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Forecasts and fears

Daniel Defoe published his Journal of the Plague Year more than 300 years ago, a novel aiming to highlight the lessons learned after last major plague to strike London until 2020.

Defoe was also the originator of the phrase later used by Roosevelt, that ‘fear of danger (and acting in response to it) is more terrifying than the danger itself’. Listen to Roosevelt’s electrifying inauguration speech in 1933 and his announcement of the ‘needed efforts to convert retreat into advance’, with his forward-looking New Deal investments to address the ‘common difficulties of existence’ of tens of millions of Americans.

We face not dissimilar challenges, as a society and as employers and HR and reward professionals today, working out just how to escape from this economic and health Armageddon. So just what have we learned over the past year and what should we be planning ahead for in the next in UK employment and reward management? What’s the right balance ahead of an understandable sigh and ‘retreat’ to the pre-pandemic situation versus an ambitious ‘advance’ to a ‘new normal’?

Covid contexts and choices

Your initial impression might well be that our 2020/21 version of the plague and Great Depression combined is not generally going to be good news for pay and rewards in the UK; and you would be correct of course. As Forbes magazine noted in its end of year edition, ‘The past year brought a combination of challenges that nobody could have anticipated: A global pandemic, a wounded economy, and a reckoning over racial injustice – and that was all before July!’

Despite the denial of any repeat of post-2008 austerity, the Chancellor on November 25^th announced a ‘pay pause’ for the majority of the 5.5 million public sector workforce in order to help to start to address the £2 trillion debt-burden induced by the pandemic. Interestingly, he described it as ‘fair’ given what is happening in the private sector, although his political opponents labelled it as ‘morally obscene’. The TUC called the chancellor’s action ‘a “kick in the teeth” to all key workers who had kept the country going through the coronavirus crisis.

I argue in my forthcoming longer paper on this topic that 2021 represents a critical pivot and decision point for governments, employers and HR leaders: do we move forward with new and fairer reward strategies, or revert to tired failing ones? Do we pursue investment or austerity, practice compassion and collectivism or continue to incentivise individualism and inequality? The choice and change is ours to make.

‘All in this together?’ The plague of inequality

Covid-19 has turned out not to be the equivalent of ‘the great leveler’ that Defoe refers to. It has intensified the UK’s already deepening social, health and income inequalities.

The House of Commons Women and Equality Committee inquiry on the unequal impact of the pandemic, demonstrates conclusively that female and ethnic minority employees have been disproportionately badly affected, health and wealth-wise. According to the ONS the risk of death involving COVID-19 for people of Black ethnic background of all ages was two times greater for men and 1.4 times greater for women, compared with those of White ethnic background. Meanwhile, the UCL Institute of Health Equity’s  The COVID-19 Marmot Review concluded that ‘the more deprived the area, the higher the mortality rate’ from Covid.

Sir Michael Marmot’s conclusion and answer to Roosevelt’s ‘retreat or advance’ choice is unequivocal: ‘the “normal” that existed in February 2020 is not acceptable. The Covid-19 pandemic must be taken as an opportunity to build a fairer society’. His latest report is subtitled Build Back Fairer.

Employment and reward policy choices: retreat or advance, back to ‘normal’ or build back fairer?

So what does a ‘new normal’ involve, what are the key features of a more collaborative, equitable and caring employer rewards model that many of us seek?

I would suggest attention to five key areas where I hope to see a significant spotlight focused by the end of 2021:

1. A return to ‘fair’ pay and reward policies and the re-design of executive reward packages.
2. Rediscovering the value of investing in pay, skills and pay progression.
3. More collective bonus plans, profit sharing and sharing in success. 
4. Benefits changes: More hybrid and shared-risk pension and benefits plans cush as CDC schemes.

5. Benefits changes: Greater attention to employee’s mental health and financial wellbeing, moving beyond the traditional EAP.

