The Work Clinic

At a recent conference, Roffey Park Institute's director of research, Jo Hennessey, spoke of  enlightenment. While Roffey Park may in more traditional circles be regarded as a bit 'alternative', this wasn't the kind of enlightenment that involves the lotus position, incense or getting up at an ungodly hour to see the sun come up. Although they probably wouldn't rule out any of the above. 

Hennessey was referring, instead, to workplace enlightenment, which she defines as "An intense moment of clarity revealing your place in the world, often with transformational effects for individuals and their organisations". Enlightenment can be triggered by a difficult time or a personal challenge, exposure to learning and development, or by someone having the space and freedom to experiment.

Is enlightenment a 'nice to have' or a 'must have', particularly with a recession looming? While the benefits to the individual are evident (including, according to a Roffey Park survey, increased confidence, new perspectives, a greater sense of purpose and a resolve to take action), what impact will it have for their employer? The more cynical among us will point out that the enlightened individual is likely to up sticks and head off to new pastures, but there are three key benefits to the organisation.

First, enlightened individuals lead to more effective teams, with employees keen to take the lead and to push colleagues towards improved performance. Secondly, the enlightened individual is more likely to introduce change and better practice, on the back of the final benefit, their own improved performance.

But how does this translate to the bottom line? Is enlightenment a genuine opportunity for businesses and individuals, or just another trend designed to part employers from their hard-earned cash? And, if it really is worth encouraging, how should HR directors pitch the idea to their cynical, world-weary boards?

In the furore surrounding Apple's Steve Jobs taking six months off for health reasons, no one seems to have spared a thought for his employees. Everyone is busying themselves worrying about his absence's impact on share prices and Apple's Q1 results. But what of the people who joined Apple because of its charismatic leader?

As co-founder and chief executive of the company, Jobs has involved himself in Apple to an extraordinary degree, with input in everything from marketing to ideas for new products. And while his commitment and enthusiasm are commendable, does it make sense for a chief executive to be quite so involved?

This is not Jobs' first extended absence - he was successfully treated for pancreatic cancer in 2004 - and Apple's chief operating officer, Tim Cook, is more than capable of taking over the reigns, so analysts are confident that the day-to-day operations of the company will be unharmed.

But how do organisations keep staff engaged - and confident - when key people are absent for more than a few weeks? Should chief executives be persuaded to distance themselves from their employees? Consider the implications - staff who aren't entirely confident about the ongoing performance of the company, or the security of their own role. Employees who feel that the spark has gone, along with their boss.

Inevitably, HR will be left picking up the pieces - so what can be done to future proof an organisation and workforce against life without a leader?

Work Clinic today comes live - if slightly frostbitten - from the wilds of Surrey. And by day two of this enforced absence from the office, I will admit to a touch of cabin fever. While a certain level of civilisation remains (Starbucks, Sainsburys and the local newsagents) and I am warm and well-fed, I cannot physically get out of the small town where I live. But I am one of the lucky ones. I can work from home. I have a laptop and a phone, and I have remote access to my e-mail.

Not so for much of the rest of the working population - Mr Work Clinic included (he is on housework duty, instead). It rather begs the question 'Why?'. Why, why, why in this day and age don't all employers make provisions for staff (at least those whose jobs allow it) to work from home? Today the roads around this town are icy and treacherous - are organisations prepared to let their staff risk their lives because they, their employers, are bizarrely reluctant to facilitate remote working?

Yesterday, when the snow here was a good foot and a half deep, I stood and watched people trying to drive, because they felt that they absolutely had to get somewhere - more than likely their place of work. Isn't there something wrong with a society where we are willing to put work before our own health and wellbeing? Not to mention that of the emergency services staff who end up rescuing these idiots.

Most of us need to work - I admit that - and a lot of us actually enjoy working. But surely not to this ridiculous extent. And if employers are worrying about time and money lost when staff can't reach the office, then it's up to them to make sure that we can work from home. It's not a lot to ask, surely?

In the good old days, our senior colleagues would happily use company time for lighter hearted pursuits such as language lessons, shopping or occasionally even golf. But the credit crunch has bitten even their well-upholstered backsides and it looks as if they are finally using their working hours more productively - to job hunt.

According to research released today by executive jobs website, Experteer.co.uk, the busiest hour for online job searches is 3pm on a Thursday. 

