Virgin Media plans huge job cuts!
November 11, 2008
The economic downturn has seen many employees being made redundant and unfortunately for staff at Virgin Media there are going to be big cuts in the organisation. The firm are looking to make at least 2,200 job cuts by 2012. This is almost 15% of it’s workforce and is all being done as part of a group-wide overhaul.
Virgin Media are not going to start the redundancy procedures until the fourth quarter of next year and are also hoping to place staff in alternative roles where possible throughout the company.
Neil Berkett, the Chief Executive of the firm has said:
“These changes are critical to ensuring Virgin Media is positioned to compete effectively and deliver on our customers’ changing expectations. We recognise that this brings with it significant uncertainty for our people and the communities where they work”
The company won a deal earlier this month to delay its debt repayments which means they have until 2012 to pay back £4.3bn worth of loans.
2,200 redundancies is a massive procedure in any company and obviously not a very nice issue to deal with. With 76 offices located all over the UK i feel sorry for the HR department and even more sorry for the soon to be jobless employees.
Racism still evident in the NHS
November 7, 2008
A survey carried out by the Health Service Journal (HSJ) on every Primary Care Trust and NHS Trust in England has shown that racism is still very much alive in the NHS. The analysis of employment relations statistics, as well as recruitment and labour data has identified some very worrying findings.
231 organisations were involved in the survey, and the results showed that 16% of the workforce is made up of employees from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, yet BME staff are ‘grossly under-represented among senior management’, and are also involved in more than twice as many bullying and harassment cases, and capability meetings.
This is depressing news. In a week where history was made in the USA with the election of a black President, the fact that there are still barriers to BME employees in one of the UK’s biggest and most prevalent organisations is extremely disconcerting. It shows that the UK still has a long way to go in the process of changing attitudes and working processes if Government ideals and aims are to be achieved.
If you want to read more about the survey, and some of the responses from HSJ readers, click here.
Preventative absence management
November 6, 2008
I was chatting to my friend the other day and she was having an absence problem with one of the new employees she manages. The employee had been absent through illness for around 40% of the time they had been employed, for a number of different reasons. However the employee was performing really well when they were in work, so my friend was reluctant to dismiss them, even though they were in the very first stages of their probationary period.
My friend was convinced that the problem with the employee was that they did not look after themselves properly. The person had been told by the doctor that they had a low immune system and this was probably contributing to their seemingly endless stream of chest and throat infections, but my friend knew the employee was out partying most weekends and could see their poor diet every day in the office.
I think this is a really interesting subject, and there has been a lot of coverage in the HR world about well-being and wellness as an alternative and proactive approach to sickness absence management, as opposed to the reactive monitoring and management techniques such as return to work interviews. I found a really interesting article on the People Management website from a while back which commented that clearly the numerous new ideas that companies are implementing such as in house relaxation and healthy eating campaigns are not having a massive effect on sickness absence rates. The article suggested that as with most new policies and procedures, having something available is a world away from actually seeing habits change and policies being implemented. The key thing is encouraging employees to take responsibility for their own health and well-being, and also to give them the possibility of doing so. This means managing employees in a way that stress is reduced, they are able to take breaks when needed and are able to access refreshment when required.
The notion of ‘self-care’ in and out of the workplace is based on building individual capability and responsibility for the choices in lifestyle, diet and exercise. There are many channels through which this can be built – such as performance management structures, staff and team meetings, introducing the ideas at induction stage, and through existing communication channels such as a company intranet or notice board. This should certainly form part of return to work interviews, which is what my friend actually did with her employee. The discussion covered the employee’s lifestyle and diet habits, and how this could be affecting their health. My friend also made it clear that this was important because the employee risked losing their job due to excessive absence, and so far the discussion seems to have worked, although it’s early days yet.
Employee absence can be managed in so many different ways; some are procedural and fall into the ‘monitoring’ class of techniques. Others are more preventative, and if organisations can encourage their employees to take more responsibility for their own well-being, this is a positive addition to the range of absence management techniques already utilised. With a complex subject such as sickness absence, I think the more approaches adopted, the better the outcome will be.
Is your office secure?
November 5, 2008
HR have a massive part to play in making sure that the organisation they work for complies to the Data Protection Act.
With the numerous draws and cupboards full of confidential employee information it is extremely important to make sure that this is kept secure.
The act states that anyone who possesses personal information must comply with 8 principles. These are:
- Fairly and lawfully possessed
- Obtained and used for limited purposes
- Adequate, Relevant and not excessive
- Accurate and kept up to date
- Kept for no longer than necessary
- Processed in accordance with your rights
- Secure
- Not transferred to other countries without protection
Keeping information secure is just as important as keeping the building that information is stored in secure! Imagine if your office got broken into? Are your employees details in a locked cupboard or filing cabinet? If not then anyone could get hold of this information.
Making sure you have a secure office is vital and should be reviewed on a regular basis. Adding cameras, security grilles and alarms is key!
When employees start with your organisation, they will expect that all their personal information and data is kept secure. If this is not the case it could lead to a number of different problems such as identify theft.
From business to education
November 3, 2008
A while back I wrote about a scheme called Transition to Teaching, which looks to unite the business and education communities to hopefully increase the numbers of new teachers by helping business managers and employees make the transition from their existing roles into teaching positions through training and qualifications.
Today brings news that many people who are facing redundancy or have already lost their jobs in the economic downturn are looking to move into the teaching profession. Lifelong Learning UK, the sector skills council has seen a staggering 41% increase in enquiries about teacher training courses.
With the ever present threat of job losses, many people are now thinking about career changes, and it seems that education is one of the popular choices for a fresh start. Lifelong Learning UK has a scheme called Make a Difference, which encourages business managers to look at alternative management roles in the education sector. I think this is a really good scheme, as it’s good to mix management experience from different sector backgrounds, so employing people experienced in varied business environments will add value to the education sector through different perspectives, ideas and skills. The scheme also allows people to have a change in career and move to an organisation in which they feel they can ‘make a difference’ without having to radically re-train, which might put some people off a career change.
I really believe that education should be at least partly delivered by people who have had experience in the ‘real’ business world, especially in further and higher education, as it adds a more realistic dimension to the learning that takes place. So if the recession means that more business people make the move from business to education, then providing those people have a genuine desire to be there and to make that difference, this is perhaps one positive outcome of the economic mess we’re in.