leadership and Management has found the things that office workers hate the most in their colleagues. Here are the top nine most annoying things that colleagues can do according to whomever the ILM asked:

1. Arrive late for meetings
2. Leave dirty bowls and plates on their desk
3. Gossip about other workers
4. Discuss confidential work matters openly
5. Send an email to people they’re sat directly opposite
6. Leave their mobile phone on loud
7. Take regular cigarette breaks
8. Come into work sick
9. Bring their children into the office

Guru would like to make some further additions to the list and would welcome any other suggestions:

• Describe something as “scientific” just because it includes a graph
• Sneeze extravagantly
• Wear headphones into the office
• Act in a “polite” way that really inconveniences both parties, such as holding doors open for somebody while standing in the door
• Talk incessantly about concerns about getting home when there’s a whiff of snow in the air or they’ve seen a leaf fall off a tree
• Looking at people they have no business looking at when walking through an office (this is mainly done by people who want to be looked at themselves)
• Wear too much perfume/aftershave

According to the Daily Mail, Britain is bracing itself for a white weekend. For employers and HR staff this also means bracing ourselves for a blanket of hyperbole and grandstanding as the same few employees spend every day in which the temperature is below 10 degrees loudly fretting about whether they will be able to get home and whether they should rush out to stock up on tinned foods in case the snow rises above… well, there being any snow settled anywhere.

Guru suggests introducing a policy that anybody of this disposition be forced to spend the days where there actually is some snow on the ground shovelling snow outside in a t-shirt and shorts until they learn the value of a good day’s work. Guru is eagerly awaiting sign-off on the scheme.

The report states that 98% of 14,000 respondents reported experiencing rudeness over the course of what is described as a “long-term” study. The authors describe this figure of 98% as “incredible”. Guru agrees: it’s absolutely gob-smackingly incredible that they found 280 people who did not ever experience rudeness at work. Where do these people work? Do they tend the gates of paradise?

Remarkably, the authors go on to claim that the 98% of people, who do experience rudeness sometimes, have 25% fewer ideas than the others… the others being the tiny, tiny fraction of people who claim to never have experienced incivility at work. Anybody with an ounce of sense will realise that this is a ridiculous way to report this data. The 98% are the overwhelming majority of people - they’re the normal people. The 2% are extremely odd, or working in very strange circumstances and the authors should report that people who claim to have never experienced rudeness have 33% more ideas than everybody else, and then tell us what the hell is going on with these people. Perhaps it will lead to a revolution in HR with all staff being sent to work in cabins in the woods, with a concurring leap in creative productivity.

As if this weren’t ridiculous enough, the authors also report the finding that 80% of customers would change bank if they witnessed an incident of rudeness between two employees at their bank. This percentage is so obviously ludicrous that, again, any reader with an ounce of sense can only be left wondering how they managed to gather such data. Guru suggests that the question was posed thusly:

Q. You witness a teller at a bank being rude to a fellow employee… do you:

Over the years Guru has met many bright young things with high marks and glittering records, and repeatedly been surprised that in all that education they don’t seem to have acquired any actual knowledge. The mantra to justify this state of affairs seems to be that children are taught “how to think”, but is being “taught how to think” necessary, and is it not possible to teach somebody how to think while teaching them some useful things to think about? Guru would suggest the answers are no and yes. Furthermore - particularly at degree-level, which is still largely the preserve of the middle-class - it is pretty insulting to suggest that young adults should be subsidised to spend three years “learning how to think” while everybody else learns how to think while providing useful services to society (like working their way up the HR ladder).

So Guru supports Gove’s measures and looks forward to interviewing a new generation of HR candidates who can remember some actual information they’ve garnered from the hundreds of exams they’ve sat through.

After what must have been hours and hours of deliberations, the Telegraph decided to call its new blog “Board Babe”, neatly summing up that the blog is written by both a board member of a company and a baby, sorry, a woman. It’s also alliterative.

