Flexible working makes healthier staff
February 17, 2010
Research has indicated that employees that are able to influence their own working hours are more likely to have good mental and physical health.
The study, carried out by researchers from the Cochrane Library looked at a number of studies carried out on 16,000 people, and found that people who had flexibility around their working hours may have better blood pressure and a healthier heart. Importantly, it was when the workers themselves controlled the flexibility that the positive health benefits could be seen – if the employer gave flexible working but controlled the hours, this was found to have no positive effect, or could even have a detrimental effect.
Although there has always been a belief in the general benefits of flexible working options, this study has now provided evidence that this is the case.
Last year the right to request flexible working was extended to parents of children up to the age of 16, following a review of the legislation. Whether this will ever be extended to all workers has been debated widely, however this is unlikely in the short term. What is clear, however, is the more flexible employers can be in relation to their employees’ working hours, the better the effect on the general wellbeing of their employees will be.
Engagement is key as we come out of recession
February 5, 2010
ACAS is publishing a discussion paper this month which is based on the MacLeod report carried out last year, which highlights four key areas or ‘enablers’ that are important in achieving high levels of employee engagement.
ACAS are highlighting employee engagement as something that should be a high priority for businesses as we prepare for a potential upturn in the economic climate, as engaged employees are more likely to remain with the business when more positive times arrive, and will be more motivated and committed to the aims of the business.
The four key enablers are:
- Leadership – Whether the organisation has a clear vision and where their role contributes to the overall purpose and aim of the company.
- Engaging managers – respectful attitudes, fairness, clear goals and expectations, encouragement of development and helpful feedback.
- Employee voice – how much employees feel that their opinions are listened to and taken on board by the company.
- Integrity – whether the organisation has a clear idea of its values and whether this is demonstrated throughout the company from top to bottom. This can create a stronger sense of trust in the business.
Ed Sweeney, ACAS Chairman said:
“There is plenty of evidence that suggests strong employee engagement can help boost the bottom line. Our advice to businesses is that by engaging properly with staff, organisations will put themselves in a better position to emerge from the recession in a healthy position.”
This is one of the most important objectives for HR and management teams this year, as organisations will need engaged and motivated staff once the economy starts to turn around. A good place to start with this is to measure the current levels of engagement in the business by carrying out a staff consultation or survey around the above themes.
Spiritual intelligence – the next generation
October 8, 2009
I read a really interesting article the other day about ‘Generation Y’ employees, and what they are seeking in their jobs or careers, in comparison to Generation X employees or the ‘Baby Boomers’ before them. Generation Y employees are generally considered to be those born in the 1980s and 1990s. The article looked at the concepts of our intellectual intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ) as a continuum which has evolved and become more relevant to later generations of workers. For past generations, like the baby boomers, IQ was all important, but as generation X came along, the importance of EQ rose as the need to make effective relationships at work became as vital to workers’ success as the intelligence to carry out the work. Now, the article argued, the new generation of workers is developing a third level of this concept, which relates to their need to contribute to their social surroundings and maintain a sense of purpose in what they are doing. SQ is:
“the intelligence with which we address and solve problems of meaning and value and through which we assess whether one course of action or one life-path is more meaningful that another”
The author talked about young graduates who had told him that they wanted some experience in the private sector before taking their commercial experience to work for a charity, which would provide them with the opportunity to fulfil their spiritual intelligence as well as their IQ and EQ. This is quite an overt example, but I think a lot of people do not need to take such direct paths to social contribution to achieve some kind of SQ.
SQ can be fulfilled within most organisations for a lot of employees, as it could come down to how the employee feels about what their company does and its impact upon its customers as well as the wider society. It is about helping employees to define their personal values and working out where they align to the aims and values of the organisation. For example, does the organisation produce products or deliver services that are a genuine benefit to the customer? This may sound like a strange thing to say, but I recently interviewed someone for a sales role whose present company was selling debt solutions to unwitting customers that did not really need them – the candidate’s SQ was virtually non-existent. I think that the employee’s impact on society can be at a very basic level such as ‘are we an ethical provider?’ regardless of what the service is, and still have an effect on their spiritual intelligence.