Conclusions

‘Tough’. That’s how a client summarised his past year in one word, personally and professionally, financially and emotionally, as a result of Covid-19. Economically, the toughest times since the Great Frost of 1708; health-wise probably the worst since Defoe’s-documented great plague 14 years later.

I would not question nor underestimate the continuing difficulties of doing anything beyond reacting to the immediate needs of this current horrendous situation occasioned by Covid-19^th; nor the need to ensure the affordability of any reward improvements and changes in an organisation. Intervention by the state has been essential to the survival of many employers and individuals; and further huge government investments and actions will be needed.

But that is one of the major learning points of the pandemic – these are investments. The research record on human capital investments is unequivocally positive that they pay off: for the individual, the employer and society.

I believe that a stronger emphasis on fair, collective and compassionate reward policies and practices in our pay and rewards policies in future would be a justified and highly beneficial outcome from the horror of Covid-19.

Yes, government needs to act to address the gaping holes exposed by the pandemic in the UK’s supposed safety-net of welfare provisions and health and safety and employment protections. But we all have agency here too, we have choices. We all will need to have the courage to act – to advocate, to invest, to make that happen, if we are not to let the tough learning from this crisis go to waste. I very much want to see the opportunity taken for a ‘new new normal’ to emerge; and we need to address and advise on these bigger questions as an HR community. 

 

Dr Duncan Brown is a member of the IPA Executive Committee

As the practice of internal coaching and mentoring becomes increasingly popular across sectors, trade unions have an edge, with mentoring hard wired into the movement.  Building the capacity of branches through mentoring workplace representatives is a key organising skill, essential for securing much needed services to members. Many unions use the TGROW mentoring/coaching model -Topic, Goal, Reality, Opportunities and Way Forward – to train their organisers and there is a growing awareness of the opportunity to hone this readily available skill set to support internal colleagues. 

In any organisation, training cohorts of internal mentors facilitates cross organisational learning – deepening understanding and appreciation across geographical boundaries and functional areas.  Pairing mentors and mentees builds lasting rapport and can be an important way to redress silos – caused often by misunderstandings and a lack of exposure to each other’s issues.   In a trade union setting, pairing a regional organiser with an HQ policy or administrative officer for example, will lead to richer understanding in both directions, and greater collaboration, beyond the mentoring itself. 

Many organisations are using internal mentoring to support colleagues through transition – ideally choosing mentors slightly ahead on the path, with recently acquired experience to share.  For example, for new starters, the newly promoted, new parents, those approaching retirement.  Within the union movement, the member-led structures, campaigning nature and historic purpose, make trade union employers particularly unique places to work.  It can take time to fully understand the layers of complexity, so, mentoring has an additional and important niche value for the following.

• Younger people, who are likely to benefit from a mentor who is close in age and can explain the terminology and ways of working in accessible ways, bringing roles to life in ways meaningful to them.
• New managers and leaders – including those newly promoted, and in particular women and recruits from underrepresented groups. People management within a trade union, including managing former peers, can be challenging.  With staff recruited for assertiveness, and the nature of the work, with frequent exposure to all that can go wrong in the workplace, can lead to a poor perception of management.   Supporting managers to establish themselves as positive role models and to find their own authentic voice can make all the difference.
• Former elected officials – for example stewards or other workplace officials, recruited as employees of the union. It’s not uncommon for colleagues to find the dynamics and decision-making processes disorientating – somehow less familiar from a different role perspective.
• Specialist colleagues, with potentially less experience of the trade union movement, who bring expertise in for example in finance, accounting, premises, events management etc.
• Apprentices – exposed to new ideas and cutting-edge learning, with all the challenges of demonstrating their new skills and embedding new learning into the workplace.

