More unemployment misery on the way, report suggests
July 2, 2008
It’s quite depressing working in HR for lots of professionals at the moment. Nearly every day there’s more news about mass redundancies in many different industries, and lots of industrial disputes on top of that as well.
Now, a report by OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) suggests that in the next two years the number of people unemployed across the world will reach around 35 million, with 1.8 million expected in the UK. This is of course due to the credit crunch that started in the US and the global economic slowdown which is now affecting many of the world’s wealthiest countries.
Earlier in the year it was predicted that the key skills for many HR practitioners this year would be handling redundancies and managing large scale change, and also that recruitment for HR roles was expected to increase as many companies would need the extra support in handling the mass dismissal process. So it seems that whilst the dire economic situation continues, there will hopefully continue to be employment for many HR practitioners, although admittedly in a quite difficult and sometimes depressing role. I spoke to a friend at the weekend who is on notice of redundancy, and he said the HR Advisor at his company is finding it very difficult to deal with, having spent years working with people she came to regard as friends and now sending them notice of dismissal for redundancy. For her there is the additional blow that she is also losing her employment, and actually posted herself a redundancy notice last week!
Managing these processes is very difficult for HR practitioners, as on top of sensitively managing the dismissals of many, there is a need to ensure the ‘survivors’ are not neglected and kept motivated throughout.
Is anyone going through this process at the moment? If so, how are you finding it and what are you doing to make the process as painless as possible for those involved?
Train staff in data protection!
July 1, 2008
It has been found that ‘cultural’ failures at HM Revenue and Customs caused last year’s fiasco over the loss of millions of child benefit records. An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) found that because junior staff were not effectively trained in data protection issues, they did not know how to properly look after the information they held, and sent CDs containing the information through the post, which was then lost.
This is a major embarrassment for the Government. When the incident happened last year, a junior civil servant was blamed, and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor said that the individual had failed to follow HMRC security procedures. This has now proved to be incorrect by the IPCC, who say that junior staff could not be held accountable for something they had not been properly trained in, and the inquiry has also found that a junior member of staff actually asked if it was ok to send personal information in the post but was ignored! Oh dear…
If there was ever any doubt over the need for effective processes and staff training in relation to data protection issues, this incident should crush it straight away. When I first heard this story my first thought was ‘isn’t it just common sense to keep that sort of information safe?’ However as the incident where the junior member of staff was ignored shows, the processes and training can sometimes be more about senior management leading the way and actually showing junior members of staff the correct way to manage systems (and not cut corners), than simply giving staff the skills and knowledge they need in their roles.