The surprising thing about Board Babe is that it makes a very powerful argument that not only should board babe herself not be on a board, but that no women at all should be on boards. Speaking for all women in business, as board babe does, a reader cannot help but face the realisation that women are inane, vain, reductionist nitwits. Guru was astonished, because he’s met loads of women working throughout his working life who’ve managed to very successfully hide how stupid and self-satisfied they are. As such, he’s indebted to the Telegraph.

Here’s a particular gem:

“I have worked hard to get where I am, and perhaps quicker than the average women who has taken time out to have children and get married. Add to that some colourful life experience and yes, it’s fair to say I have wisdom beyond my years. But I would like to think it hasn’t aged me.”

Guru, along with all those “average” women who “took time out” to have children and get married, will be very happy to see no more women on boards ever if this self-satisfied twit is the standard.

Guru suggests that the Chinese employers introduce a more flexible approach to squeezing ever inch of productivity out of their team. For example, Guru has introduced a flexible toilet allowance that allows staff to use 20 minutes of toilet time over the week any time they like. And Guru doesn’t mind if they’re late so long as they work ten-hours or more a day.

In Guru’s Twitter feed, four of the last five tweets offer him unsought life advice from dead presidents and dead CEOs. At no point this morning was Guru seeking to escape a life of living in fear or find the formula to success or escape the claws of dogma. He just wanted to make a coffee and catch up with all the work he needs to do.

As such, Guru has devised this clever, very quotable, quote for all his inspiring well-wishers: “stop trying to inspire me and get on with your work”.

What world are these people living in?! Firstly, as it seems to be commonly trotted out to support this view, this is not swearing “at” somebody. Swearing at somebody is calling them a swear word or using a swear word to emphasise the negative word you are directing at them. Guru has been on the wrong end of a “you’re swearing at me sir” from a train service revenue protection officer, and can attest that this disingenuous phrase is already well-worn by authority. People use swear words all the time - the fact that public officials are prone to come over all “you’re swearing at me” when somebody swears benignly and is otherwise acting entirely without aggression, is something that should be bemoaned by the public, not used to support calls for somebody to resign.

But, more simply, what Andrew Mitchell said is not approaching a sackable offence or even a disciplinary offence! It’s somebody getting a bit annoyed about being inconvenienced at the end of a long day. We’re all allowed to get a bit annoyed at other people if we express it in a (just about) harmless way - in fact, it’s not even a matter of being allowed, it’s just inevitable and all we can do is apologise and try to restrict such outbursts. Clearly, in this case, although it wasn’t the nicest thing he could have said, it was unlikely to cause great offence.

So, Guru’s Christmas message is that we should all forgive Andrew Mitchell for his minor outburst or commit ourselves to lives of suppressed inner rage. And if in the course of your work somebody swears while talking to you and it offends you, bloody well grow up. People swear all the time and you probably do too.

Cathay Pacific staff have voted to withhold food, alcohol and smiles from customers during the Christmas period over a pay dispute. Management are offering them a 2% payrise, but union bosses want 5%.

Guru doubts the measures will make much difference. Guru has barely smiled in 40 years and nobody is offering him a payrise.

The BIS is not usually a source of happiness and laughter, but the document delivers in spades. An early highlight is the admission that “a very small number of responses welcomed” the Government’s proposal that employers give employees shares in exchange for rights related to unfair dismissal, statutory redundancy pay, flexible working and training.

The report goes on to reveal that employers feel that the situation regarding different employment statuses is already complicated enough (with “employees”, “workers” and “self-employed”) and that introducing another status (the provisionally named “employee owners”) would just add to the confusion. Furthermore, employers felt that having another set of workers with diminished rights could lead to friction in the workplace.

The report really hits its stride with the consideration of how the buy-back of shares should work. The Government’s spirited suggestion that businesses be able to sack employees who’ve sold their rights and then buy back their shares at rates below market rate was met with “surprise” by employee representatives, who clearly hadn’t even considered that the Government’s proposal might be quite so demented. The report cites their response as “the employee would, in effect, be giving up employment rights for nothing”. Brilliantly, business organisations suggested that employees who leave on good terms get market rate for their shares and that employees who are dismissed (remember: not necessarily for any good reason) get a lower rate. In effect, they have suggested that employees sell their rights for something of indeterminate value, with employers having the discretion to define the final value of the share. That should inspire confidence.