More about apprenticeships Whether you are a levy payer or not (click on the link above for more information) all organisations can now access funding for apprenticeships – for new and existing staff, regardless of age. There are many new apprenticeship standards available, established by employer groups, incorporating requirements designed to future proof skills, knowledge and behaviours.  Here are a some proving particularly valuable for trade unions: The Trade Union Professional, designed specifically for organisers, with flexible application to suit different approaches. The Business Administrator apprenticeship has very broad application (worth overcoming any resistance to the corporate terminology).  Internal mentors can themselves undertake the Learning Mentor apprenticeship or even the new coaching professional apprenticeship  – with opportunities to strengthen both peer coaching and management skills. Line managers can explore the Institute of Leadership and Management’s apprenticeships including the Diploma for Managers. And not to forget your inhouse specialists with –  Data Technician, Customer Service, Digital Marketer, HR Consultant Partner, HR Support to name a few.

A word of caution – it’s best to resist requests to mentor for remedial support – a better solution is to offer mentoring to the relevant line manager – to support performance management.  This keeps mentoring as a practice that others will actively want to engage with – rather than risk it becoming a label to avoid.  Positioning mentoring to support those with a growth mind set to go from good to great will always give you the best return on investment. 

Chosen wisely, as role models of the future, with training as needed and access to support, mentors can add huge value.  For trade unions, low hanging fruit offers easy wins.

 

Katherine Bassey is an executive coach, coaching supervisor, and facilitator, supporting in-house capacity building, collaboration, compassion, and creativity at work.

[email protected]                                           www.katherinebassey.com

It is hardly surprising that most commentary about the world of work over the past year has focused on the impact of the global pandemic. While there appears to be a clear path back to something like normality, the impact on business confidence and the level of unemployment remains supremely uncertain. More troubling, perhaps, Covid-19 has emerged in an environment that was already characterised by extreme uncertainty about the scale and direction of industrial change. Exciting and somewhat terrifying accounts had been produced about the impact of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs – “47% of American jobs will be automated by the middle 2030s”. Globalisation was said to be responsible for falling living standards and declining levels of industrial employment in developed countries. And in the UK, business was having to contend with the increased barriers to trade with the European Union consequent on Brexit.

The biggest surprise, however, is that all the attention devoted to AI, globalisation and Brexit ignores the greatest challenge of all – achieving the goal of net zero CO₂ emissions by 2050 specified in the Paris Agreement. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested in 2018, a successful programme of adaptation will “require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society”. Every sector of the economy will be affected by the need to reduce carbon emissions; the energy system must be reconfigured around renewables; “dirty” industries will only be able to continue if they make effective use of carbon capture and storage technologies; vehicle transport will need to be electrified and manufacturing industry adapted accordingly; most homes will need to be retrofitted and gas fired domestic heating systems abandoned, replaced by hydrogen or renewables. How we work, where we work and how we live will all be profoundly affected by the climate imperative.

The progress towards net zero is likely to be just as disruptive as the first two industrial revolutions (powered steam and electricity) and more challenging than the deindustrialisation the UK has witnessed since the 1960s. Covid-19 has revealed the deep social and economic inequalities scarring our society and confirmed that the UK has the widest inequalities between regions of any major European economy. At the same time, experience over the last forty years has proved that poorly managed transitions can leave the already disadvantaged in an even worse position, with political consequences that are both unpredictable and seismic in nature when they materialise – Brexit is the most obvious domestic example, the British analogue of the rise of populism and nationalism across the developed world.

So far, electorates have largely endorsed the science of climate change and accepted that governments should take the necessary action. But public understanding of what is necessary almost certainly falls short of the reality. The risk, of course, is that climate friendly policies will meet rising resistance if there is no scope for citizen and worker involvement in the process of change. People must see that they are participants in the progress towards net zero, not simply the victims of initiatives over which they have no control. In other words, democracy, including a higher level of democracy in the workplace, is essential in delivering the net zero targets of the Paris Agreement.

An optimist might say that the UK government is alert to the dangers, having announced a Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and established a Green Jobs Taskforce in a context where policy is focused on levelling up the performance of disadvantaged regions to the level of the most prosperous. A more dispassionate assessment would welcome the ambition but observe that current policy and practice is falling short, most notably on the engagement of workers and their representatives. For example, the International Labour Organisation, the UN agency responsible for fixing global labour standards, has produced guidelines for ensuring a just transition. These principles have been conspicuous by their absence in the UK’s conversation about the climate imperative.