An important factor in this is the communication mechanisms within organisations. Does the company shout about its positive impact on customers (successes, case studies) or society (environmental policies, corporate social responsibility practices)? Or is it the case, as in many organisations, that the positives are there but employees are left to wallow in the negative issues without being given a balanced viewpoint of how the company is doing ‘socially’? A difficult question could be ‘how do you address the SQ of your employees that work in the customer complaints department?’ These are the considerations within organisations in relation to SQ that I think come way before considerations of a direct link between employees and their contribution to society.
Staff retention is not any easier during recession
July 27, 2009
Due to the uncertainty surrounding the economy, and therefore job security and the labour market, it is likely that employees are not as mobile as usual in most organisations. Some employers may be thinking that they don’t have to worry about staff retention at the moment because there aren’t as many opportunities out in the wider world to entice their employees away, and the relative security they can offer their employees versus another job they may move on to will help to keep people at the company whilst the uncertainty over the economic stability of the country continues.
However, whilst the flow of employees into and out of the company may be slower than usual just now, employers need to be warned that if they do not keep their eye on employee retention issues, the outward flow may suddenly turn into a torrent once the economy improves and the labour market frees up again. When this will happen, nobody knows for sure, but what is certain that it will eventually take place and the last thing companies need when they are emerging from economic instability and getting ready to take advantage of improved market conditions, is a mass exodus of their most talented staff. This is certain to happen if employers become too complacent with their approach to staff retention. On top of this, despite the labour market being slow at the moment, there are still jobs available, and if your employees really want to move on now, the really talented ones; the ones you really want to retain; will be able to find a new position even in the recession.
Recent CIPD research, carried out on 3,000 employees found that 34% of respondents would ideally like to change jobs, although most were planning to stay put for the near future due to difficulties in the labour market. Many people involved in the survey, which was carried out by YouGov, were actually planning to change sector or career altogether once the economic crisis ends. An advisor from the CIPD said:
“the poor state of the labour market is acting like a dam holding back the normal flow of talent”
Employers that wish to keep their staff during and after the recession must continue to listen to the needs, ideas and concerns of their workforce through formal and informal consultation methods, and line management has a massive role in maintaining the loyalty, commitment and enthusiasm of their teams through assisting them in working towards career goals and development needs. Loyalty is a two-way street and employees need to know that they have a bright future with the company, otherwise they will pursue other avenues to achieve their aspirations and find job satisfaction.
Employee engagment - crucial for recession survival
July 20, 2009
A government report has highlighted the vital role of employee engagement in helping UK businesses to survive the recession and prosper afterwards. The MacLeod Review, by David MacLeod, states that employee engagement could be more important than ‘almost anything else’ in improving business success through the difficult economic times. The review is based on research carried out with hundreds of employers, and found that whilst some organisations are displaying signs of good engagement activity, a lot of improvements could still be made. The report did not recommend legislative involvement in the action plan, but did recommend a national awareness campaign and a group of industry leaders to increase awareness and understanding of engagement.
Employee engagement will have a direct effect on business success at any time, but at the moment this is more critical than ever because businesses are having to work a lot harder and perform better than ever to maintain their position in the turbulent markets. This is also a time where employees are feeling insecure, less trusting of their company, or may even have ill feeling towards their employer following difficult restructures or redundancy programmes. Employees that are harbouring these feelings are less inclined or in some cases less capable to go the extra mile and perform at a high level for their employer, because their personal motivation and engagement levels have dropped so significantly.
Engagement can simply be described as making sure employees feel involved in and excited by their work. There are many different facets of employment that lead to job satisfaction and engagement, and individual engagement will be brought on by a combination of all of them. Some aspects that will affect this are:
- feeling fairly paid for what you do
- having a benefits package that suits your needs and lifestyle
- having a job that you enjoy and understand exactly where it fits into the organisational objectives
- being treated with respect by your colleagues and managers
- being given clear and constructive feedback
- having a manageable workload
- having a sense of shared values with the organisation
I could go on forever, which shows that one simple action from HR or the management team will not lead to fantastic engagement for the whole workforce. Keeping employees engaged can be hard work and it is often a very individual matter. This is why it is my opinion that line managers have a really big job in maintaining employee engagement within their teams. Staff surveys and consultation exercises can be a good way to measure overall engagement and give the organisation some ideas about projects that can be carried out, but it is on an individual level that engagement will be built successfully. A really good exercise for HR teams at the moment is therefore developing management capability to enable them to manage engagement themselves and see the benefit they can add by getting it right.