The study of job searching trends across Europe found that most job hunters are using their mid-afternoon coffee breaks to scour the internet for job opportunities, with 3pm being the most popular time of day almost universally in Europe. Germany is the only country where most searching is done only slightly earlier, immediately after lunchtime at 2pm. In the UK, almost a quarter (24%) of job hunters look for jobs online after their lunch break, between 2pm and 4pm GMT.  The morning is consistently a quieter period across Europe, with only 17% searching between 9am and 11am GMT in the UK.

Peak day and time for searching for jobs according to country:

The study found that even in the economic downturn, job seekers prefer to keep their weekends free for personal time, with Saturdays and Sundays remaining the least popular days for job hunting across Europe. Less than one in five searches is done at weekends in the UK (15%), Germany (15%), France (18%) and Switzerland (18%), and less than a quarter in Italy (23%). Considerably fewer searches are also done on Fridays in all of the countries, suggesting job hunters are busy planning their weekends or tying off the working week.

Experteer's study has also found that executives in different European countries spend varying amounts of time online in each job hunting session. Job hunters in the UK tend to spend an average of 4 minutes on each session while those in Italy spend just less than 5 minutes searching for jobs online in each session. This also varies according to the time of year, with job hunters spending considerably less time searching at the end of the year.  Longer search time was recorded across Europe in Jan, suggesting job searchers are more active in looking for a chance in the New Year.

While this kind of research is all well and good, it does make me wonder why organisations are paying so little attention to what their employees are doing? Senior or not, they are not paid to job hunt on company time, Allowing them to do so is nothing short of a slap in the face to people who are actually spending their working hours doing their job.

After an Easter break where most of us have had at least some sunshine and fresh air, it has come as something of a blow to find ourselves back at our desks, particularly as the sun, no respecter of working hours, continues to shine. Worse still for those of us in urban areas, who may scarcely see a blade of grass from Monday to Friday.

So consider the lucky people who work at Chiswick Park, the West London office park designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership and developed by Stanhope. A survey has found that 85% of respondents believe that the physical environment of the park adds considerable value to their work life.

The park, which refers to those who work there - including employees of Starbucks, Paramount and Setanta - as 'guests', even has its own 'Enjoy-Work management team'. The team aims to help guests achieve work-life balance.

Henry Williams, director at Stanhope, says "The office buildings and surrounding environment have a major influence on an employee's well being, and consequently levels of performance. The survey has been running for three years and these results represent the most positive to date, which suggests that in the current climate the role of the workplace is more significant than ever."

This month has seen the arrival of a new City law firm, Maurice Turnor Gardner. Any launch is news these days but this more so than others, for it is a predominantly female firm. Founded by twenty three lawyers and support staff made redundant by Britain's fourth biggest law firm, Allen & Overy, the new firm took the unusual step of drafting the partnership agreement in the female voice. It says "Each member will devote her whole time and attention to the business during normal hours."

The practice will be run by Clare Maurice who, in 1985, became Allen & Overy's first woman partner. Richard Turnor, the only male partner, said that he and his colleagues would recruit both men and women, and that they do not have a specifically feminist agenda.

There has been much talk recently of women leaving the corporate world to set up their own companies. Is this, then, a move towards segregated businesses? Is working for a women-only firm really just a case of having thrown in the towel? Are women beginning to accept that they can't smash the glass ceiling? As senior women move on, younger colleagues will find themselves without role models and potential mentors. And if this is the case, how are companies to motivate younger women employees?

I still remember how aggrieved a friend was when 'Abbey National' became 'Abbey'. She didn't feel that a girl's name was appropriate for an august building society. I haven't asked her yet about the latest news - that Abbey is to become 'Santander', reflecting its Spanish ownership - but I doubt she will be impressed. If a customer is annoyed, how will an employee feel when their place of work is rebranded?

For many people, it's about more than just a name. It's about the identity and the ethos of the organisation. And if a company has spent years building up a brand and a culture, what happens when it suddenly disappears, or is swamped by another, stronger, identity? Abbey has been subsumed by a brand that while well known overseas, has little profile here - so how will staff react? There's the potential impact on recruitment, too - regardless of the economic situation, applicants will be looking for a strong employer brand.  What part should HR play in establishing the new corporate identity - and how?