The ILO’s broad goals for a just transition ought to invite little disagreement across the political spectrum: full employment, decent levels of social protection (for the unemployed, the old and the sick), decent workplace standards and rights for workers to organise, speak up (individually and collectively) and receive a reasoned response from their employers. The precise means to achieving these goals will vary from one country to another but they all require a strong national consensus involving government, citizens, business and trade unions. Policy will need to be integrated across several domains if a just transition is to be achieved: industrial policy, regional policy, education and skills policy, the social security system, labour market regulation and industrial relations institutions all need to be driving in the same direction if the net zero target is to be achieved by 2050.

As I describe in my recent report for Prospect, Community and the Alex Ferry Foundation, other countries have made more progress than the UK in developing a sophisticated approach to a just transition rooted in the principles of social dialogue*. In Canada, the government established a national taskforce (chaired by the president of the Canadian Labour Congress) to prepare a plan for the closure of the remaining coal mines and coal fired power stations. In Germany, a detailed blueprint has been developed with a similar intention that clearly delineates the role of trade unions, employers, regional and national government. Sweden and Austria are both making rapid progress in preparing their steel industries for a net zero CO₂ world by using hydrogen rather than coke to reduce iron ore. A comprehensive strategy document was published by the Swedish employers’ association in 2013 and in Austria both national and regional governments are supporting innovative projects to produce clean steel – programmes that are endorsed by the trade unions too.

So far as the UK is concerned, however, coal fired power stations are being forced off the electricity grid by market forces and the treatment of the workforce is left not just to individual employers but to managers on individual sites. There is no national strategy and no national dialogue. The situation in steel is similar. A government consultation on a clean steel fund took place in 2019 but no announcements have yet been made. It is likely, therefore, that the UK industry will be a decade behind some of its European competitors in preparing for the transition to net zero.

Most seriously, perhaps, the UK simply lacks the institutions needed to achieve a just transition. Regional governance institutions are weak (note the contrast with Canada and Germany) and decisions taken in Whitehall may be poorly matched to the realities of life beyond London and the greater south east of England. The absence of any national institutions bringing together government, employers and unions makes it much harder to achieve the consensus on a strategic response identified by the ILO as essential if a climate adaptation programme is to be seen as legitimate. Trade unions and employers rarely have national discussions about the future of an industry and in most workplaces trade unions or other worker voice institutions are conspicuous by their absence.

A sceptic might say that proposals to fill this institutional gap simply promise a better yesterday and amount to nothing more than a desire to create arrangements that had crumbled by the end of the 1970s – strong and responsible unions, strong and responsible employers’ associations and a government that supported both. The case to the contrary is more compelling: how is a just transition to be secured unless workers have a voice in the process and how can “voice” be anything more than window dressing unless it is articulated by effective and legitimate institutions.

 

David Coats is the director of Workmatters Consulting and a visiting professor at the Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures, University of Leicester

 

 *A Just Transition? Managing the challenges of technology, trade, climate change and Covid-19 (Alex Ferry Foundation, 2021)

 

Over the last 12 months employers have often had to make swift decisions to ensure the continuation of their business, with little time to take account of Government guidance which has been constantly evolving in the light of new scientific evidence. And with so much focus on COVID-19, employers can be forgiven for wondering whether there were any other 2020 employment law developments which have fallen under their radar. We’ve set out below our thoughts on some of the potential issues for employers to note.

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS)

The ability for employers to temporarily lay off employees and claim a grant for part of their wages via the CJRS has provided a valuable lifeline for businesses impacted by COVID-19, preserving the livelihoods of many individuals. But keeping up to speed with the different versions of the Government’s CJRS guidance and HM Treasury Directions has proved challenging, and some employers may have inadvertently overlooked fundamental issues.

