Employees affected by travel chaos
April 19, 2010
It’s only the middle of April, and already British businesses have been affected by a second natural occurrence that has stopped countless employees from being able to work. As with the chaos caused by the heavy snow storms in February, many people are unable to get to work as they are stranded across the globe following the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
So what should employers do in terms of pay if they have employees that cannot return to work after their holidays? Legal advice is that an employee has a responsibility to get to work, and if they cannot, for whatever reason, then they will have to take annual leave out of their entitlement, or unpaid leave. This may seem quite harsh but considering many companies will have to pay overtime or will have another kind of financial penalty from the loss of staff attending work, it is reasonable to take this line and to do differently could set a precedent that could be difficult to go back on in the future.
Some employees may be able to claim for the losses to their pay through their travel insurance, but there seems to be a grey area at the moment over whether the ‘act of God’ clause will lead to many insurers not paying out for stranded travellers’ additional hotel costs, never mind loss of earnings.
Alternative actions could be to see whether employees can have access to work networks whilst stuck abroad (unlikely but possible in some cases) in order for them to be able to work, or if they could make the time up at weekends or evenings when they are back, to avoid losing pay or holidays.
Short term sick note measures to help control swine flu
July 9, 2009
Daily news reports have been keeping us updated on the dramatic spread of swine flu over the last few months. Each day thousands more people are being diagnosed, and increasing fatalities are also occurring where people with existing medical problems are contracting the virus. Because of the threat of the virus and its highly contagious nature, the government is considering ways to attempt to control the spread of swine flu.
One possibility that has been suggested by the Department of Health is to temporarily increase the number of weeks an employee can self-certify for sickness absence from one week to two, meaning they would not need to get a medical certificate (doctor’s note) from their GP until they had been off work for a fortnight. This measure would only be put in place for a period of six months, and the change would probably be introduced without any consultation period due to the emergency nature of the situation. The aim of the measure is to reduce the amount of time spent in GP surgeries, both from a resourcing point of view and to reduce the spread of the virus by concentrating a high number of people carrying it in one place whilst trying to get certification.
Of course, there are claims that this type of measure could encourage staff members to abuse the new rules and take more time off sick as they would not need to be certified, however organisations’ existing sickness absence management processes should be used to combat this issue in the same way they do for the current self-certification period. It has been well documented about the possible damages to business a full scale outbreak of swine flu could cause, and so any measure to reduce this risk is probably a positive step. Even so, organisations should be mindful of the risks swine flu could cause to their business and put in steps to react should an outbreak leave them with a reduced workforce, such as facilities for home working.
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.
M&S ‘whistleblower’ claims human rights
May 14, 2009
Not long ago I wrote about Margaret Haywood, the NHS worker who was struck off after filming a secret documentary for the BBC which highlighted the poor treatment of elderly patients at a Brighton Hospital (NHS case highlights whistleblowing legislation, 20th April). This was an interesting case because Haywood was described as a Whistleblower, but hadn’t actually been through a formal process to complain about any wrongdoing, which is required under whistleblowing legislation.
This week sees a similar case go to tribunal in London, following the sacking last year of Tony Goode, Customer Loyalty Manager at M&S, for leaking information to the media about planned cuts in redundancy payments. The retail giant viewed this as gross misconduct and dismissed him. Goode made an appeal, supported by his union the GMB, but was unsuccessful, however he did not stop there and has taken the case to the Central London Tribunal, with continued backing from the union.
Goode is also being labelled a ‘whistleblower’ in the media, but, as with the Haywood case, his actions do not actually fall under whistleblowing legislation, as indicated by an M&S spokesperson:
“Tony Goode deliberately leaked internal company information and made derogatory and speculative comments to the media. He did this despite there being a variety of other internal routes available to address his concerns, and very clear guidance on the handling of internal information.”
Goode is claiming that his dismissal was unfair because it breached his human rights. This will mean his freedom of expression, as described in the law:
“Everyone has the right of freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without inference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”
However, the Human Rights Act also says that this right can be subject to:
“formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”
So I think that Goode will struggle to rely on this piece of legislation to defend what he did and claim unfair dismissal. I will be really surprised if he wins his case, because no matter how disgruntled he, or any other employee was, about the proposed changes to the redundancy pay, this was an internal process and the first thing Goode should have done is raise a grievance about it, or, better still, organised a collective grievance, rather than go straight to the media. I will continue to watch the developments with interest!