According to the latest employment study from recruiters Badenoch & Clark, British managers are struggling to win the trust of their staff - one in six workers don't believe a word their employer says. 

Only 15% of the 1,005 respondents said they totally trusted their manager. One of the knock-on results of this mistrust is a ramping up of the office rumour-mill. One in four workers reported an increase in company gossip since the recession has taken hold - a figure that goes up to 49% amongst banking and finance professionals.

And there'a an interesting geographical split - almost a third (32%) of workers in the Midlands don't believe what their manager has to say.

Neil Wilson, managing director at Badenoch & Clark, says: "These figures should come as a wake up call to employers and managers throughout the country. There's currently significant effort being put in by many organisations to carefully control what is told to employees about business performance, but all of that is for nought unless there's an element of trust between employer and employee".

The CIPD's quarterly Employee Outlook Survey, published this week, has found that we are so worried about job security that we are staying put in jobs that we would happily have abandoned in a better economic climate.

Claire McCartney, talent and resourcing adviser at the CIPD, says:

"What is striking is the high proportion of people wanting to change sector or even change their line of work altogether. Concerns over job security and finding new work are prompting people to re-think their career aspirations and ambitions. This will also have a big impact on trends in the labour market".

While surveys like this are all well and good, the old cynic in me asks whether it was really necessary to go to such great effort and expense just to hear what we all already know, that we're too scared to move.

It's National Hug Your Boss Day today. Just the words 'hug your boss' make me want to cry, and I'm sure the effect on my boss is similar, if not worse.

Apparently, "Workers across the country are being asked to put their recession and job woes aside this month and take a moment to spread the love and improve their relationship with their employer on National Hug Your Boss Day."

Devised by online job board TipTopJob.com, National Hug Your Boss Day will ask employees across the UK to test the quality of their working relationship with their manager by asking them the all important "could you hug your boss" question.

Tiptop.com says that research shows that a company's progress is often hindered by poor relationships between managers and their staff, which coupled with an increase in recession redundancies, has seen a significant decline in staff morale and motivation.

I know I'm a bitter old cynic, but I find this sort of thing ridiculous. Surely a good working relationship between two adults doesn't require hugging. I can't decide whether to channel Victor Meldrew or Ebeneezer Scrooge. Bah humbug!

Research carried out by business psychologists Robertson Cooper has found that a quarter of 37,000 people surveyed have gone to work while ill. While presenteeism is a complex issue, a growing number of people feel compelled to turn up at the office when they are too ill to work, and should be at home.

The research also showed that:

• Only 50% of workers surveyed reported good health
• The remaining 50% described their health as 'alright' or 'poor'

• 26% took no sick leave at all over the last 3 months, regardless of their state of health

• 51% of those in the 'good health' group reported productivity of 90% or above, compared with only 38% in the 'alright or poor health group'

Professor Ivan Robertson, managing director at Robertson Cooper, said: "Presenteeism in the workplace has a number of causes, one of which is related to feelings of job insecurity. Recently, this is likely to have been inflamed as a result of the recession."

Robertson added: "To prevent presenteeism, managers should reward people for the work they deliver, not the hours they put in. Investing in the health and wellbeing of workers pays dividends in terms of improved employee engagement and productivity. And it delivers considerable savings over and above those caused by driving down absenteeism."

Robertson Cooper is calling for a national debate on how businesses can find the right balance between absenteeism and presenteeism.

Sequins, thigh-slapping, and innuendos aren't usually associated with professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), but it was high camp all the way at last night's panto.

Bizarrely, it was my first panto, so I approached it with some hesitance and not a little trepidation. But within 10 minutes I was singing along and within 20 I was shouting 'she's behind you' with the best of them.

And what a panto. Who knew that Cinderella sang Amy Winehouse numbers, that one of the seven dwarves was French (and one Welsh), or that Cinders' childhood nurse, Dame Doitall (pictured) had access to Madonna's wardrobe (namely the gold conical Jean-Paul Gaultier bra).

It had it all - familiar songs, sharp dance routines, great costumes, clever sets and gusto by the bucketful.

The only thing missing was a list of job titles on the programme - I would love to have known what those dwarves did for a living. Accountant, economist, auditor?

This was PwC's 24th panto season. And while the performers and stage-hands are all staff, the audience included 5,000 under 10-year-olds, drawn from inner city schools and charities across London.

I've already asked for an invitation for next year's ...