Editors Blog

News that UK manufacturer of weapons for killing people, and related technology, BAE Systems has sacked some people for unethical behaviour, is surely good news for the rise and rise of corporate social responsibility. And for fans of irony.

It seems the BAE has gone all ethical, and is rooting out all forms of badness at the company – especially when it eats into the firm's £1.1bn annual profits.

Some staffers were operating in an underhand way, it seems, with their wayward behaviour including "fraud, inaccurate labour charging, misuse of company IT and threatening behaviour".

The fact that these actions were considered wrong by the company famous for building slightly threatening weapons for people who like to kill and having an inquiry into a very big arms deal with Saudi Arabia closed down by Tony Blair must have come as a bit of a shock to the 260 employees concerned.

‘Sustainability’ was the word on everyone’s lips at a Hay Group conference I attended in Rome a week or so ago. Like other delegates, I was shifting uncomfortably at some of the sobering messages about climate change.

But while a growing awareness of green issues may be responsible for sustainability’s rise up the corporate agenda, are we using this current buzzword and all-encompassing term too freely in business without really understanding what it means, especially for HR?

If you’re struggling to get your head around what is a rather vast and woolly concept, you’re not alone. Our feature in this week's Personnel Today demystifies sustainability and looks at how organisations are bringing together different strands (CSR, flexible working and wellbeing, for example) into holistic, company-wide values rather than just policies and procedures.

It’s a tough proposition for company’s to engage with their employees. Non HR experts might argue otherwise… I can just hear them now: “If you want to engage with staff, why not offer them flexible working, or ooh wait, subsidized gym memberships? Or the coup de grâce … performance bonuses…a no brainer really!”

HR professionals, however, will quickly tell you that the soft fluffy stuff, although it looks and sounds great, is not likely to keep employees engaged for very long. Think tassels at the end of a very long tablecloth. A quirky initiative is no silver bullet and all that.

Speaking at the Employee Engagement Summit in the City earlier this week, Jane Sullivan, senior consultant at the Work Foundation warned HR delegates against taking a quick fix approach to employee engagement. “There is no quick fix, its more a holistic and fundamental approach,” she said, adding that there is no one size fits all model, but rather a model that works for each individual.

Mike Conder, UK HR director at financial services firm, KPMG, bigged up the value of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a tool to engage with employees. "Its an added opportunity to communicate with employees, and to demonstrate your care attitude.

"CSR is something most employees really care about: 'It impacts me personally, my family, and its something I can get my head around'".

Conder said that if used in the right way, CSR can change the perception of an organisation, while good management will also change employee perception giving them the opportunity to participate in something meaningful. "Logically it makes sense, and statistically, it's absolutely true," said Conder.

The two issues that seem to be preoccupying HR professionals at the moment are agency workers' rights and flexible working. Yes, it's the old red tape story. For a couple of decades employment regulations have kept HR in gainful employment and given the profession a useful lever to make line managers take them seriously. But cynics could say the red tape mind set reflects an us and them attitude: us being the management and the others being those pesky employees threatening to cost the organisation more money and take you to the cleaners at an employment tribunal.

On the other hand, you could turn this on its head and, instead of seeing temporary staffing and flexible working as a threat, try to see  them as strategic opportunities. This week a report by the CBI and the TUC called Talent not Tokenism showed how some firms are using flexible resourcing to their advantage. Hospitality company Botanic Inns provides employees with flexible working options and enhanced maternity and paternity pay resulting in lower staff turnover.  Even small firms (Beacon Foods, Oakwood Builders and Joinery, and mouse mat manufacturer Listawood) are taking into account the need for flexibility to look after children. 

Unfortunately the sad truth is that some HR manager's focus on the red tape reveals that they see the workforce as a liability? In other words it's the complete opposite of the HR cliche "People are our most valuable resort."

