Editors Blog

For those of you slightly bemused by the relationship between wages and the effect it has on inflation, my colleague Sheila Atwood on XpertHR's Employment Intelligence blog gives a good explanation.

Chancellor Alistair Darling reiterated his call for pay restraint earlier this week, and with inflation running at an 11-year high of 3.8%, workers and unions will be demanding higher pay deals.

But as Sheila points out, the next big round of pay deals is scheduled for January 2009, with inflation widely expected to be on a downward curve by then.

Writing exclusively for Personneltoday.com, Jim Savege, the lead on pay at the Public Sector People Managers' Association, said this week's public sector strikes demonstrated a real need for pay modernisation in local government and beyond.

But while trade unions are determined to make their point over low pay for their members, the immediate challenge is settling this year's disputes before employers can even contemplate looking ahead to 2009.

A new website that allows employees to rank their workplace was launched this week.

Work Rewired is designed to give a heads up for prospective employees interested at working in certain companies, using feedback and written reviews

Anonymous entries are permitted, which may allow for the website to be abused.

Continue reading "Work Rewired | New website to grade employers" »

Continue reading "A job for life in Tehran? | It's a shoe-in for Bush" »

I don't think I've ever seen a select committee room so packed as it was this morning when London mayor Boris Johnson answered questions about 21st century policing. Hordes of people were piling in through the door at the back of the crowded room to stand and listen even 15 minutes after the start of the meeting. The press bench was full with journalists, dictaphones and notebooks at the ready.

For this was just as much about listening to how the London mayor plans to deal with knife crime as it was to see how the floppy-haired politician would deal with MPs' questions under pressure. Would he shoot or be fired at? Would he cower under pressure or deliver sane answers and strategies?

This was after all, Boris - the man who perhaps a year ago if you'd have said he'd be London's mayor nobody would have believed you.

Outside the committee room, queueing to get into Portcullis House where the meeting was taking place, it is clear Boris has reached somewhat celebrity status. As I wait patiently to get past security, a bunch of teenagers were behind me. Boris then rides up on his bike and enters the building through a special door, and I'm not joking, at least two of the kids went 'Ooo there's Boris!' with a squeal of delight in their voice. The same tone as if they'd just seen latest pop act The Ting Tings.

Continue reading "Boris Johnson | MPs grill the mayor on policing" »

So more than one in four (28%) of HR professionals are so dissatisfied with their current role they would not want their children to follow in their footsteps, according to consultancy Hudson.

That's a significant percentage of you who don't feel you are getting a good return on the energy you're putting into your role, if this research is to be believed. Perhaps these findings suggest that you should be doing more to tackle the sources of such gloom?

Personnel Today's weekly Top Job section regularly includes the question: 'What would you like your children to do?' Apart from the obvious 'whatever makes them happy' response, your desires range from the typically respectable ­lawyers, doctors and forensic pathologists ­to becoming a teenage tennis prodigy, and my personal favourite, from Nicola McGouldrick, head of HR at Bigmouthmedia: 'a cosmetic surgeon and domestic goddess, so I can be taken care of in my twilight years'.

Perhaps what's more intriguing is that none of you have ever said HR. What should we make of that?

Continue reading "HR careers | A case of 'do as I say, not as I do?'" »

Now that the Poles are going home to start building stadia for Euro 2012, we're at risk of running short of plumbers and electricians. And we can't expect Pimlico Plumbers' centenarian Buster to last forever. So who's going to fill the gap, wire that plug, stick their finger in the dam? Women, that's who.

The government has announced plans to encourage young women to consider careers as plumbers and electricians, rather than taking the more traditional routes into hairdressing and childminding. According to skills secretary John Denham, "Nearly half of all apprentices are women, but ... we need more women to take up apprenticeships, especially in areas such as engineering and construction, to tackle current skills shortages".

Women took home seven out of 12 prizes at this week's national apprenticeship awards, with three of them coming from industries with a predominantly male workforce. The arrival of young women on apprenticeship schemes is adding an element of competition - male apprentices are keen not to be outshone by women, particularly in areas which were traditionally their preserve. Says Catherine Turner of JTL, which runs programmes to encourage women to consider careers in construction, "It's raising the standard, because the boys don't want the girls to beat them."

There has been a marked increase in the number of girls signing up for apprenticeships, with 30 starting plumbing courses in 2006-07, compared to 8 the previous year, and 81 opting to train as electricians the same year, a 125% increase on the previous year.

It will be interesting to see how the government goes about tempting girls to take the non-traditional route.
 

Brian Binley, the Conservative member for Northampton South, has controversially claimed that employees would skive off work under the pretence of looking after their sick children if the Labour government extends the right to take time off to parents of children under 16.

Any working parent will tell you that any unexpected time they take off for their children they spend worrying about how they are perceived at work. On their return, they invariably redouble their efforts to make up for the time they had to spend away.

Continue reading "Flexible working | Time off for children isn't skiving" »

Continue reading "Equality | Women, Wimbledon and the Workplace" »

The fallout from last month's unveiling of the Equality Bill continues apace. The suggestion that employers should, in effect, be paid to hire more women and black and minority ethnic (BME) workers will undoubtedly provoke controversy.

As this is a view expressed by the managing director of one of the leading names on the high street, does it truly indicate the way the wind is blowing in boardrooms across the UK?

The idea put forward by Boots' managing director Alex Gourlay suggests that top employers have yet to be fully convinced of the business case for diversity ­ if they were, surely there would be no need for financial incentives in the form of tax breaks to operate a more diverse workforce?

Continue reading "Diversity | Cash not solution to boosting diversity" »

GPs have been a thorn in the side of HR managers for years with their willingness to dole out sick notes signing people off sick for months with vague conditions, but that could be changing. The problem is that GPs see themselves as the patient's advocate and believe that going back to work will put staff at risk.  Early findings from a survey of GPs by the Department for Work and Pensions show that  at last GPs are getting the message that generally work is better for people and that an early return to work can stop people going on incapacity benefit, sometimes permanently.

At a conference earlier this week for occupational health doctors , Dr Bill Gunnyeon, Director, Health, Work and Wellbeing and Chief Medical Adviser, Department for Work and Pensions, revealed some early findings of a report on GP attitudes to health and work  that show GP attitudes have improved since the same report was done a year earlier.

The report, based on a survey in May 2008 shows that 54% of GPs are aware of the evidence that good work is good for health compared to only 36% the previous year. A third of them say they have changed their practice since becoming aware of this evidence and 51% say they feel able to provide better advice. If this carries on the nightmare of the sick note could become a thing of the past.