McQualifications prove popular option for 2500 staff
May 13, 2009
Over a year ago there was a big news story about McDonalds being accredited to offer qualifications equivalent to an A Level (See McQualifications – the new A levels? 6th Feb 08) as well as Network Rail and Flybe. This development was designed to give young people the chance to gain work based skills that they could not get in the formal education system – such as a ‘basic shift manager’ diploma. The qualifications can be used as credits to help people to get onto higher education courses, although many of the more high level universities immediately criticised the qualifications as not being as rigorous academically as the traditional A level, and some even said that they would not accept the work-based qualifications as credits for entry onto their degree courses.
However, despite some of the negative points relating to the new qualifications, McDonalds have announced that 2,500 members of staff enrolled for their A level equivalent courses – which shows that a lot of people see credibility in the scheme, rather than showing the same snobbery as some university heads. Many of the applicants for the scheme were actually university graduates, that are looking for a practical element to their learning experience; which is what a lot of graduates seek after spending three or more years drowning in academia that can prove to be almost useless in the reality of the workplace. And at the moment this is an even more attractive proposition; with new graduates struggling to find work in the recession; as research has shown that graduate positions in 2009 have been cut by 17%. A friend of mine who lives in London has been affected by this; having graduated last year, he has still been unable to find a decent job and said that graduate recruitment London has reduced massively and is extremely competitive.
David Fairhurst, the head of HR at McDonalds, has said that one day he’d love to be able to offer degree level and even Phd courses in restaurant management, and I don’t think this is a completely unrealistic dream, since there are no university courses of this kind, and therefore a lack of opportunity to learn at the higher level within a lot of careers.
Will swine flu affect businesses?
April 29, 2009
The biggest news story at the moment is the outbreak of swine flu, which has killed almost 160 people in Mexico and has spread to other parts of the world including the USA and Europe. Two people are confirmed to have swine flu in the UK so far – a couple in Scotland who have just returned from their holiday in the popular Mexican resort of Cancun. Whilst the risk is said to be low for the rest of Britain at the moment, there is always the possibility of a spread of the virus to many people – and the last thing I heard on the radio on the way to work this morning was that the Government is going to send a leaflet about swine flu to every house in Britain, and is looking to order in a massive stockpile of protective face masks.
So, if the worst happened, what could this mean for businesses? With a contagious virus the way to avoid spreading it around is to stop people from having close contact with each other, but how do you achieve that in the workplace? Firstly, just getting to work could leave staff open to infection, as small enclosed spaces on public transport are perfect places for viruses to spread. Secondly, infections and viruses spread really easily within workplaces – as my organisation experienced over the winter when nearly everyone had some strain of the same cough/cold/flu illness.
So what can be done to prepare. It’s likely that in the event of a pandemic, the Government would advise employers to take as few risks with their staff as possible; which could include allowing them to stay at home. Here lies a problem for many companies; remember only a couple of months back when the heavy snowfall affected UK businesses because it caused chaos for the country’s travel networks and left many people unable to attend work or school? At the time a lot of organisations found that their business suffered because they did not have contingencies in place for staff not being able to get to work. Swine flu could potentially cause the same problem, and companies need to be mindful of this by having plans, such as home working and home network access, ready for if such an event were to occur.
Opt out of Working Time Directive survives again
April 3, 2009
There has been so much debate in recent months about the UK’s continuing fight against EU pressure to scrap the ability for UK workers to opt out of the 48 hours maximum working week. The Working Time Directive is a piece of legislation designed to ensure people do not work too much as this could affect their health and safety, and also covers the amount of holidays workers are entitled to. The UK, and 14 other EU countries have kept an opt-out option for their workers, which means that companies can have flexibility within their workforce to respond to different organisational needs, and for workers to have more choice if they wish to work longer and earn more.
In February I wrote about the argument being put forward by MPs and Union leaders which is that the opt-out is continuing to encourage the long hours culture that we have such a problem with in the UK. However the overriding feeling appears to be that the country should fight to keep the opt-out, and this is what Ministers have been doing in the European Parliament in Brussels this week.
