Editors Blog

Welcome to the Editors’ Blog, brought to you by the award-winning editorial team behind PersonnelToday.com.

The blog aims to bring you news, commentary and analysis on issues affecting the HR sector, as well as the fields of employee relations, industrial relations and politics.

Let me use my first post on the Editors' Blog to announce some good news.

Personneltoday.com has been shortlisted as Best Business Website 2007 at the AOP (Association of Online Publishers) Awards.

The nominations are a double whammy for the human resources media, and indeed for our publisher Reed Business Information (RBI) as our sister brand XpertHR will be competing with us for the honour on 3 October.

Personnel Today was also named Interactive Magazine of the Year at the PPA 2006 (Periodical Publishers Association) Awards (pictured) and has been an ever-present on that shortlist for half a decade, while our journalists scooped Editorial Team of the Year 2007 at our internal RBI Awards.

It's great to get this kind of independent recognition (though always more important to please our readers), which is something we understand well through our organisation of the Personnel Today Awards.

This years premier HR awards event (on 22 November at London's Grosvenor House) boasts a particularly strong shortlist in each of 13 categories. As we always say, nominees have done well even to make the cut, but winning still tastes a whole lot sweeter!

At the time of writing, there are just three tables remaining. Book you place at the Personnel Today Awards now to avoid disappointment!

The news that basic human resources failings in government departments are costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds is shocking but perhaps should come as no surprise.

As Personnel Today magazine reports this week, one in four civil servant sackings was found to be unlawful in 2005-06, according to the annual report of the Civil Service Appeal Board (CSAB).

Board chairman John Davies said HR professionals in government departments were still not following standard dismissal procedures - a year after he orginally warned of the problem.

With all the talk about the UK skills shortage, and the need to smarten up this country's front-line staff in time for the London Olympics 2012, it's good to see the government might finally do about unwelcoming airport border staff.

There's nothing worse than getting off a knackering flight, having passed through long and tedious security controls, to be greeted by a rude and sarcastic immigration official. Surely it can't be that much to ask for a cheeky smile when they stamp your passport?

That's why Margaret Hodge, the tourism minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is to offer immigration and border staff to charm lessons, according to yesterday's Sunday Times.

The training will tell officials to basically cheer up - to be more welcoming to visiting foreigners whilst drawing the balance between security and friendliness.

Apart from concept of training people to be simply be more friendly being a little odd, the move is part of a new Welcome to Britain campaign, and closely echoes tactics used by Germany in the run up to the 2006 football World Cup.

As well as more welcoming staff, airports will be equipped with posters and films all about Britain's heritage and culture - to make it more obvious to the tourist exactly where they are when they get off their planes (rather than being stranded in some grey, drabby airport).

Although of course you could go too far. When I went to America one year the chirpy official drew a moustache in black marker pen on my passport picture, laughing raucously before wiping it off. Hmm... that's exactly what I needed after a ten hour flight.

An unseemly row erupted yesterday when the CBI and British Medical Association (BMA) clashed over GP services.

The employers group said restricted opening hours, difficulty in booking appointments and the limited range of services on offer in many surgeries was resulting in millions of lost working days and affecting people's health.

The CBI want patients to be able to register at more than one practice, allowing working people to access GP services near work.

This week's Personnel Today is a special issue focusing on "Oomph", whether human resources professionals have enough of it and what they can do to have more.

Delegates at the CIPD conference and exhibition in Harrogate this week talked to Personnel Today's editor Karen Dempsey about what they think HR with Oomph is...

Crowds of HR folk piled into a packed auditorium at the CIPD conference last night to witness two of the UK’s most succesful business leaders get a grilling from Newsnight anchorman Jeremy Paxman.

Gerry Robinson – labelled a ‘turnaround expert’ after hugely successful revivals of Coca Cola UK and Granada – and former director-general Greg Dyke (pushed out of the beeb after the controversial Hutton Inquiry) were interviewed at the CIPD conference on the topic of world-class business.

How to engage staff, exercise leadership and give organisations’ personality were up for discussion – with a load of banter and laughs thrown in to please the eager audience.

But the ironic thing (and somewhat amusing experience for me), was that while HR was slated by the two business icons (it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, it gets too bogged down in policy, it doesn’t understand business needs etc), the HR audience lapped it up, with clapping outbursts galore.

Say the word HR out loud 10 times on a crowded train on the way to work and you will end up getting that elusive seat and probably a few other empty ones around you.

Repeat the act in a crowded hall at the CIPD annual conference and exhibition in Harrogate and you become a chorus.

The chorus transforms into a hymn when words like “clarity” “culture change” and “engage” and many others, are added into the mix time and again and which make up Human Resources jargon, jargon, jargon, etc.

Hats off to Dr Lynda Gratton, who managed to wow the audience at last night’s keynote conference speech despite her burnt orange outfit clashing remarkably with the bright orange stage behind her.

The professor of management practice at London Business School described to an audience of hundreds of HR professionals how they can go about creating ‘hot spots’ in their organisations – epicentres of debates, thought and imagination so that anyone within the company can come up with solutions to problems.

To run that past you again: basically, a management technique which captures feedback from staff across the company so they feel included in corporate decisions, and so management teams can understand their staff better.

My immediate assumption was to think 'hot-spots' thinking may be a little too far fetched for the practically minded managers and directors watching her for an hour and half, pacing up and down the stage talking about, well, hot spots – and ‘the big freeze’ (the opposite of hot spots) and many other jargony terms in between.

But how wrong I was.

The title of the seminar read: The Future of People at Work. Excellent, I thought, strapping myself into an imaginary silver De Lorean, and giving a pre Parkinsons Michael J. Fox and the evergreen Doc Brown a quick glance before screeching off into time.

I have to say that I was a little disappointed when I got there. In fact I felt like we never arrived, the future we were promised by futurist Anne Lisa Kjaer, of Kjaer Global was really only a look at where the global workforce is already heading and probably more than half way there.

One of the easiest ways to fill up a conference centre with human resources people is to advertise one on the topic of talent management. I know this because I organised the last two annual IRS talent events (OK, plug over, but you can see video of the talent management conference).

This week saw Madison Square Garden (MSG), parent company of basketball franchise the New York Knicks', ordered to pay $11.6m (£5.7m) in damages to a female senior executive.

Anucha Browne Sanders, head of marketing for the Knicks, filed charges of sexual harassment against Isiah Thomas, team coach and an NBA legend.

I've made my merry way up to Birmingham to join hundreds of health service human resources professionals at the NHS Employers annual conference.

The line up over the next three days is pretty impressive, with workforce director-general Clare Chapman addressing the troops, along with NHS chief executive David Nicholson and the new-ish health secretary Alan Johnson.

Plenty for delegates to absorb in the coming days, especially in the current political climate and the government's Comprehensive Spending Review scheduled for today (Tuesday) that will set the health service's budget for the next few years.

NHS HR chief Clare Chapman gave a keynote speech to health service professionals at the conference yesterday.

She dispensed with the lectern straight away and strode confidently around the stage, setting out her vision and priorities for the NHS workforce to a packed auditorium at the ICC in Birmingham.

Key messages were to do with improving services for patients, connecting more with staff and personal leadership - what Chapman called being "internally coherent".

A survey out today has confirmed what those of us with the current two-week long head cold already know, which is that people are coming into work when they're sick. The 'Quality of Working Life' report from the Chartered Management Institute and Simplyhealth shows that half of staff with stomach bugs have gone to work in the last year, which at least explains why there is never a spare cubicle in the gents these days. And apparently 93 per cent of people suffering from stress bravely drag themselves into the office, although as 'stress' isn't actually an illness I think this is fair enough.

Personnel Today has received two emails of complaint following our decision to publish an image of actress Billie Piper on the front page of the 9 October issue.

(The image on the Daily Mail website is exactly what the magazine printed).

The image shows Piper in her underwear holding a riding crop portraying London prostitute Belle de Jour in the ITV drama Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

The image was illustrating a story about a debate on organising sex workers into trade unions, held at a GMB women's conference.

I was lucky enough to dine at the beautiful and rather exclusive Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir restaurant earlier this week, as part of Personnel Today's latest HR Directors Club.

In the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside, I tucked into delightful posh nosh (pork belly like I've never tasted before and dont get me started on the caramel désert) and let the afternoon pass by as the rain thundered down outside.

But of course, there was business to attend to. And the topic up for discussion among the fifty-odd HR directors in the room was HR Room 101 - based on the BBC TV show of the same name and the torture chamber from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

As people tucked into their meals they wasted no time in ranting about what frustrates them the most - about their peers, colleagues, organisations and the HR profession itself.

And here's the top ten most-hated things dumped in room 101:

Thank you for your comments posted on my previous blog entry about complaints we had received regarding the image of Billie Piper in the 9 October issue.