Even better than all this is the general bafflement over how the hell tiny businesses would actually value their shares at all and, then, what say in the management of the business these shares would give the “employee “”owners”” (sometimes there aren’t enough quotation marks in the world), and, indeed, whether employers would really want to give these desperate disempowered workers any say in the running of the business. Law firms helpfully told the Government that it would be very easy for companies to ensure workers with full voting rights actually have no power at all by diluting the influence of their shares.

By this point, Guru was practically beside himself with joy over the collective commonsense of his fellow employers, but the report just keeps giving. In response to the, fairly important, question: “What impact will allowing individuals limited unfair dismissal protection and equity shares have on employers’ appetite for recruiting?” 80% of respondents said it would make no difference and 8% said it would have a negative effect.

A further, related, question asked “What impact do you think the proposal will have on labour market flexibility - that is, in relation to hiring and letting people go?”. To this hopeful question 54% said it would have no effect at all and… wait for it… 25% said it would have a negative effect. One-quarter of respondents said the measure would have a NEGATIVE effect on the very thing it was introduced to improve. The Government may as well have been suggesting adding whiskey to drinking water to curb alcoholism.

It really is an amusing read, and Guru recommends that everybody finds time to look over it. The message Guru takes from the document, possibly rather sentimentally, is that both employers and employees regard employment rights as, well, rights. There really does not seem to be a general appetite to meet business challenges by encroaching on the dignity and security of employees. Furthermore, businesses are telling the Government that the scheme won’t actually work and that it is confusing and impractical for most businesses.

So, essentially, the Government has proposed an immoral and unethical monetisation of hard-fought rights that in the minds of employers will not solve any problems. It’s a damning verdict for the Government - but an early Christmas present for the rest of us.

Guru has done some research of his own and can reveal that going outside is also good for your career because sometimes people talk about what it’s like outside, and sometimes they might actually be outside and you can talk to them about it. It’s also good to eat because people sometimes talk about food, and if you don’t eat food you won’t be able to talk about it and you’ll be too tired to even tell them that you can’t join in because you don’t eat, which people might consider rude.

Really the key is to balance your life so that it best meets the conversational demands placed on you by your superiors. Following this formula, Guru is devoting 90% of his time outside of work to sitting silently in a dark room and the remaining 10% to listening to Mrs Guru nag him over the various things he hasn’t done, or hasn’t done well enough.

“Okay ladies, it’s time! That LBD has been hanging up in the wardrobe for weeks, maybe months, the shoes and handbag would stop Carrie Bradshaw and her friends in their tracks and you’re ready to party like it’s 1999!”

The email goes on to provide helpful advice on resisting the many temptations of the Christmas seasons:

• Before a Christmas party… “try eating something healthy and filling before you make your grand entrance, such as veg soup, hummus with oatcakes, fresh fruit and a yogurt-based smoothie. Plus, you won’t be drinking on an empty stomach or have to worry about embarrassing spillages down your LBD (or ruining your lip gloss)!”
• “That Mariah Carey song is blasting around the room (again!), but take it easy and don’t get carried away.”
• “Get those Jimmy Choo’s pride of place on the dancefloor and boogie the night away.”

Guru dislikes being greeted with “okay ladies” at the best of times, but when the greeting is followed by a load of patronising nonsense that appears to be designed to persuade characters from Sex and the City to avoid putting on weight at their work Christmas lunches then it’s more than he can bear.