Anybody remember Dame Carol Black and her review of the Health of Working Age People? Thought not. More of that later, but first a heads up on some other up and coming developments affecting your responsibilities towards the health and wellbeing of staff. Next week the government's Foresight programme (which pulls together scientific evidence on key issues, for example the obesity report  launched in October 2007 ) will launch  a Mental Capital and Wellbeing report, which includes a section on 'Wellbeing and Work: Future Challenges' which looks at research evidence on the impact of managers' behaviour on mental health. You can download most of this from the Foresight website.

This will feed into a new government strategy on Mental Health and Employment Strategy which is due next March, led by Dame Carol Black. That old favourite office poster may have to be rewritten as: "You don't have to be mad to work here but if you are we can help".  I need hardly point out that in the current economic circumstances quite a few of us are likely to develop minor mental health issues over the next few months.

And whatever happened to Dame Carol Black's recommendations on workplace health, launched in March this year? Rumour has it that this will be on 24 November. There's no immediate call to action for HR but expect to hear more about the business case for health and wellbeing initiatives and how to measure the benefits over the next couple of years. A new fit for work note has been piloted in England and the results are being evaluated right now, while an electronic fit note has been piloted in Wales. These in theory should help employers prevent short-term absence turning into long term absence. 

A survey shows that employers are not neglecting health and safey despite the downturn, and perhaps surprisingly 27% are willing to take on people who have been on incapacity benefit or older workers. The survey of 720 business people by IOSH, the 35,000-strong body for health and safety practitioners, will be give some encouragement to the government with its aim of cutting the number of people on incapacity benefits by 1 million which must have seemed in jeopardy as waves of redundancies rocked the economy.

The survey reveals the schizophrenic attitude of employers towards health and safety issues, complaining of red tape on the one hand and admitting it saves lives on the other. Although eight per cent said they'd consider cutting the budget that was less than for staff incentives, marketing and spend on technology. IOSH is keen to expand the role of safety practitioners to take on more responsibility for employee health as opposed to safety risks.

At an event last night held by membership forum Employers for Carers to help celebrate the launch of Carers Week.

Nearly one in seven UK workers are carers (according to the 2001 census), with official estimates that claim as many as one in three people will fulfill a carer's role at some point in their lives.

Hosting a range of employers last night was Caroline Waters, director of people and policy at telecommunications giant BT. She was joined briefly by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who assured attendees that he was confident the Equality Bill would go through largely unchanged.

"If I were forced at gunpoint, I would say there will be an election next year, and there will be time to get this bill through [parliament], provided we are not stupid about it and provided our friends in the House of Lords get on with it and don't muck it about," he said.

Phillips is one of a number of business and union representatives asked to provide views on the impact of the Bill's provision to protect people from multiple discrimination.

The ruling that an individual's view on climate change is capable of being a philosophical belief akin to religion is most unwelcome for employers.

Unfortunately this was a mess waiting to happen following the poorly drafted 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations. The ambiguity in the law means that employers don't know who - or what - is protected from discrimination.

This ruling opens the door for abuse of the law and, regardless of whether the tribunal case is won or lost, raises the spectre of 'greenism' in the workplace.

Can an employee with strongly-held eco-beliefs refuse to fly on business, refuse to operate energy-guzzling equipment and expect abundant recycling facilities at work? And if the employer is not meeting his expectations does that amount to discrimination? It's one thing to ask not to be persecuted for your views, but quite another to rush to court when you feel they are not being taken seriously enough.

Taken to its fullest conclusion, the ruling may also mean that firms now have to think about environmental issues and sustainability in a different way, as to not risk 'upsetting' certain individuals. That would be a backward step.

And where does it stop? As one commentator pointed out, people live their lives in all kinds of ways that, at a push, could be argued to be a 'philosophical belief'. How long before we see claims for veganism, pacifism or socialism?

The weight of discrimination law is already a heavy burden on employers, this latest ruling makes that burden increasingly intolerable.