It's interesting to note that of the complainants, four were female, two were anonymous and the male comment we had backed the decision to publish the image.

It baffles me that people can be so easily offended by the female form. I wonder if we would have as many complaints if we had printed a picture of a good-looking man stripped to the waist?

My guess is probably not.

So the idea of favouring black and ethnic minorities when recruiting for the police force has been dismissed by Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair.

Blair rejected the debate, sparked on at National Black Police Association (NBPA) conference on Thursday, which argued that affirmative action (openly favouring non-white applicants in the recruitment process) would improve relations between police and minority communities.

Keith Jarrett, the outgoing president of the NBPA said communities want to see faces in the police force which “look like them” and debated with delegates how the police can recruit and retain more black and minority ethnic police officers.

The debate as to what human resources practitioners should call themselves has raged for some time. HR or personnel?

Should the function's job titles rebrand as talent officers, business partners or something else? Does it really matter?

Personnel Today's Editor Karen Dempsey even wrote a feature earlier this year examining the issue and gathering feedback from the profession.

Pressure seems to be growing that the right to request flexible working should be extended to all employees, not just those with children or caring responsiblities.

Ever since the government announced it's review of the current right to request flexible working (which will extend the right to request for parents of older children - not just parents with young children), I've had floods of emails saying the review should go one step further.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), Working Families charity and academic institution the Institute of Employment Studies (IES) have all argued the case that every employee, regardless of their reasons, should at least have the right to request.

And I have to agree. Do you?

The big industry news this week, and at long last, is the appointment of Tony McCarthy as the new human resources chief at British Airways, vacated by Neil Robertson in January this year.

It must have been some interview, as the post went unfilled for a whopping 11 months before McCarthy stepped into the breach.

Perhaps a call from Personnel Today last week to BA reminded them that the post was still vacant. After all Robertson quit the £200,000-a-year post at the end of January 2007 after 30 years with the company. Part of the furniture and all that, or perhaps it has been a good money saving exercise?

The great and good of the human resources profession enjoyed a fantasic night last week at the 2007 Personnel Today Awards.

Congratulations must go to the winners of all 12 categories and Vodafone, who scooped the overall prize at London's Grosvenor House Hotel. A full list of winners and photos of the night can be seen on the awards website.

The audience was royally entertained by top comedian and impressionist Rory Bremner, with Strictly Come Dancing stars Lilia and Darren adding a touch of glitz and glamour.

It seems that coaching is the next best profession to get into: we've got reports that some senior position coaches earn £1,000,000 a year by working with big firms in the City (listen to this week's podcast where we're joined by Training and Coaching Today editor John Charlton who explains more).

But seriously... a million quid? To ask some questions and enable the employee to come up with their own answers and solutions to development? John says that some charge £5,000 a session (an hour) and the large City firms tend to pay it as long as they get results.

Two things collided for me recently. I was organising a conference about employee engagement and I happened to read an article by psychologist Oliver James in The Guardian arguing that we could 'halve the prevalence of mental illness within a generation' by reducing consumerism and increasing wage equality. Stick with me, the two things are connected.

As one year ends, and another begins, the temptation to predict what will happen during the next 12 months is hard to resist. And plenty of people are already hypothesising over the future for 2008.

New Year predictions for a tough year ahead and economic uncertainties abound in the world of work - with the increased prospect of job cuts and outsourcing and offshoring HR among them.

A poll by the Chartered Management Institute found that managers believe 2008 will be tougher than 2007 - with only 40% confident about the year ahead.

The tributes have poured in for Sir John Harvey-Jones, who died this week at the age of 83 following a long illness.

Sir John, best known for his 1990s TV show Troubleshooter, was famous for his no-nonsense approach to business.

Perhaps today HR professionals could pay tribute to Sir John by trying their very best to get through a working day without resorting to waffle and jargon.

Employee opinion surveys are big business for big consultancies. Organisations can spend a fortune on measuring staff opinions, often only to do very little with the results.

So, like a white knight, Personnel Today is riding to the rescue of all those organisations that are big enough to want to measure their employees' opinions, but not wasteful enough to want the exercise to hurt their bottom line.

The Personnel Today Employee Opinion Survey is a partnership with employee engagement experts Tracom, and is specifically designed for organisations with up to 2,000 employees.

It will enable smart organisations to capture staff attitudes and then help them devise action plans to improve business performance in line with the findings.

Key features of the Personnel Today employee opinion survey include:

• Different levels of service and pricing depending on the size, budget and needs of your organisation
• Prices start from just £3,995
• Easy-to-use web-based surveys, requiring minimum upfront investment in time from the HR team
• Communication templates to explain the process to your staff and maximise participation
• Standardised questionnaires based on Tracom's decades of experience in employee
engagement and staff surveys worldwide, ensuring that the most important elements of employee engagement are measured
• An element of customisation to allow your organisation to measure issues that are important to you
• Flexible reporting with data segmented by demographics such as staff location, function, seniority, length of service
• An interpretation guide that helps your HR team make sense of the results and produce an action plan
• Expert telephone consultancy, if required, providing advice and help with next steps

Sign up here for more information about the Personnel Today Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) service, call Tracom on 0208 652 8760 or email performanceconsulting@tracom.com.

Luke Johnson's rant against HR in yesterday's Financial Times set all the work HR has done around improving its reputation back by several years.
In his column, he claims that "Human resources is a management term that should strike fear into the heart of every self-respecting entrepreneur", boasting that he has radically downsized HR in companies he has run and "business has gone so much the better for it".
This viewpoint is perhaps not surprising from a private equity investor, whose core mission is to buy up ailing companies, strip them of all their assets and reap the profits...

Is there a profession in the UK more consistently maligned than human resources? Those of you busy getting on with the day-to-day business of working in HR could be forgiven for burying your head in your hands and wondering why you bother.

It seems doing down the profession is in vogue, as reported in last week’s Personnel Today, and now business leaders are queuing up to have a pop.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with some constructive criticism – I’m sure those working in HR would be the first to admit that sometimes the profession doesn’t cover itself in glory – an out-and-out assault seems a tad unnecessary.

US human resources blog Bootstrapper has posted what it calls 100 Articles Every Human Resources Pro Should Read.

To help the overworked HR professional through the maze that is working life, our blogging cousins Stateside have put together the holy grail of resources. Packed full of helpful guides, posts and more, you’ll find tips on everything from recruiting and interviewing to developing your own career.

A lot of the material is US-focused, but valuable nonetheless. There are also a few contributions from the UK's finest - Personnel Today - to look out for.

For many of us, the 1980s were the decade that style forgot. But it was also the era in which personnel managers were first given the exotic title of 'human resources' professionals. In Personnel Today's first issue, back in February 1988, the news pages were dominated by stories of organisations introducing new working practices and bargaining with unions.

We'd like to think that over the past 20 years we've been at the heart of the profession as it has moved away from its 'personnel' label and become more strategic.

So in our 26 Feb issue, we kick off our 20th anniversary coverage with a look at how HR has changed over the past 20 years and some cautious predictions about what the future holds. But we need your help...

In case it had escaped your notice, this week’s issue has a decidedly 1980s theme to celebrate the fact that February 1988 was the month when Personnel Today was born.

So what better reason to kick-start our 20th anniversary year than with a look back at some of the key events that have shaped the HR profession over the past 20 years, along with our vision for 2028?

Finding new ways to attract, engage and develop the leaders of tomorrow should be on any self-respecting HR leader’s action plan. The person who conjures up a magic solution that achieves the answers to all of HR’s ongoing challenges such as these will make millions.

New legislation which will punish employers for hiring illegal foreign workers has come into force today, ironically a day that finds us all working for free, or proposing to our loved ones.

New rules under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act, mean that if employers are found to have knowingly hired illegal workers they could face an unlimited fine and be sent to prison for up to two years.

Businesses caught employing illegal workers could face a £10,000 on the spot fine. Previously the maximum was £5,000.

After years of navel gazing, introspection and generally being roundly ignored by those at the top, it seems that HR’s role as wallflower in the world of work is finally coming to an end.

Following swiftly on the heels of last week’s revelation that Work Foundation research has proved beyond doubt how HR really can be good for business, the fact that a key government adviser sees HR as having a potentially pivotal role in helping welfare-to-work providers ease the unemployed back into meaningful work shows just how perceptions of HR are changing for the better.

And any HR practitioners still doubting how crucial their role is – fretting about whether their opinions count for toffee with senior executives, worrying if they’re worthy of a seat at the top table, or pondering the merits of admitting that they actually do work in HR at dinner parties – need only point to the latest move made by the Department for Work and Pensions as it bids to get more of the long-term unemployed back to work.

HR - Keeping it relevant or adding value?
An interesting stat for you – a fifth of senior HR people at this week’s PwC international human resources conference predict the HR function will not exist by 2020.

Rather ironic, considering the title of the conference: ‘Fit for business: keeping HR relevant in a changing world.’