Consequently, he would like to issue the following advice to the BDA:

“Okay BDA, it’s time! It’s that time of year where you feel tempted to send out patronising and insulting press releases full of the sort of advice that was left in the waste basket during the editing of Pippa Middleton’s Celebrate. Here is some advice to help you survive the season without falling into this trap:

• Before issuing the advice ask yourself “do we have anything useful to say?”;
• you’ve got so many ideas racing through your head: mention Sex in the City, say the word “shoes”, have pictures of kittens, George Clooney, pink… but ask yourself if they’re good ideas or are things that will make women want to spend Christmas eating nothing but cake and lard just to spite you;
• don’t mention Mariah Carey under any circumstances if you want to engender good will; and
• if you say your name quickly it sounds a bit like you may be a branch of the church of scientology (this isn’t advice - just a comment).

Guru has just received one of his favourite ever press releases. It involves the exciting new publication Unbridled Success.

The press release tells us that the author, Julia Felton, “shares her profound life and the business lessons that horses have taught her”. Note, that these aren’t lessons she’s learned through the process of handling horses or looking after them or riding them… they have literally been taught to her by horses.

This is undoubtedly the most amazing book that has ever been published. Guru is going to buy one and then read it to a horse.

Guru recently posted about the difficulties of finding male applicants for HR jobs, and it is self-evident that most HR practitioners are women; according to the CIPD, in 2011, 70% of its members were female.

With that being the case, why is it that 75% of People Management’s top 20 power tweeters are men?

Guru doesn’t know the answer. Eagled-eyed readers will have noted that Guru somehow escaped the title “power tweeter”, possibly by virtue of being too busy doing HR to spend all day bleating about it, or cupcakes or whatever else these powerful tweeters deem worthy of conversation. Perhaps the 70% of HR professionals who are so seriously under-represented by the list face the same problem.

Seeking other explanations, if Guru were to play amateur psychologist, he might suggest that a lot of the Twitter traffic is taken up with men having what are essentially chats over a forum that allows them to advertise how clever and witty they are, whereas women may be more likely to have these conversations with real people when they have a rare free moment.

If Guru were playing amateur social commentator, he might suggest that these power tweeters are often in positions of power in HR, perhaps having benefited from a culture in which it is and has been rather easier for men to get ahead.

Whatever the reason, we’re left with a list that does not reflect the make-up of the profession it purports to represent, and one wonders how detrimental it might be to look to Twitter for the true voice of HR. In Guru’s experience, the voice of HR is much more quietly spoken than and far less successful at self-promotion than those represented by the list. Guru is certainly grateful it’s this voice he gets to hear every day.

Fortunately, the CIPD has delivered on these key issues with what Guru considers the absolutely right proportion (a third) of the three days devoted to engagement, cultural change and business alignment, with the following seminars:

• How to engage a geographically dispersed workforce
• Aligning your HR strategy with your organisation’s business goals
• HR shared services - creating a high performing organisation through cultural change
• Building organisational influence and becoming a true partner
• Team coaching: creating cultural change
• Building trust in your organisation to enhance productivity
• How can HR improve influence with the board?
• Constructing an effective internal communication network to improve employee relations
• Values-led leadership: restoring trust and enhancing engagement
• Maintaining employee engagement through SME growth
• Commercially-focused HR business partners
• Using OD to drive culture change
• Improving engagement rates in your organisation on a restricted budget
• Using HR leadership to unite your organisation and successfully adapt to change
• Using employee engagement surveys to develop a business strategy and resolve your hidden organisational problems
• What drives and delivers engaged employees?

The brilliance of the program creates huge problems for Guru. For example, on Tuesday from 14.00 the seminars entitled “HR shared services - creating a high performing organisation through cultural change” and ” Team coaching: creating cultural change” run simultaneously. And then in the afternoon another clash between “Building organisational influence and becoming a true partner” and “How can HR improve influence with the board?” compounds the problem. Can there be an HR person attending the conference who won’t want, nay need, to attend all of these seminars?! Guru can only imagine the problems caused by this scheduling, as HR professionals up and down the country introduce inherently flawed cultural change programs and falter in their efforts to becomes true partners.

Guru hopes the CIPD will see sense and consider abolishing any of the flimflam on the conference bill to allow for a reshuffle… seriously, is it really necessary to have a whole one seminar on rewards?! We’ve just this second come out of a recession - it’s only going to depress everybody!