For example, to lawfully access the CJRS an employee must consent to be furloughed and an employer must confirm in writing the furlough arrangements. Where an employee has moved from full to flexible furlough, for instance, this written confirmation should record that the employee will be returning to work and receiving their normal pay for specified periods, with the employer claiming via the CJRS for those periods when the employee remains furloughed.

Meeting these obligations enables an employer to lawfully access the CJRS, but normal employment law principles continue to apply. Therefore, unless there were comprehensive lay-off provisions in existing employment contracts, employers should also have agreed with employees a lawful variation of contract to reflect that they were going to be furloughed because no, or less, work was available, and (if applicable) that their pay would be reduced during furlough.

The Acas furlough guidance reminds employers to “select people for furlough in a fair way to avoid any discrimination”. For example, if an employer selected mainly part-time employees for furlough, this could have a disproportionate impact on women. Although there is scope for employers to objectively justify an indirectly discriminatory provision, criterion or practice, strong documentary evidence would be needed, for instance, that furloughing a particular group was essential to ensure business survival.

COVID-19 pandemic-related claims

During the pandemic, there has been much speculation regarding sections 44 and 100 of the Employment Relations Act 1996 (ERA), which protect employees against suffering a detriment or being dismissed for health and safety reasons, namely, where there is a danger which, in the employee’s “reasonable belief”, is “serious and imminent”. Whether there is such a danger will be a question of fact, which will vary in each case. However, it is conceivable that an Employment Tribunal may find that COVID-19 met that test and so, if an employee takes protective action (e.g. by refusing to work), any consequent detrimental act or omission or dismissal could be unlawful.

Sections 47B and 103A ERA also protect workers who make protected disclosures from detriment and dismissal. Raising a concern relating to health and safety is likely, in most circumstances, to amount to a protected disclosure for the purposes of whistleblowing.

Reasonable belief for either of the above purposes is a mixed subjective and objective test – did the employee genuinely hold this belief and was it reasonable for them to have done so? It is not necessary for the employee to show that a legal obligation has actually been breached; they need only show that they reasonably believed this to be the case. 

These health and safety and whistleblowing provisions protect all employees, regardless of length of service, and there is no limit on the compensatory award for a dismissal found to be on either of these grounds, which will be automatically unfair. Furthermore, in their updated “FAQs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic” document, the Presidents of the Employment Tribunals have confirmed that such claims are amongst those currently being prioritised for hearing.

Other developments in 2020

• The requirement to provide minimum written terms as a day one right was extended to all workers and employees engaged on or after 6 April 2020. Additional terms must also now be incorporated, including working pattern and any mandatory training the employer provides.  Existing employees and workers are entitled to request updated minimum written terms, including this additional information.
• The Working Time Regulations 1998 were amended to change the way holiday pay is calculated for seasonal and atypical workers with effect from 6 April 2020. In short, the reference period for determining an average week’s pay increased from 12 to 52 weeks.
• The Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 provides for two weeks’ leave for employees following the loss of a child under the age of 18 or a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy, where that child died on or after 6 April 2020. Entitlement to leave is a day one right, whilst access to statutory pay requires a qualifying period of 26 weeks’ continuous service.

 

Thomas Player is a partner at Eversheds Sutherland

[email protected] 

‘Building Back Better’ requires us to understand ‘ownership’ at work and its links to authentic participation  

 

COVID-19 has resulted in unprecedented levels of both government funding and restrictions to our daily life. While health and care systems and their workers have adapted to the new environment, Whitehall has introduced further centralised command and control measures.  However comforting these approaches are in a crisis; they are unlikely to be effective in delivering better care or be welcomed by staff, patients or stakeholders in the long-term. As new forms of service models emerge, understanding how to develop greater staff ownership over work (and the centrality of employee-engagement) is vital. 

Studies conducted before (and during) the pandemic can provide important insights. Traditionally, ownership has been considered as either a:

1. legal phenomena (such as investors possessing company equity). Or a
2. managerial tool for ensuring that staff accept responsibility to solve problems (‘taking ownership’ and ‘buying-into’ corporate plans).