But they’ve touched on an important point – and a re-occurring theme throughout the conference break out sessions: what does HR need to do to stay relevant – or – face the inevitable elbow from UK companies?

Well, as the first keynote speaker of the day, chief executive Hamish Taylor of the Skills Exchange Network pointed out, staying relevant simply isn’t good enough.

“Let’s think about this conference title: keeping HR relevant in a changing world? I don’t want to be just relevant. I want HR to add value to the business.”

He told the audience of HR directors to understand their CEO is their number one customer. He told them to work out what the organization thinks and feels and relay this back to the top boss. He told them to focus on strengths – not moan about things they can’t do - and convince the CEO their work adds to the bottom line.

Yep, you’ve guessed it. HR people in their hundreds are still debating what the profession should be called, now and 20 years down the line.

‘Mr HR’ himself, leading business guru Dave Ulrich, brought the topic up at a PwC conference in Rome last Friday.

Speaking to an audience of more than 400 HR practitioners, Ulrich admitted that even he does not like the language currently associated with HR and described at least five things the 'HR function' could actually mean:

1. People in HR
2. HR practices; staffing, recruitment, training, appraisals, development
3. The HR department
4. People in the company
5. Profession in HR.

So with all this confusion about what HR actually means, how on earth can HR be expected to make a good impression with their customers, especially with their CEO?

Well, they can’t. A PwC survey this week said just 43% of chief executives trusted their HR department to adequately compete for talent.

Ulrich said: “I wish we had better language to describe HR. Is there a better word for the department? We used to have personnel, and the buzz word now is human capital – but that misses the culture of an organisation.”

If HR was ever accused of being fluffy or incapable of driving business results home then perhaps professionals in the function should look away now.

For I would not want to encourage those who are constantly striving to prove to their chief executive what value they add to the business – offering tangible links between turnover and retention, sickness absence and profit – to have it all taken away by signing up to two not-so-tangible ideas for improving leadership.

The first comes from our trusted friends the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Ahead of its annual learning and development conference (HRD 2008) next week, it is inviting HR people to learn “how to think like artists” when going through organisational change.

Delegates will be shown “how the skills of artists such as orchestra conductors and actors can create strategic energy within organisations to help support learning and communications in times of change.”

While “strategic energy” might well be important for organisations going through major-scale change, does anyone actually know what it is?

If it wasn't at an event hosted by her employers, it could have been a set up.

With all eyes on Jackie Orme at her first public appearance as chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, her inaugural duty was to introduce the chairman of leadership advice body Pertec Consulting.

Easy? Then try pronouncing Pentti Sydanmaanlakka after too many Pepsis.

You've taken over a struggling team beset by injuries to your best players. The press and fans are lining up to have a pop. Amazingly you get the team to a World Cup Final and then beat France in Paris for the second time in six months.

Your reward? Well if your name is Brian Ashton and the employer is the Rugby Football Union (RFU) then it's the sack.

Against this backdrop of comparative success, Ashton finds himself removed from his position and effectively demoted by being offered his old job back. Last week the RFU turfed Ashton out and replaced him with Martin Johnson as the new team manager.

Now employment lawyers are claiming that Ashton could have a claim for constructive dismissal or age discrimination.

If you start to yawn while reading this, make yourself a cuppa and pay attention!

National STOP Snoring week comes to its conclusion tomorrow, and it highlights potentially wider issues that may impact on the work place.

And where there are employees to be looked after, HR is sure to follow, with a pillow or sick note?

There are many symptoms caused by sleep deprivation, insomnia or acutely disturbed sleep, but in the work place the most important aspect would probably be health and safety issues where machinery is used, or a decline in productivity, as the life slowly starts to seep out of you...those with insomnia might testify to that?

Marianne Downey, director and co-founder of the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association (BSSAA), says: "With more than 80 known sleep disorders, from restless legs syndrome and sleep apnoea to sleep walking or narcolepsy - where people can literally fall asleep while driving or playing sport - many employers find it easier to dismiss sleep problems as skiving rather than examine what's going on."

Downey recommends that employees with acute sleeping problems explain to their HR department or to their manager why they are so tired at work and. A GP letter may be required in some cases as proof that the problem is being adressed.

"If a colleague's sleepiness is a health and safety issue because of the work you do, I'd argue that whistleblowing is far preferable to worrying about whether your friend's insomnia is going to do real damage," she says.

There are a few snore tests you can take at http://www.britishsnoring.co.uk - fun for the whole family...

Another week, another report claiming the death of the HR function as we know it.

The latest culprit is consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in its Key Trends in Human Capital report, which claims the future of the profession is in doubt, and its reputation and status in rapid decline.

The report states that while HR is not exactly drinking in the last chance saloon, it is perhaps sipping a glass of chilled wine in the bar next door. Senior executives are increasingly recognising the competitive advantage to be gained through people, the report says, and are therefore taking more of an interest in ‘HR stuff’ than ever before.

The rush to outsource transactional HR work continues and the demands on the function to be more accountable in measuring the value it adds to the business seemingly grow month-by-month.

For those working in public sector HR, or interested in the issues affecting public sector HR professionals, I have stumbled upon this series of really interesting podcasts.

PublicsectorHRpodcast.co.uk has so far produced six episodes on topics including pay and reward, wellbeing, shared services and leadership.

The latest episode features Jan Parkinson from Local Government Employers and Sian Thomas from NHS Employers discussing what it means to work in the public sector. The show follows a report that Personnel Today covered earlier this year on managers' attitudes.

Pocasts are obviously a good way of bringing fresh content to an audience, and judging by how many downloads Personnel Today's weekly podcast is getting, are becoming increasingly popular among the HR community.

Look out for special one-off podcasts from Personnel Today in the future, such as this podcast on corporate manslaughter.

So to Brighton then for the annual Public Sector People Managers' Association (PPMA) conference. New president Stephen Moir had strong some words for delegates in his opening address.

The conference theme is 'Evolution or Extinction' for public sector HR. Moir chose his keynote speech to attack the HR dinosaurs that roam across the public sector landscape and said HR professionals bucked their ideas up, extinction was a real possibility.

New ways of working, technology, outsourcing, efficiency targets should not be seen as threats to public sector HR teams willing to get to grips with them.

HR in local government, the police, civil service and wider public sector is at a crossroads, he said. Down one path lay extinction, down the other evolution.

Moir had some tough words for those in the room with regards to HR's reputation. "I'm sick and tired of being part of a profession that wallows in self-pity," he said, to gasps of disbelief from delegates, who were probably expecting an easy ride.

HR was turning itself into "self-obsessed naval gazers" and must stop feeling sorry for itself, he insisted. Fair point, Stephen.

In his day job, Moir is director of people and policy at Cambridgeshire County Council and was supported by members of his HR team, his PA and his chief executive. Have they not got enough to do in Cambridgeshire or is it that the local authority is so well run that no-one there will notice the HR department and top man are missing for the day.

Moir's speech got the conference off to a strong start and hopefully set the tone for what will be two days of debate and discussion.

Two developments in one week seem to show that momentum is gaining to consign the HR profession to Jurassic Park. First a PWC report said HR’s reputation is ‘at a low ebb’ and then new president of the PPMA, the local authority HR group, Stephen Moir, opened the PPMA annual conference with a wake-up call for HR people who were out-dated, incompetent whingers . The conference title this year is ‘Evolution or Extinction’.

What do you think makes the perfect HR professional? Some would say broad commercial knowledge, others would say the patience of a saint. This summer, Personnel Today is teaming up with occupational psychology company YSC to build a profile of what makes a great HR manager.

Safely back on dry land after last week's Human Resources Forum on board the Oriana cruise liner and I've had a recurring thought in my head about the talks I went to at the floating conference.

The content of the conference was by and large very good - some interesting presentations, some good workshop sessions.

Sir Gerry Robinson's opening address was a clear, no-nonsense talk on how management should work. The closing address by Arctic adventurer Ben Saunders was equally inspired - far better than your average I'm-an-adventurer-and-you-can-learn-lessons-from-me-for-your-workplace presenter.

Saunders charmed the audience with his encounters with polar bears and his answer to the question, How do you wee when it's -48C?

But the keynote address on Thursday by futurist Anne Lise Kjaer struggled to match either of these.

It seems that HR conferences are increasingly susceptible to pseudo-scientific clap-trap.

Local government HR directors working in London could be forgiven for quaking in their shoes with the news that controversial no-win no-fee lawyer Stefan Cross is heading southwards.

The MJ reports that the Newcastle-based solicitor has started advertising in the capital for equal pay cases to take on.

Cross has become somewhat of a hate figure among trade unionists in the local government sector because of his appetite to take on these kinds of claims and his pursuit of workers, mainly women, in signing up to his firm.