More trouble at Lindsey!
June 19, 2009
After large-scale walkouts at the Lindsey Oil Refinery and other supporting plants earlier in the year, more trouble has now broken out which has led to the dismissal of nine hundred construction contractors for illegal and unofficial industrial action.
Walkouts took place this week at the oil refinery in protest of 51 redundancies which were carried out as a piece of work had been completed on a construction project taking place at the site. Workers argue that this breaks an agreement between the plant owner Total and workers that no redundancies would be made at the site whilst foreign workers still work there. The company denies this agreement was made.
Because the strikes were not supported by the Unions GMB and Unite, this makes them unofficial and the people taking part therefore have no right to protection under Trade Union legislation. They lose the right to protection from dismissal for 12 weeks for participating in industrial action because they did not follow the important rules in relation to strikes – including that it is validated by the union and a proper ballot has been held. Therefore 900 workers taking part in the strike have been sacked, as announced in a Total statement:
“Total can confirm, with regret, that our contractors have now started the process of ending the current employment contracts for their workforce on the HDS-3 construction project,”
Lots of ‘sympathy’ strikes have taken place at sites in Yorkshire, Cheshire, Nottinghamshire and South Wales – which are estimated to involve up to 2000 people. These strikes are not official either but what will happen to those workers, it remains to be seen.
Tackling stress – you don’t need bean bags and whale music!
May 29, 2009
It’s well known that during the current difficult economic times, stress levels in organisations are increasing as workers are required to put in longer hours, with fewer breaks, and are often taking on tasks that were not previously part of their remit due to staffing cuts and reorganisations. Organisations that are looking to save in the short term could lose out in the long term if they fail to recognise the causes of stress and manage them effectively; as work related stress can cause a huge amount of illness and absence within the workforce, as well as having a detrimental effect on productivity, which is the last thing companies need in this situation.
There are many ways to reduce stress in the workplace, and most of them don’t cost loads of money or time. Being clever and realistic with what needs to be achieved will go a long way to making sure the required job is done without making workers ill or totally demoralised. Being clear with objectives and giving specific timescales for completion will ensure employees are focussed on the task rather than risking ‘headless chicken’ syndrome. It is even possible to get employees to give longer hours to the company for short periods of time without turning the job into a stress-nightmare, as long as there is a positive reason for the need for longer hours and the objectives of the work in question are clear and timed.
Ensuring employees take breaks is really important if the company needs productivity and enthusiasm to be high. I am one of the world’s worst culprits for not taking breaks, and really it doesn’t get me anywhere because the time I spend working through the break can often be lost in the afternoon if I am lacking in concentration due to staring at a screen for too long, or lacking in energy from not having anything to eat. Many companies unwittingly develop a culture in which taking a break is seen as a lazy thing to do and staff can feel fearful of getting a drink or taking a short walk, but this culture is counter-productive in the long run. Companies that have a specified break area are probably more likely to get staff taking time away from their work – and it doesn’t have to be a really fancy area with bean bag chairs, tropical fish and whale music! Just an opportunity to escape, have a chat to a friend and a cup of tea will refresh the mind and allow the employee to re-focus on what they’re doing for the next part of the day.
What’s your organisation like for stress? Do you have clear objectives and time for breaks, or are you suffering the effects of stress as a result of increased pressures in the organisation?
Team building events
March 27, 2009
Many organisations at the moment are feeling the negative effects of an economy in recession within their workforce; there may be a sense of worry, or panic, if the company is struggling to make money, or depression if there have been countless waves of redundancies, benefit and training reductions, or other necessary cost cutting exercises that have had an effect on the morale within the company. So the organisation has done all it can to weather the financial storm; and what it needs now is an injection of enthusiasm, drive and above all positivity, otherwise the business is not going to continue to survive in the face of the recession, and more negative activities will become inevitable. So what are companies doing to boost morale, encourage the kind of team spirit that drove the company before the credit crunch struck, and increase their chances of survival through improving the behaviours of their staff?