However, research tells us that staff saw ownership differently, often referring to a psychological state in which they felt attached to their organisation and/or work. Appreciating psychological ownership (and how it can be encouraged) is helpful therefore in ensuring that ‘Build Back Better’ is more than a slogan.

Taking real-life examples from both employee-owned enterprises and the public sector, this summary describes the ways staff made sense of ownership and how we might link owning your day-to-day work, attachment to our employing organisation and perceptions of the authenticity of participation.

 

How did staff understand ‘ownership’ at work?

By asking, what does ownership mean to you? how do you feel about your job and organisation? And how we might increase ownership over work? We found top-down direction maybe tolerated but ultimately it is demoralising and disempowering.

Research during the pandemic has revealed how staff feel disengaged with both decisions made by policy hierarchies and local management action. Feelings of exclusion are paramount together with low levels of attachment to formal structures and an increased perception of a gap between frontline staff and others (‘they are not telling us because they don’t want to set hares racing, but that’s just an excuse’). 

When asked what ownership at work ‘should’ mean; many staff articulate attachment to, possession of and identification with their own work and organisation. 

These perceptions of psychological ownership were more than a high degree of conscientiousness and personal pride in service quality, but a sense of collective endeavour with fellow workers and driven by perceptions of control ‘over my work’. 

Seeing ownership as psychological phenomena did not mean staff focused on finding solutions to problems pre-determined by others.  Attachment (and the discretionary effort that followed) was not a free good to be captured by management. For staff what mattered was the psychological state of being engaged as an ongoing process (‘Its ours because we are consulted on a lot of things’). (In contrast, some managers and stakeholders saw doing engagement as an approach to managing the workforce). 

Overall psychological ownership was achieved when staff perceived engagement to be authentic. And this assessment was shaped by a sense of what ‘should’ happen, namely:

1. fair processes where employees have a voice (or procedural justice)
2. positive impact on patients/service users’ outcomes and equal distribution of organisational benefits (or distributive justice).
3. extensive information-sharing and dialogue (or greater transparency).
4. recognition of equal respect regardless of pay levels, specialist knowledge and job-tasks (or status as a precondition for engagement)

Several studies have also shown participation is positively associated with psychological ownership and in turn employees with attachment participate with a high degree of altruistic spirit, demonstrate more commitment and share knowledge. Ownership over work clearly supports notions of ‘meaningful and good work’.

For example, nurses often defined ‘owning’ their work as accepting (and carrying out) their responsibilities to care for patients; advocating for their holistic needs and expertly coordinating care so they achieve the best possible treatment regardless of organisational boundaries or policy/management priorities.

Interestingly, staff were not naïve. They did not shy away from the complexities of strategic decision-making nor the difficulty of consensus building and coordinating diverse services. Staff did not seek to participate without accepting responsibility and neither did they accept responsibility without genuine involvement. Endeavours to persuade staff to take accountability for performance without altering power-relations were rarely successful.

Employee-owners had more positive views on the authenticity of their engagement (‘I feel the organisation is mine and my colleagues, we own it..so we are very passionate). Many did not simply have responsibility to (or worked in) the organisation; they felt they were the organisation. (‘You engage because you feel you are not just being told what to do things as cheaply as possible’).

If psychological ownership is a good thing, how do we increase it?

Firstly, all stakeholders need to understand the stages involved in building psychological ownership outlined above. Although there is much to be written about the practical actions to be taken, by looking through the prism of psychological ownership clear principles emerge:

Develop a sense of equality, encourage self-confidence and a sense of place. Rather than a one-off event, long-term capacity building programmes are needed to embed the skills required for staff to participate.  

Engagement is not just about doing things more efficiently. Authenticity is achieved if staff are involved in discussing the rationale, purpose and outcomes of services rather than merely the most productive means for delivering targets. 