The new CBI-Axa absence survey, launched today, suggests the CBI is obsessed with people throwing 'sickies'. Allegedly, one in 10 people absent are swinging the lead. A similar attitude to the British employee was reflected in the Personnel Today story this week revealing that lie detectors could soon be used to flush out employees on bogus sick leave. Surely, all this is missing the point.

I was at a roundtable debate this morning where Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development chief economist  John Philpott  claimed that in recent years there had been 'sea change' with employers rather moving from being 'narrowly focused on absence management' to looking at the 'underlying causes'.  The event organised by EAP provider Employee Advisory Resource aimed to link employee engagement with employee wellbeing.

The CBI should adopt this thinking. I'd be more impressed if they found out how much presenteeism is costing UK employers. Check out the book 'The Living Dead: Switched Off, Zoned Out - The Shocking Truth About Office Life' by David Bolchover.  Maybe it's outside the remit of the CBI absence report but more emphasis on ideas like 'job enrichment' to incentivise people to turn up at work would be more helpful. The CBI proposes a 'carrot and stick approach' to absence. That might work for donkeys. People are a bit more complicated.

Finally, the eagerly awaited review of extending flexible working rights, by Sainsbury's HR director Imelda Walsh, is out in the open. And it certainly
makes a nice change that HR is in the spotlight for leading a government review rather than simply responding.

By now, you will have digested the fact that the right is set to be extended to staff with children up to the age of 16. And the outcome seems to be one that most parties and the HR community support.

But while HR legal eagles know only too well that the right is only to 'request' fl exible working, you may still have a job to do educating your workforce that it's not an automatic privilege to work flexibly.

Likewise, you'll have your work cut out ensuring that the line managers and colleagues involved are flexible in their approach to getting the balance right. As always, translating laudable intentions into practice will be easier said than done.

Is your HR team concerned at the prospect of being inundated with requests to work flexibly? Do you feel that there will be pressure to accept or reject more requests to work in different ways?

So, farewell then to Harrogate and the annual CIPD conference and exhibition being held in the delightful North Yorkshire spa town.

The CIPD has announced it is moving the HR profession's annual flagship event to Manchester from 2009, and also back a couple of months to November.

At first glance this seems like a good move. No more long drives up the A1 for southern-based HR directors (and journalists), not more packed train journeys between York and Harrogate that are more akin to the Indian railways.

The quaint setting of Bettys Tea Rooms and cheesy club Carringtons replaced by the more funky Manchester restaurants, bars and night-life. Better transport links, better accomodation, a more modern venue in Manchester Central.

But hang on a minute. Manchester, in November. I'm thinking cold, wet and miserable. The timings of the conference, from 17-19 November must be at the very extreme of the event calendar. Any later and people would be busy doing their Christmas shopping.

Long term it is probably the right move. But Harrogate afficiados will miss their three days in Yorkshire. 

Earlier this month, I used this column to accuse Gordon Brown of dithering over what to do about the rights of agency workers.

Well, I send my apologies to the embattled prime minister, despite a rogue Bill making its merry way through Parliament which threatened to throw a huge spanner in the works, plans were obviously being drawn up in smoke-filled rooms to reach a compromise. The government has now struck a deal with the CBI and TUC to give agency workers equal treatment after just 12 weeks in a job.

Brown is in need of some kind words after the drubbing Labour suffered at last week's by-election in Crewe and Nantwich. But it is unlikely he will get any from the HR community.

For all the talk recently of apprenticeships, NVQs, skills academies, vocational training and so on, what's all this about potential government plans to rank schools by the number of pupils they send to university?

Proposals being put to the prime minister in July by the National Council for Educational Excellence (NCEE), a body set up by Gordon Brown, will suggest that university entry data could be used to grade schools according to how many students reach higher education.

While it may sound like a reasonable request, doesnt it place the emphasis of career paths way too much on choosing the university route, and doing a degree?

I remember when I was at school doing my A-levels, university was pretty much the only option available to me when I turned 18, well, apart from getting a job that is. (Hence why I spent three years in sunny Brighton at the University of Sussex).

But the point is that I had no idea of the various career choices available to me - and perhaps looking back a more vocational route through apprenticeships or 'training at work' programmes may have been more suitable. After all a career in journalism is practical and requires experience - not necessarily just studying and theory.

Going down the NCEE route could cause teachers to promote university too much over other career choices, and could cause teenagers to think they want to do a degree when they don't. In the 21st century isnt it time we let 16 to 18-year-olds have a bit more control and freedom in what they choose to do?

And as employers, wouldnt we prefer to take younger workers on knowing they've received the right training for them and for the job we're offering - not just the right training for school's league tables? 

Once again the BBC has been slapped on the wrists for overpaying its leading presenters and DJs.

The BBC claims that Oliver & Ohlbaum, the consultants it invited in (probably at a huge cost to licence-payers), found that the likes of chat show host Jonathan Ross and radio DJ Chris Moyles were not paid above the market rate. But O&O also found that the BBC relied on "a limited number of lead presenters" and questioned how successful the organisation had been in nurturing new talent.

Ross reportedly signed a 'golden handcuffs' deal recently for £18m over three years, and the BBC has an overall 'talent budget' of £242m.The very top stars can expect to earn at least £3m annually from appearance fees, repeats, publishing deals and royalties.

Pay will always be a thorny issue, especially when the public are bankrolling these salaries, but are the likes of Rossy really overpaid? All HR professionals know that nurturing new talent is a high priority - especially in these times of financial instability and demographic change. But talent pipelines can take years to get results, and in the interim it's important to keep your key people happy.

That said, money isn't everything. Just ask Natasha Kaplinsky, who left her already well-paid job at the BBC last year for a £1m a year role as the anchor on Five News, only to tell bosses six weeks later that she was pregnant.  

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."

What another shocker. Not only is it now acceptable to lie on CVs, it's also advisable to bang on about how young you are in the hope that will win you a contract as Sir Alan's apprentice.

When The Apprentice candidate Lee McQueen lied about the length of time he'd spent at university on his CV - claiming he'd been there two years when, ahem, he dropped out after four months - he was apparently doing what many other job applicants have done and so should be forgiven.

You could see the sparkle in Sir Alan's eye when he found out poor Lee had no real education and couldn't spell. The business moguls that interviewed Lee told Sir Alan they too had lied on their CVs to get their first job - and that rather than showing dishonesty, it showed committment and a will to get on in the world.

But employment lawyers were inevitably unhappy about the act. Pinsent Masons employment partner Tom Flanagan said: "If the deceit had remained hidden and Lee went on to become the Apprentice, he could well have been in breach of his contract if it was uncovered at a later date."

Just weeks ago Patrick Imbardelli resigned from his position as chief executive, Asia Pacific Region at InterContinental Hotels Group last June, after it was discovered that he'd lied on his CV, Flanagan reminded us. 

Now in Lee's case you could see why he had lied about his education. He said so himself - he just wanted to keep up with the other candidates and he had proved his worth during the ten weeks he'd been on the show. Fine, but most candidates don't get ten weeks to prove they're good at a job.

How altruistic are those HR professionals working in the not-for-profit and voluntary sector? By the very nature of the organisations they are employed by, and the work they do on a daily basis, you would assume altruism would be second nature.

The call by two leading figures in the third sector for HR professionals working for larger charities to help smaller organisations with employment law and employee relations issues is to be welcomed.

These smaller charities obviously need help - the number of grievance case in the sector far outweighs those in the public and private sectors. And a lack of cash often means that in-house HR expertise is at a premium.

Do you think your HR director is one of the best in the business? Or are you an HR director worthy of greater recognition?

We're calling for more entries into Personnel Today's 2008 HR Director of the Year Award.

This award is for an individual HR director who can demonstrate outstanding leadership. Entries should explain the contribution the HR director has made both to their own team and to the organisation as a whole.

Candidates must demonstrate that they have developed an effective HR team and present evidence of their contribution to the business. Past winners have submitted testimonials from across the organisation and its customer base to back up their entries.

Shortlisted individuals get invited to the glitzy awards ceremony in November and the chance of picking up the top prize in front of 1,300 guests. Fame and success awaits!

Visit www.personneltodayawards.com for more details and to enter.

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.

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?

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.

Compare paid paternity leave levels with other countries and you'll find the UK has some of the worst rights for new fathers in Europe.

The speech made last week by Nicola Brewer, Equalities and Human Rights Commission chief executive, highlighted the fact that the UK's parental rights currently support the idea that fathers are "optional seasoning" on children's lives, while mothers are the main carers ('Maternity leave could damage women's careers', Personneltoday.com, 14 July).

If you haven't heard by now the latest thinking on board the skills ship has centred around apprenticeships. Both the government last week, and the opposition-government this week, have miraculous plans to ramp up apprenticeships, to drive up skills, to unleash UK potential blah blah blah.