On this occasion, the UK has managed to resist the pressure to drop the opt-out because negotiations between the council of ministers and MEPs failed to provide an agreement, with the main sticking point that neither side would budge on being staff on-call time (i.e. whether the time people spend on-call, e.g. over a weekend, should count towards the maximum number of hours worked in a week). Because no compromise could be reached, it looks like the opt-out will remain for the time being at least. Employment Relations Minister Pat McFadden said:
“We have said consistently that we would not give up the opt-out and we have delivered on that pledge,”
This decision will be welcomed by a lot of businesses that use the opt-out to manage different periods of business, and employees that rely on the income their overtime above the 48 hour limit provides. However Unions and a number of MPs that believe scrapping the opt out will help the county move away from a damaging long hours culture will be disappointed in the outcome of this weeks events in Europe.
Importance of culture in organisations highlighted in FSA review
March 30, 2009
How much does the culture of an organisation affect its success or failure? A review of global banking regulation by Lord Turner; the chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has highlighted that organisational culture and behaviours have a very big impact on the way a company operates.
The report has looked at many different areas of why banks across the world have collapsed or fallen into crisis; and also reviewed whether high salaries and huge bonuses, which have been the subject of high profile controversy in the media, can be to blame for the excessive risk taking that led to the credit crunch and subsequent recession. It was found that the remuneration practices that have been so heavily criticised could only be blamed for a small part of the problems that have occurred due to the way banks and other financial institutions have been run. According to the CIPD (in People Management Magazine):
“Many top executives of the banks that suffered huge losses during the financial crisis … were large shareholders in their firms – voluntarily and through the pay policies”
This shows that trying to stop similar risk taking occurring in future by linking reward to performance more clearly will not work on its own, as it did not stop it this time. The FSA review makes it clear that the culture of risk taking – and the behaviours that arise from this – were a major factor in the demise of the financial sector, and recommends that in the future HR has a big job in moulding the culture of these organisations to avoid a repeat of such failures.
The culture of an organisation is set and determined by the very top level management – and this is where HR should focus when looking to influence and develop organisational culture and behaviours. As the FSA review highlighted – sometimes HR may have to become unpopular by telling management things that are difficult to hear, as well as becoming more intrusive in departmental activities to ensure the appropriate culture is being developed. This is all part of the job, but it isn’t an easy part of working in HR, and is something many professionals struggle with – especially in organisations where HR does not have a formal role or recognition at senior or board level; however this is something HR must overcome, especially when the right culture can be the difference between the success or failure of a business.
Business telephone systems cause problems
March 13, 2009
In one of the workplaces I currently work in, we are very lucky to have the opportunity to be on a heavy recruitment drive despite the current economic climate.
At the moment, we are recruiting for more than ten positions across a range of departments, looking for people with all different skill sets. Although there are meant to be more than two million people currently out of work, all we want are ten people or so and they are proving so difficult to find - but that’s another story!
It seems that advertising, interviewing and recruiting the people is not the only problem though. Even in the lucky position of having found all these ten people, it seems that office space is also going to be a problem because of the business telephone system in place.
Business telephone systems and network ports are proving a problem. Our network administrator has told us - at the last minute too - that we haven’t got a sufficient number of ports in the rooms for the departments and as a result we either need to install a new business telephone system or move people around the building. HR is all fun and games today…
More jobs at risk as retail group goes into administration
March 11, 2009
It may not be long before we see more of our favourite high street shops closing down due to the recession. The latest retail group to go into administration is Mosaic. The group own a number of brands on the high street including Warehouse, Oasis and Karen Millen and the recent news means that thousands of jobs could be at risk.
Luckily, a number of the brands have been sold to Icelandic bank Kaupthing, Mosaic’s main creditor. Unfortunatly though, this is not the case for them all. Principles is one brand that that remains in administration whislt a buyer is sought. This is unfortunate news for Principles which has been a well known name on the high street for a while. Principles currently have 400 outlets and over 2,300 staff.
Mosaic group have been struggling with debt for a while, up to the amount of £400 million.