Editors Blog

The prospect of a recession appears to be quickly turning into a certainty. But should we not get used to low or no growth and the effects it could have on employment?

Anyone watching Newsnight on Wednesday night will have seen an interesting report about whether global economic growth and the fight against climate change can comfortably coexist.

We recycle our wine bottles (shipped half way around the world) and turn the heating down 1 degree in favour of donning an Aran pullover and we smugly believe we’re doing our bit for the environment. But it seems unless we start making our economics green too, we might as well not bother.

In the current media frenzy over the threat of a recession, HR must brace itself for redundancies in the coming months.

But are we all over-reacting? Are we convincing ourselves of impending doom so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Any downturn in 2008 is likely to mean a squeeze on HR budgets. But as the credit crunch feature in this week's Personnel Today shows, when the going gets tough, HR can choose to be either a victim or part of the solution. Perhaps it's time for the profession to stand firm against calls from the top for a headcount review and possible recruitment freezes.

So what did I learn last week? Forgive me for sounding morbid, but I learnt that sometimes life reads depressingly like an act out of Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot: "The more things change the more they stay the same," he said with an expression of deadening repetition.

So the rich get richer and those on top kick those at the bottom... as I read to my horror last week how a gangmaster, accused of "shocking abuse" against migrant farm workers, lost his licence for exploiting 50 Polish and Slovakian workers by deducting pay without any explanation and forcing them to pay to use company transport.

So for those people struggling to make ends meat, they get a nice dose of exploitation for their troubles.

Also in the news - Banks, like Merrill Lynch, Citi and UBS, continue to close, amidst the reality and spiralling effect of the credit crunch. Despite this fat cats continue to scoop the cream off the top at the expense of others. Northern Rock recently announced that chief exec of the failed firm, Adam Applegarth, was entitled to a termination payment equivalent to a year's salary, or £760,000.

We were also told last week to feel sorry for estate agents, by estate agencies, of course. OK hang in there guys, after years of silky suits and Cheshire cat grins, agents might have to cut down on their tie shopping.

The recession is now in full swing, and people are already looking for the light at the end of a tunnel, that seems to be so familiar. Why bother, when you can see your way out in the dark?

"We are all born mad. Some remain so." - I agree Mr Beckett.

Demanding a pay rise in line with inflation used to be the very least you might expect from your employer.

But research by our sister publication IRS has found that just 6.1% of pay awards are now worth more than the headline rate of inflation (retail price index inflation), which rose to 4.3% in May.

At the same time, fuel tanker drivers have been on strike, demanding a 14% pay rise and forcing some opportunistic petrol stations to raise the price of petrol to £1.99 a litre.

Whatever happened to the notion of compromise? We're all faced with rising fuel prices and constraints on our household budgets, but few of us expect our wage packets to increase significantly in the current economic climate. You could argue it's a good time for HR and reward managers to get creative and look at what they can offer staff beyond purely financial incentives.

Do this, and once the economy picks up again who knows? You might be in for an inflation-busting wage hike.

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.

People are undoubtedly beginning to tighten the purse strings as the UK economy moves ever nearer to recession.

High street retailers have been feeling the pinch for a number of months now as consumers cut their spending on all manner of purchases, from eating out to electrical goods. The rising cost of food and household bills means there isn't much choice to do otherwise.

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers out today predicted it would be "a survival of the fittest" among retailers and leisure operators as consumer confidence plummets and fears over job security rise.

If that indeed is the case, then the fast food retailers, ironically, seem to be shaping up as the fittest of them all.

McDonald's has revealed plans to hire an extra 4,000 staff over the next three months - its biggest recruitment drive since the turn of the century. And sales of Dominos pizza have rocketed as more people choose to eat at home rather than dine out.

Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, and David Robinson, chairman of hi-fi retailer Richer Sounds, join the CIPD's director of research and policy Linda Holbeche to speak about how companies can cope with uncertain times.

I'll be covering the speeches live - feel free to add your comments at any time, from 4:30pm today.

As the City begins to resemble Gomorrah, as the fat-cats make a quick exit saying 'Sodom... Sod 'em all' as they run off into the sunset with their fat wads, leaving twitchy traders to talk themselves (and the rest of us) into a recession, it seems its all the fault of one, unfeasibly powerful, all-knowing überbeing.

But while God undoubtedly moves in mysterious ways - and not just because He's got a bad case of haemorrhoids - it is not that non-existent deity that is dictating events and leading to the biggest haemorrhaging of jobs in the history of jobs.

The 21 October issue of Personnel Today has the theme of talent management running strongly through it. The phrase may mean many different things to many different people - 4,380,000 search results on Google is testament to that - but its importance to the HR community is inescapable.

The grim reality of the economic situation means that recruiting, keeping and motivating the best employees has never been more crucial.

Our special report on talent management provides an overview of best practice and current thinking in the field of talent management; this week's Viewpoint article is written by Microsoft's interim HR director, outlining her company's distinctive approach to the challenge; and our feature on the difficult beginnings of the National Policing Improvement Agency shows just how tough it can be to integrate and develop new staff into a unified workforce.

The thread that ties all this together is how HR professionals approach talent management as the world enters a recession. In the good times, it is far easier to get that new training programme or reward scheme signed off, or devote the time necessary to have those conversations with management and staff.

Lord Mandelson's 'efforts' to cut red tape for firms will only serve to add to the feel-bad factor we're already experiencing as we spiral into recession. Business secretary Mandelson is making a huge faux pas if he decides to delay the flexitime reforms approved at the Labour Party conference last month.

HR professionals know only too well that the business case for flexible working is a well-proven argument, and many employers have, for some time, been granting requests to work flexibly and reaping the benefits of increased staff satisfaction as a result.