At a first glance the plans look remarkably similar (surprise, surprise). On the one hand you have current skills ministers David Lammy and John Denham saying they want more employers to get involved and they're making it easier for businesses to do just that. The draft Apprenticeship bill launched last week said it will define what an apprenticeship is - well, that's a start - but also it would go further to set up a national register of apprenticeship employers. It promised £1bn funding by 2011.

On the other hand, you have the Tory proposals - £2,000 offered to employers that offer apprenticeships, and £750m overall to support apprentices of all ages. This one was slightly different, in that if offered to cut red tape, reduce bureaucracy and minimise the burden on employers: all the lovely things that employers want to hear.

Trade unions have upped the ante ahead of their meeting with Labour Party chiefs at Warwick University this coming weekend. The policy forum/beano is where unions traditionally outline their demands to the government for new workers' rights.

Top of the list? Sack business secretary John Hutton. Reports in the press claim senior union official can't stand to be in the same room as him and want prime minister Gordon Brown to give him the boot.

An unnamed unionist said there had been a complete "breakdown in relations" with Hutton because of his perceived pro-business leanings. In a speech in May, he said the government was satisfied it had got the balance of employment legislation right.

This angered unions who accused him of "losing touch with reality", and pledged to fight for stronger laws.

The story has got political and union bloggers speculating as to what might happen.

Speculation is rife among the national press this morning on how much ground Gordon Brown conceded to the trade unions at Labour's National Policy Forum in Warwick over the weekend.

With no official announcements from either the government or unions, it is up to the political and industrial correspondents to fill in the rest of us as to what was agreed. Unions have been pushing hard for more workplace rights and saw the weekend as a chance to really back Brown into a corner.

Depending on what paper you read, the new rights seem to be:

• Extending unpaid parental leave to those with children aged under 16 (currently aged six)
• Adult threshold for minimum wage lowered from 22 to 21. Adult rate is currently £5.52
• More public sector apprenticeships
• Proposals to make maternity and paternity leave more flexible
• Measures to end "bogus self employment" in the construction industry

The equal pay saga dominating the local government landscape continues to rumble on its destructive course. Equal pay is now not so much the elephant in the room but a stampeding herd of angry pachyderms.

Last week the Court of Appeal paved the way for tens of thousands of women to claim billions in compensation for unequal pay from the NHS and local authorities.

The ruling overturned a previous decision that two councils in north east England were essentially entitled to continue discriminating against female employees because they could not afford to bring them into line with the men.

Acas figures released last week also showed that the number of equal pay tribunal claims it dealt with last year more than doubled - it is now the most popular form of claim.

The government cannot realistically expect employers to fund workplace health schemes or pay to get sick staff back to work as long as it continues to tax this spending as a benefit. . A report out this week finds the government once again under fire for failing to address these tax barriers. Yet a major report this year, commissioned by the government itself, from Dame Carol Black  recommended early intervention to get people off sick and back to work and keep them there there. When the government reponds to that report in the autumn it must address the unfairness and contradictions in the way spending on work and health is taxed. 

For example, if employees are exempt from tax when their employers provide an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), then why should an employee be taxed when their employer pays for them to join a private gym? Both are ways to prevent ill health and build employees' resilience.

Another problem is that the current system penalises the very people the government wants to target - the vast majority of employeees who work for small and medium sized companies. Currently benefit tax is exempt on employees if their employer provides a a gym or sports facilities but staff in smaller firms are penalised if their employer pays for private gym membership.

And what about employers who want to pay for treatment to get staff back to work when off sick? Surely the government should provide tax exemptions for all spending on vocational rehabilitation, regardless of whether the illness or injuries are solely work-related or not. Currently if an employer pays for an employee's treatment to get them back to work for reasons which are not solely work-related, the employee has to pay tax on it. Yet there are often long waiting lists on the NHS meaning treatment is provided too late to stop the employee swelling the ranks of those on incapacity benefits. One solution is to change tax rules on private medical insurance so that the benefit is tax exempt when it applies to return to work treatment.

The government must make the tax system fair and ensure it supports employers in improving the health of employees and cutting the numbers of those on incapacity benefits. Saying that tax incentives are 'at a very early stage of development' is not good enough after years of lobbying and the backing of the CIPD among other organisations. The time to act would be this autumn when the government responds to Dame Carol Black's review. 

News that employees at BP are to lose their option of working a nine-day fortnight is an embarassment to the company and the government.

The policy allows staff at various BP offices in the UK to take every other Friday off if they work a set number of hours every fortnight. The oil giant is thought to be axing the benefit as part of a cost cutting drive, alongside plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.

BP has been held up as a shining example of flexible working. In 2003 it was named by the government as one of 50 model employers in its approach to work-life balance. The revelation that it is now ditching the approach is a blow to its reputation.

If it wanted to introduce a standardised policy across all its UK operations, why not level up instead of level down? The damage this decision will inflict to both staff morale and employer brand will be hard to measure precisely, but it definitely goes against the grain of most forward-thinking employers.

It's not often HR makes it into the pages of top satirical mag Private Eye. But in the latest issue hacks at the magazine have taken issue with the government's latest initiative to help smaller firms with employment law.

The campaign aims to help employers by directing them to Business Link's online tools, calculators and interactive guides, saving cash so they don't have to buy in professional HR advice. The Eye goes on to say:

"Sadly the advice to stop buying in expensive HR comes too late for many public sector bodies. Buying in staff admin services from Capita proved disastrous for the Leicester Hospitals NHS Trust, which ended up paying bank charges for staff after their payroll was botched month after month last year. Also stuck with Capita is the BBC, which can't afford to break its £100m outsourced HR deal even though the firm lost personal details of staff."

The article also highlights the cost of outsourcing Northern Ireland's Civil Service HR spiralling from the planned £328m to £465m.

I interviewed BBC HR chief Stephen Kelly earlier this month and he admitted that the corporation's contract with Capita was suffering from problems. But he said he was determined to put things right and was confident its full benefits would soon be realised.

Until he does, then the spectre of another mention in Private Eye looms...

Here are the top 10 news stories featured on Personneltoday.com over the past seven days. Unsurprisingly, the news that BP is scrapping its nine-day fortnight perk for staff came top of the list.

The story recorded hundreds more hits than the number two article, perhaps a reflection of the pulling power of a brand like BP, and the significance of the decision in light of the economic downturn.

Top 10 articles:

1. Flexible working arrangements under threat as BP scraps nine-day fortnight
2. Tribunal refuses to review decision on Switalski £19m sex discrimination claim
3. Redundancy pay cut by 25% as Marks & Spencer denies cutting costs
4. HR workload and happiness levels soar
5. CIPD under attack from within in run-up to Harrogate
6. Black Ministry of Justic worker called a 'golliwog', tribunal told
7. BBC HR outsourcing deal still experiencing problems
8. NHS Agenda for Change scheme cannot determine equal pay claims
9. Recruitment freeze at Merrill Lynch to cut headcount worldwide
10. Employers could risk equal pay claims after a TUPE merger

The ranking is for the week covering 19-26 August. Look out for an update next week.

News that the Football Association (FA) has hired new employment law advisers would not usually register that strongly on Personnel Today's news radar.

But with FA chief executive Brian Barwick having just been given the push, the threat of more jobs to be axed and England's 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign about to kick-off, the timing of the annoucement is intriguing.

Law firm Mace & Jones has been handed a contract to act as employment law advisers until 31 May 2010 - two weeks before the World Cup in South Africa gets underway. This should be perfect timing for them to negotiate a payoff for current head coach Fabio Capello following England's anticipated dismal failure to get to the finals.

Capello signed a £6.5m-a-year deal in Janaury that takes him up to July 2012. The smart money is on him not lasting anywhere near as long as that. If the FA want to get rid of him, like they did with ex-coach Steve McClaren, then it's going to cost them.

Unless, that is, Capello plays away from home with a female FA employee, a la Sven Goran Eriksson, then the legal eagles at Mace & Jones will really be earning their crust.

September plays host to the biggest occasion in the HR calendar. I refer not to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's final convergence on Harrogate (16-18 September), but to the launch today of HR Space, an exciting new online community for human resources professionals.

HR Space already has more than 100 active members, who have been testing the new website. They've contributed to discussions on a broad range of topics: from legal queries about redundancy and age, to complex dilemmas about married staff. There's even a thread on reference-writing euphemisms, my favourite being: "anyone who gets this person to work for them should consider themselves very lucky", posted by Zoogirl.

It's topical too. After BP announced plans to scrap its nine-day fortnight (Personnel Today, 20 August), J1 posted asking whether now is a good time to be introducing such flexible working practices.

HR Space provides much more than the networking forum it replaces. Members can create a nickname, send private messages, and upload documents to share with friends. As well as the forums, HR Space also offers an up-to-date listing of HR blogs not only from Personnel Today writers, but from HR Space members' own blogs and numerous relevant external bloggers who write about employment.