One option is a company event; such as a day out or even an overnight event. This might sound like a strange idea given the need for most companies to cut costs at the moment; but it needn’t be an expensive activity to plan. There are loads of free and low cost activities to do across the country, and there may be untapped creativity within the company that can be channelled into a really positive event. In a previous role of mine, one of the major activities for me each year was to plan and implement a two day team building event for all staff, and the budget was always very tight. Staff would always request activities such as rock climbing or canoeing, but the budget just didn’t stretch to that, and I also felt that these were not the sort of activities that would encourage team and employee interaction. Activities in the trips ranged from working in teams to create a live advertisement for one of the company’s services (for some reason most teams went down the superhero route – you wouldn’t think there would be so many men willing to wear knickers over tights and a makeshift cape!), to complex puzzles in which the only way to solve the mystery was for each team member to take a section each and then really work together and listen to each other to get to the answer. The accommodation was really cheap and we even had a function band for evening entertainment that was made up of a group of employees.
Other cheap activities could include orienteering if you have a lot of employees that like the outdoors (there are lots of ready-made courses in national parks or country parks) or something more creative if you have more arty types; such as re-creating a famous piece of art with a varied range of materials. The old saying of ‘thinking outside the box’ was never more appropriate than for this kind of activity.
There’s so much scope for a morale-boosting event for staff; and even if it doesn’t cost a lot it shows the organisation that whilst times are tough, and finances are tight, the need for a strong team of people that work well together and are enthusiastic about what they do is still really important within the business.
25 years after the miners’ strike (2)
March 4, 2009
… continued from yesterday’s post 25 years after the miners’ strike (1)
We often see footage from the time of violent clashes between strikers and the police, or depictions of this in TV programmes and Film. This violence was initially between the workers picketing at pits and local police forces, such as the clash at Orgreave in South Yorkshire in June 1984, where 5,000 miners intending to stop lorries carrying coke leaving the site (they did not succeed), met 5,000 police officers carrying batons and riot shields. Later on in the year-long strike there were clashes on the picket line when miners started to return to work at the end of 1984 because of the hardship caused by not earning a wage for months on end. Soup kitchens were opened to help many families who could not afford to feed themselves, and food donations became commonplace.
In March 1985 the strike finally ended as the NUM gave in and voted to call it off, and history was made:
“From 1985 onwards the pit closure programme picked up speed. Margaret Thatcher had taken on the strongest union in the land and won” (BBC)
These days Trade Unionism has a very different face, with many of the traditionally unionised industries in decline, and the majority of union members are now in the public sector. Whilst we have seen quite a lot of industrial action in the last year or so, gone are the days of flying pickets, although we did recently see ‘sympathetic’ industrial action with a number of oil refineries staging unofficial strikes in support of the Lindsey Refinery’s foreign worker dispute; although this support action (i.e. not directly related to the workplace where it takes place) is not lawful under current legislation.
25 years after the miners’ strike (1)
March 3, 2009
There’s a lot in the media at the moment about the 25 year anniversary of one of the most memorable events in the history of industrial action in the UK. The national miners’ strike began in March 1984 and lasted for a whole year. The strike started after the Government announced plans to close around 20 pits across the country, because they were no longer considered economical. This would see the loss of 20,000 miners’ jobs. The first pit to see a walkout was Cortonwood near Barnsley, followed by many more and by the middle of March half the 187,000 miners in the country had joined the strike.
The miners strike turned into a bitter battle between Margaret Thatcher’s Government, which was changing the economic outlook of the country and taking a more hands-off approach to industry, and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), led by the infamous Arthur Scargill; described as:
a ‘fiery Marxist Yorskshireman’
The aim of the miners’ strike was to bring the country’s energy supply to a standstill in order to gain bargaining power with the Government, but this could not happen as anticipated because Thatcher had ensured large stocks of coal were kept aside at sites across the country before the strike took place.
This was in the years before the 1992 legislation on lawful industrial action: the Trade Union and Labour Relations (consolidation) Act, and there were different rules relating to industrial action which meant that ‘flying pickets’ were sent all over the country to different collieries, to persuade miners to not go to work. Another key factor in the events was that a ballot had been taken in 1981 in Yorkshire, where NUM members voted to walk out in support of any pit that was threatened with closure. This meant that when the strikes started in 1984, the NUM could argue that the decision for national walkouts in support of the mines under threat of closure had already been balloted.
… continues tomorrow.