HR Space is your space to share opinions and gauge the thinking of others in HR. In the coming weeks we'll be working hard to make it work for you and where queries go unanswered we'll strive to find a response, from an expert if necessary.

People often use forums to discuss their next career moves, and HR Space is no different.

In this week's issue, to help you on your way, we look at career paths for the modern HR professional (page 20) while on page 27 we announce the shortlist for the Best Places to Work in HR, in association with Courtenay HR.

Join HR Space now at www.personneltoday.com/hrspace.

Swarms of fat-fighting police could be teeming throughout UK offices by Christmas to downsize the UK's obesity problem, if slimming group Weight Watchers has its way.

The American-founded company believes it can sell its healthy-eating services to some 500 UK companies by the end of the year, according to The Times, to help them combat shocking levels of homegrown fattism and promote a good diet. Sounds good, but there's just one catch: it will involve weekly weigh-ins.

Nearly 500 companies could sign up to the programme, according to Weight Watchers, just in time for the Christmas party season - just in time for us to devour one more mince pie or glass of mulled wine... and then go on the scales the morning after. Sound scared? You should be.

The HR community certainly has lots to talk about in the run-up to next week's Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) conference in Harrogate.

While the challenges of operating in a tough economic climate remain high on the agenda, other stories featured in this week's magazine give practitioners something to get their teeth into on the journey to North Yorkshire.

These include: Weight Watchers targeting employers with a new workplace drive, a call for the TUC to modernise and change its name, and the need for a rethink in media rules for employment tribunals.

We'd welcome your comments on these stories and anything else featured in the magazine or online, just e-mail us at personneltoday@rbi.co.uk

Here are the top 10 news stories featured on Personneltoday.com over the past seven days. Our story about Weight Watchers launching a renewed drive to sign up employees to weight loss classes topped the hits league.

Other highlights include a touch of showbiz with stories about Jeremy Kyle and Selina Scott, as well as the usual recession and credit crunch focused stories.

Top 10 articles

1. Weight Watchers at work sparks plea for sensitivity
2. Job ad for inexperienced teacher ruled as indirect age discrimination
3. UK recruitment falls at fastest rate for almost seven years
4. Chancellor takes firm line on wages at TUC conference
5. DWP in talks with Jeremy Kyle over getting people back to work
6. Selina Scott in age discrimination row with Channel Five
7. Bogus CV warning for firms as economy stalls
8. Flexible working soars as 46% of employers offer working at home
9. Employee fraud rises as credit crunch hits
10. Free job evaluation guide from Acas to help employers avoid equal pay claims

The ranking is for the week covering 4-11 September. Look out for an update next week.

The seeming over-confidence and intense demands of Generation Y (dubbed Gen Why?) is, to say the least, proving to be a challenge for employers.

There's a growing perception that this generation believes it can have it all and is not embarrassed to ask for it. Put simply, they want to get the job done on their own terms and, unphased by hierarchies, have a strong tendency to challenge managers. There's no doubt that this is resulting in a clash of values.

So it's time to really gen up on Gen Y and help managers understand the generational differences and not get frustrated by them.

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.

The annual Harrogate conference and exhibition is, as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) never tires of telling folk, the biggest HR event in Europe.

Attendance numbers for last week's show (real delegates, not just exhibitors, speakers and press) have yet to be released, and it will certainly be interesting to see how they compare with those of last year or, say, five years' ago. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the halls were a lot quieter this year, with plenty of spare seats to be had in the seminars.

It's perhaps unsurprising that visitor numbers for events are down, and not a problem unique to the HR sector. People are a lot busier at work nowadays and, crucially, want to be seen to be busy by their employers. A recent survey found that nine in 10 HR professionals were experiencing rising workloads, with the majority putting in extra hours to keep on top of things. Two or three days out the office is a luxury few can afford during the present economic climate.

The wait is over. We've completed our quest to identify the people making the biggest impact in HR and business and it's time to reveal our Top 40 Power Players 2008. This is Personnel Today's ranking of the most influential practitioners in HR today.

If you're not aware of the people featured in this year's list, then you need update your contact book and start networking. Time to get to know them, perhaps?

So how did we identify our Power Players? Over the past few months the Personnel Today editorial team has debated and argued the list and nominations and voted on the finalists.

With valued input from our editorial advisory board members - a range of ­academics, senior HR directors and consultants - and importantly you, our readers, we have ranked the nominated individuals in order of their industry influence and impact throughout 2008.

Personnel Today is supporting a campaign by the Employers Forum on Age (EFA) to force the government to commit to remove the default retirement age (DRA) in 2011, rather than merely reviewing it.

Ditching the retirement age will provide much needed clarity for both employers and employees and give organisations more than two years to prepare. EFA director Catharine Pusey outlines the arguments for scrapping the default retirement age in this week's magazine.

The EFA is working with a growing number of employers, including Co-op and Hertfordshire County Council, who are operating successfully without a fixed retirement age and is encouraging other employers to follow suit.

It is our view - and the EFA's - that it's inevitable the default retirement age will be removed altogether, whatever the final outcome of the Heyday legal challenge currently being considered by the European Court of Justice.

So now's the time for HR professionals to show leadership and make the decision to ditch the retirement age. You can register your support for our campaign by signing our petition on the Number 10 website.

"Employee engagement is not just a buzzword - it has a clear link to increased business success". Not the words of a leading thinker or top practitioner at the latest HR conference, but of a cabinet minister.

Recently resfuffled business secretary John Hutton's words upon announcing a government review into new ways of increasing employee engagement should be welcomed by the HR community.

The fact that the government has finally woken up to what the vast majority of us have known for years - that engaged workers perform better, stay in their jobs longer and boost profits - is a shot in the arm for the profession.

It might seem mad with the current meltdown in the financial markets to start trying to get employers to report on employee health and wellbeing in company reports, but that's exactly what employers group Business in the Community are doing. And I, for one, support them. Just to remind you, BITC tires to get its 850 members including many from the FTSE 100 to take Corporate Social Responsibility seriously. Today BITC launched the annual report for its campaign Business Action on Health. The campaign aims to make employee health and wellbeing a boardroom issue.

The report shows that eight out of 10 FTSE 100 companies are publicly reporting on employee health and wellbeing compared to seven out of 10 last year. Forty are doing this in their company reports and the campaign aims to get 75% doing so by 2011. But is health and wellbeing a boardroom issue or just a low level employee welfare matter? It all boils down to the business case.  Tools like Business Healthcheck, developed by PwC and launched in March alongside Dame Carol Black's recommendations on work and health, show how to measure the return on investment in health and wellbeing. There are many good reasons to take the issue seriously but at a time when cost cutting is high on the agenda of most boardrooms surely anything that can demonstrably save money is worth a try?

The Sunday Times ran a good piece last week on the Heyday retirement age challenge and its potential impact on older workers in the UK.

The article focused on Andrew Webster, a teacher at a West London school who was forced to retire at the age of 68, despite protests from staff and parents.

An estimated 25,000 people face default retirement in the UK every year, regardless of whether they want to continue working past the retirement age.

I was struck by comments from Neil Carberry, head of employment and pensions at the CBI, who said that getting rid of the mandatory retirement age would mean that the only way someone could be asked to leave was via a disciplinary process, which could mean "a very undignified end to some people's careers".

That's an interesting view and one I'm sure many in the HR community would have a view on.

You will remember Financial Times columnist Luke Johnson - he of the 'The truth about the HR department' article that caused such a stink among the profession at the start of the year.

He launched a scathing critique labelling human resources a "necessary evil", and a term "that should strike fear into the heart of every self-respecting entrepreneur". He even compared HR's power within an organisation to that of the CIA and the Israeli intelligence service Mossad.

Well, he's back, but his musings in last week's FT was something HR professionals should read for different set of reasons. The vast number of employment regulations are "an intolerable burden on the private sector", he says.

There was much drama in the air at Personnel Today's Best Places to Work in HR event last week (partly due, no doubt, to the fact that our second annual awards ceremony was held at Shakespeare's historic Globe Theatre).

So who would take centre stage as the overall winner? That was the question.

The focus was on great performances of the management kind rather than the acting kind. And HR fellows looked on in anticipation as the drama unfolded and Motability Operations was crowned overall winner of the Best Places to Work in HR 2008.

Last year's winner was a hard act to follow, but this year's event, in association with Courtenay HR, exceeded expectations and provided a much-needed, fantastic feel-good atmosphere, with a buzz of excitement running through the crowd.

It was time to forget about the economic doom and gloom and celebrate, as HR teams were rewarded and recognised by Personnel Today for being great at their 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.

An Employment Tribunal decision this month means that HR and occupational health practitioners need to be more on their guard than ever about employees who are suffering from stress, especially if the employee has reported their condition to the employer.

The key message from the decision in the appeal, made by the employer, in Dickins v O2  is that firms will not be able to rely on having an Employee Assistance Programme, or phone counselling helpline, as a defence if an employee claims damages for stress-related illness.

This appears to overturn a previous case, Hatton v Sutherland, which suggested an employee who offered an EAP was not in breach of its duty of care.

The antics of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross were enough for many papers to shift the economic crisis off the front page last week, but for the HR community the challenges persist.

Talking to senior HR professionals at Personnel Today's HR Directors Club event in Oxford last week, it is evident they are battening down the hatches for a full-blown recession. That is, apart from the HR director at one leading tea manufacturer. Tea is, apparently, the ultimate recession-proof product, with people likely to drink more cuppas as they tighten their belts and make cutbacks elsewhere.

For those of you currently tasting something a bit more bitter than tea, this week's Personnel Today has articles examining the real nitty-gritty of HR's job.

A survey of HR directors and business leaders by recruitment firm The MBS Group has produced what it calls 'Ten tactics for tough times'.

Those involved in the research were all at board or senior management level, within the retail, luxury, and consumer goods sectors. How useful these tactics actually are is open to debate, but they provide a useful barometer of the current thinking taking place in top firms.

Tactics For Tough Times

1. Ride the storm - preparing for difficult times but not currently planning large scale layoffs
2. See upside in downturn - the best business leaders see opportunities in turmoil
3. Show me the value - rapid response and appropriate price promotion are working for some
4. Pocket returns in pockets of growth - some sectors are positively booming, such as online, home entertainment and some luxury brands
5. Refocus on emerging markets - opportunities in Asia are attracting increased attention and investment whilst Europe and the US flounder
6. Keep up with customers - businesses must find a way to match or exceed customers' increasingly agile changes in behaviour
7. Hang on to talent - attracting the best talent is increasingly vital, but also becoming increasingly difficult
8. Empower your people - business leaders are recognising the value of experience, while also ensuring that their people have the right skills and training in place to survive and prepare for the upturn
9. Keep up morale - maintaining workforce morale will be a decisive benefit
10. Engage your staff - keep staff members on your side.

Is being a member of a political party like the BNP compatible with the role of an HR professional? That, essentially, is the question the HR community is grappling with after it emerged a CIPD member was named as a British National Party activist "keen to help with resource management", on a leaked list.

Several HR directors contacted by Personnel Today insist the answer to the question is 'no' - and the institute must toughen up and be prepared to take action against members who hold such extreme views.

But others we spoke to stopped short of calling for the individual to be expelled as a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and that freedom of political choice should not be curtailed.

It's fair to say that HR people know how to party - and this year's Personnel Today Awards was no exception. Celebrating HR's achievements was the only thing on the agenda for the evening, as HR danced away any worries of the year and enjoyed first-class entertainment at the Grosvenor House Hotel, on London's Park Lane.

By far the biggest and most respected awards in the industry, it was fantastic to see the 1,200 guests cheering on the very best in the HR profession at our 10th annual awards.

In these times of uncertainty, it's more important than ever to reward best practice, and for HR to be inspired by others in the profession. That was undoubtedly the case, as 14 HR teams were held up as true HR champions and rewarded for their hard work and all-important delivery of results.

My story about the CIPD member named as a BNP activist on a leaked membership list, which featured on the front page of Personnel Today this week, has got the forums and message boards buzzing.

The debate over whether the CIPD took the right stance towards this individual has been raging on Personnel Today's community forum HR Space, as well as the institute's own online forums.

It does raise the important issue of self regulation and what role a professional body should play. Professional regulation is seemingly low on the CIPD's agenda - there is not even a mention of it in its annual report.

The institute also refuses to disclose the number of disciplinary panels it has held in the past three years and the outcome of those. Back in 2005, my colleague Mark Crail, writing for IRS, came up against the same brick wall when posing a similar question.

Further evidence that the recession is hitting UK employers hard with the news that the number of businesses and employees seeking advice on redundancy, lay-offs and business transfers hit a high in November.

Figures released by Acas, the employment relations service, revealed almost a third (31%) of enquiries to its helpline in November were regarding redundancy, lay-offs and business transfers - a rise of 12% since May.

The service also said its website had received a sharp rise in the number people visiting pages containing guidance on redundancy issues - with more than 15,000 visits a week in November compared to 4,000 in May, a jump of nearly 300%.

Acas says that employers are most likely to ask about their legal responsibilities, consultation periods and how to decide which employees to make redundant. Common enquiries from employees include asking about their own notice period and redundancy pay levels.

Combine this with the news that demand for staff has hit a record low, then the outlook for the UK labour market is pretty bleak. And to think, we're not even technically in a recession yet...

How will the HR profession look back on 2008? For many it will be remembered as one of the toughest yet, as the global credit crunch hit the UK hard, affecting the day-to-day operations of UK employers and the day-to-day lives of their employees.

Skills secretary John Denham used Personnel Today's first issue of the year to call on employers to make 2008 'the year of skills'. In fact, you could say 2008 has been more like the year of redundancies, with training taking a back seat and many HR teams focused on keeping their organisation afloat.

No doubt many practitioners will look to their Christmas break as a well-deserved rest, somewhat battle-scared by the events of the previous 12 months. But when looking back at 2008 later in their careers, they may well reflect that this was the year they really proved their worth to the business and earned their stripes.

According to the human capital consulting firm Watson Wyatt, employers need to make sure employees are engaged and committed to their job despite the tough economic climate. Here are its 10 top tips for surviving the downward pressure on costs and falling profits - and for coming out the other side with success.

1. Focus on key talent
Focus limited resources on keeping and rewarding your key talent. These are the people you need most now to get you through the difficult times and later when the economy recovers.

2. Be careful what and who you cut
Don't make harmful short-term cuts. Conduct strategic workforce planning to understand your current and future talent requirements, and ensure your business has the necessary resources and skills for the upturn.

3. Ensure performance management is understood
Ensure your performance management process is effectively understood by your employees and delivered well by line management. It should not be seen as simply a process for identifying and culling underperformers, but instead as a way to raise performance throughout the organisation.

4. Don't abandon bonuses
Don't abandon performance pay and bonuses but instead target them on your top performers and refocus them on realistic but stretching targets that will promote the right behaviours in this new environment.

5. Review sales targets
Review sales targets and territory strategies to focus your sales force on the largest opportunities.

Good to see stories broken by Personnel Today being covered in our competitors, however reluctantly.

The latest issue of People Management (published on New Year's Day, no less) runs a letter from an HR professional having a pop at the magazine for not refering to the fact that a CIPD member appeared on the BNP membership list when it covered the story.

We broke the original story back in mid-November, which led to senior HR practitioners calling on the institute to toughen its stance as it refused to condemn the member or take any action against him.

People Management, you will recall, is produced on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and is sent to all CIPD members. So perhaps it's no great surprise that the publication neglected to mention that one of its paymaster's disciples was named as a member of the far-right party.

But by failing to do so, the magazine missed the whole point of the debate - HR practitioners were arguing the rights and wrongs of the CIPD's stance on various online networking forums - that was where the real story lay.

Such was the criticism in the most recent letter, that the CIPD actually felt compelled to respond with a statement, which is a lot more than it gave Personnel Today when we requested comment before and after the original story was published some six weeks before.

I'm not suggesting the CIPD is operating some kind of Pravda-style operation in its control of People Management, as I'm sure (kind of) that its journalists are free to write what they see fit. But the HR community should remember that content appearing in the CIPD's membership magazine will, invariably, lack true independence.

Top law firm Wragge & Co has written a very informative preview of what to expect in employment law for 2009. The preview is available on its website and covers the usual areas of interest to HR professionals: TUPE, redundancy, discipline and grievance, equal pay, the Equality Bill, flexible working and sickness absence.

And if that doesn't satisfy your thirst for what 2009 might bring in the legal landscape, then check out Personnel Today's guide to 'legal milestones' in the year ahead.

Wragge & Co has also published a review of 2008, which gives a succint reminder if the employment law cases and decisions that mattered last year.

New data from the CIPD shows the range of alternative policies some employers are pursuing as alternatives to redundancy.

With yet more job cuts announced this week, the report reveals half of employers have introduced recruitment freezes to offset the need to make redundancies, while 44% are terminating temporary or agency worker contracts to prevent shedding in-house staff.

One in seven (15%) have introduced short-term working - such as the scheme KPMG announced last week for its staff. Other measures employers say they are taking to help avoid redundancies include more use of flexible working (19%), cutting bonuses (17%) and wage cuts (7%). 

Personnel Today's front-page 'HR jobs slashed' headline last week sent shockwaves through the profession, along with news that HR recruitment had hit an all-time low. So you may be relieved that this week's contradictory news paints a somewhat brighter picture.

A survey by recruitment firm Robert Walters predicts that the HR jobs market is expected to hold up in 2009, "due to the growing prominence of HR in overall business strategy". It even predicts salary hikes for certain HR roles.

So while - as one leading director warned - "there is no place for HR people who are coasting", not all HR professionals should be in panic mode.

At the time of writing, Personnel Today's redundancy tracker - regularly updated on www.personneltoday.com  -  shows that over 90,000 UK jobs now face the chop. As more employers get pushed into this situation, it seems the basis for making redundancies is evolving from a person's role to that individual's approach to work.

Our front-page story this week brings you the reaction of experts and employment groups to law firm Speechly Bircham and King's College London's 'The State of HR' survey of HR managers, which found the profession is increasingly basing redundancy decisions on criteria such as absence , disciplinary history and performance assessments.

The CIPD has cautiously backed the trend, with senior public policy adviser Ben Willmott arguing that a 'holistic approach' to the issue can only be sensible. But Willmott, legal experts and a number of senior HR directors also strongly urge caution, as basing redundancy too heavily on any one factor can potential land employers in serious trouble.

The limits on payments and awards made to workers by employment tribunals in certain employment rights cases will rise from today (1 February).

The increased limits affect:
* statutory redundancy payments
* the basic and compensatory awards for unfair dismissal
* the limit on guarantee payment made when employees are not provided with work; and,
* the minimum basic award for unfair dismissal in health and safety and certain other cases.

From 1 February, the maximum weekly pay which can contribute to a redundancy lump sum will increase from £330 to £350.

The TUC believes the sum should be increased to £500 as it is still far lower in real terms than the original value of statutory redundancy pay when it was introduced in 1965.

Unfair dismissal awards are now capped at £66,200 - a rise of £3,200 from last year.

The BBC website is running a useful Q&A about some of the employment law issues the big freeze has thrown up. The article covers both the rights of employers and employees and includes questions about docking pay, health and safety and unpaid time off.

It's a fairly simplistic piece but worth a look.

Personnel Today also has legal content that might be useful to HR teams reading up on the legal questions posed by the adverse weather.

Legal Q&A: Time off for emergencies

Weekly Dilemma: Duvet Days

Legal Q&A: Safety at work

Legal Q&A: Driving hazards

Legal Q&A: Public transport delays

The UK's beleaguered workforce, having suffered the misery and disruption of last week's blizzards, now faces being hit by a double whammy of rapidly increasing job cuts and a squeeze on pay.

Quarterly CIPD research of employers' recruitment and redundancy plans, out this week, indicates that job prospects are deteriorating 'at an alarming rate' while the size of average pay rises is shrinking.

More than one in three employers plan to cut jobs in the first quarter of 2009 - double the proportion expecting to make cuts in the autumn. Those who plan pay reviews expect staff pay to increase on average by 2.6%, much lower than the 3.5% average increase reported by the previous survey. One in eight employers intend to freeze pay throughout 2009.  

The launch today of the long awaited 'Raising the Standard' programme, aimed at improving the quality of HR directors in local government, was something of a damp squib, its agenda dotted with absent speakers and unexpected changes.

Hertfordshire County Council's outgoing director of people and property, Alan Warner, a long-time champion of the project, was missing. As was Stephen Moir, president of the Public Sector People Managers' Association (PPMA).

Event host and one of the initiative's main contributors, the Improvement and Development Agency (I&DEA) saw its own numbers depleted, with director John Hayes arriving late enough to miss his speaking slot.

Firms cutting thousands of jobs is bad news for them and their workforce, but good news for HR consultancy Penna.

The group - which helps financial services and other blue chip firms manage redundancies - has boosted its profit forecast for the financial year.

In the four months to January 2009, Penna's career transition division - which provides outplacement services to recently sacked staff, such as CV workshops and career coaching - "significantly exceeded" the 39% growth it recorded in the previous six months.

Penna has even opened two new offices to deal with the demand of credit crunch casualties. With unemployment expected to hit three million by the end of the year, and the recession continuing deep into 2010, it could really be a boom time for Penna and its competitors.

The incredible pace of change is providing plenty of opportunities to set your HR team apart from others. Put simply, there are some HR departments out there who have risen to the challenge, have been managing change well and should be rewarded for it.

And carving out a niche of being 'architects of change' as companies look to HR to come up with innovative new ways of working could be a very smart move, as the demand for such professionals with an enviable track record grows, as shown in Personnel Today's HR career moves feature.

The survey last week of more than 2,000 UK civil servants that found that found that working long hours can reduce cognitive function and wellbeing,   worries me. I keep thinking about the likes of Margaret Thatcher who famously survived on three hours sleep a night. Then again, you might think that proves the point. But how does this finding fit with other research that suggests the more you use your brain, for example by doing sudoku,  the less chance you have of getting dementia?

Perhaps the answer isn't so much the hours that you work as the way you work and what you are working on. There is a view that working in sprints, rather than trying to go flat out is the answer. Try reading this article by Dr Wolfgang Seidl, who knows about these things.

Respected employment law barrister Daniel Barnett has put together a summary of the transitional arrangements that will apply to the long-awaited abolition of the statutory dismissal and grievance procedures.

The procedures are set to be scrapped on 6 April - much to the relief of the vast majority of HR professionals - and will be replaced by a beefed up Acas code of practice.

But, as ever with employment law, nothing is that simple and Barnett is warning that the unwary employer could be tripped up. Why are these things so complex?

Anyway, you can find the dispute resolution abolition summary here.

Seeing the 100 Best Companies to Work For glossy supplement in the Sunday Times yesterday, with the CIPD's logo plastered all over it, got me wondering how much they would have paid in sponsorship.

Not only do they get their logo in the supplement, but also an intro written by chief exec Jackie Orme, four display ads and sponsorship of a 'special award' for leadership.

This is the second consecutive year that the CIPD has sponsored the list, which employers of all sizes clamour to feature in. This year's number one big company is KPMG - although you would presume the voting was completed before its workforce had to move on to a four day week in order to save their jobs.

The sponsorship question is one that has been asked before by Nick Higgins on his HC Global blog last year. He dug into the murky area of government subsidies for Best Companies, the firm behind the list, and all the ramifications from that.

Personnel Today is on the hunt for opinionated junior HR professionals to be part of its new editorial advisory board.

Do you feel strongly about the new Equality Bill and its affect on the HR community? Do you have a view on bankers' bonuses, scrapping the default retirement age or tips on the best way to make people redundant?

We want readers who are working at HR manager level or below to put themselves forward and speak up about the issues that really matter to them in their day-to-day roles.

Campaign group The Age and Employment Network has analysed the most recent employment tribunal stats and found that the average compensation awarded by tribunals in successful age discrimination cases was £3,334.

According to the data, between 1 April 2007 and 31st March 2008 the employment tribunal service accepted 2,949 age discrimination claims - 1.6% of the total claims accepted. A substantial rise is predicted for 2008-09 and hundreds of age claims remain in the system awaiting a final decision in the Heyday case, meaning a further jump once that is settled.

Of the age claims accepted, 616 were withdrawn, 800 were successfully conciliated by Acas and 67 were struck out but not at a hearing. Just 56 age claims (or 3%) were successful at tribunal.

The Ban Bullying at Work campaign, which also encompasses a national awareness day held in November, is to be cancelled because of a lack of funding.

I received a letter from the organisers, the Andrea Adams Trust, citing a lack of sponsorship funding as the reason behind the decision. Up until now the trust has been the sole funder of the event, but that has now become "unsustainable". It seems lead supporters, which in past years have included Royal Mail, BA, government departments and the TUC, are unwilling to cough up any sponsorship cash.

The campaign office is closing as of the end of April and unless the trust "is successful in finding another source to provide leadership for this event, this national day will cease".

Chief exec Lyn Witheridge says £60,000 is needed to run the campaign, which culminates with Ban Bullying at Work Day on 7 November. Letters to supporters asking for cash have either gone unanswered or proved futile.

A report launched today - UK Healthy Work - Challenges and Opportunities to 2030 - shows that the ageing workforce will give employers challenges due to rising levels of health problems in the workplace.  There will be big increases in  diabetes, respiratory problems, mental illness and musculoskeletal problems such as bad backs. We will be older and sicker with, to give one example, an increase in heart disease of 11% in the working population which is a million workers.

I hate to be cynical but given that most members of company boards are 50-plus I wonder how concerned they will be about the state of the workforce long after they have retired to enjoy their generous pensions.  The serious point is that we need to be maximising the use of the workforce from this point on, for reasons of competitive advantage or quality as well as the dreaded age discrimination legislation.  This means more flexible working (some want to call it 'agile working') and better return on investment measurements on the benefits of promoting better health at work, and not just absence data.

• Employee engagement - more crucial than ever during uncertain times
• Leadership visibility - explaining tough decisions
• Pay and bonuses - simultaneous focus on both short and long-term
• Total reward - emphasising the benefits employees enjoy
• People metrics - dig into the stats to show HR adds value