Challenge assumptions that participation is about getting staff ‘buy-in’. We need to move beyond trying to ‘manufacture consent’ and consider the structural barriers that restrict involvement.  

Be creative and look beyond staff representation on management boards. Some organisations have used citizen-juries (where staff are identified by-lot across departments irrespective of pay, grade and profession) to consider important issues.

Others have used a wide range of Tech tools to collate staff feedback, distribute ‘As Is’ data, analyse real-time information and devise new solutions. Overall, these approaches increase knowledge sharing, improve the openness and speed of decision-making and make for more effective recommendations. 

 

Dr Aaron Gain is a researcher and adviser focusing on employee / stakeholder engagement and new forms of business models and alternative organisations.

People Management published an extraordinary article on 1 October which stated that a quarter of firms in the UK were unaware of redundancy consultation legalities. Not only is this a genuine shock, it is also hugely worrying. As I have stated in previous articles, redundancy can be the most traumatic experience anyone will face and have argued strongly that any redundancy must be carefully considered and actioned only as a last resort when all other options have been exhausted. This does not happen often enough, or at least, not communicated to those involved effectively. Redundancy is not just a figure at the end of a selection process, the way it is processed and consulted on can have a lasting effect on peoples’ future job prospects. I have heard many tales of people displaying baggage and perceived cynicism in job interviews – not surprisingly, this does not result in a job offer.

ACAS have rightly warned that, with many organisations planning to inform workers of layoffs via phone or video calls, employers must build in extra time for logistical issues. Meaningful consultation must be one of them. However, they have found that more than a third of employers (37%) are likely to shed jobs by the end of the year, with many admitting to being unaware of their legal responsibilities around consulting staff. The data is robust; more than 2,000 business representatives were polled by YouGov in September and their findings revealed that large companies were more likely to be looking to cut jobs, with 60% of firms with more than 250 employees anticipating redundancies.

The key finding, however, was that a quarter (24%) of companies admitted they were not aware of their legal responsibilities around consulting staff before making redundancies, rising to a third (33%) of small businesses. This could lead to very serious repercussions for those organisations, but it could also be catastrophic for people and their future job prospects. The data also revealed that, of those planning to make redundancies, more than a quarter (27%) said they would be telling staff via video calls or over the phone. Only a third (33%) intended to tell people in person.

It is difficult to assess whether the way in which people are told is significant for people or not. There is a strong view amongst many senior managers and HR professionals that a face to face conversation is preferable but, in my view, the method is less important than what the person is actually being told. For example, is the organisation proving that the redundancy is a last resort? Is the organisation assuring the individual that their redundancy has not been decided on a whim or a knee-jerk decision? That is what most individuals will think unless it is explicitly proven otherwise.

The message to all organisations has to be that these conversations are potentially life-changing to individuals and must be thoroughly prepared for. It is difficult to see how any preparation can be effective if it does not start with even a basic appreciation of the law. If that is the starting point in terms of knowledge, the UK will be facing a major engagement deficit amongst those who are most in need of showing the best selves.      

Last month the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) warned that the UK was likely to see around 450,000 redundancies this autumn alone. Acas has reported a steep rise in redundancy-related calls to its helpline and have also experienced a four-fold increase in visits to the redundancy advice content on its website since the start of this year, up from 111,000 visits in January to 430,000 in August. Despite this worrying trend, it shows evidence that many people are making sure they are informed even if their organisations are not.

It is essential that all organisations fill this information gap for their own sakes and for those of their employees. There are plenty of websites with accurate and factual information that is well presented and will keep organisations on the right side of the law. That should be the bare minimum. It is also, however, a process where people can experience good practice rather than this bare minimum and that is what organisations should aim to do. The business rationale for making redundancies will, quite understandably, focus on future-proofing the organisation and most people understand and respect that. What many organisations do not realise is that they also have a responsibility to future-proof every individual as well.

So, make sure you understand the law. Tell people that redundancies are not the business objective but are the consequence of one. Admit to people that you have had to address many dilemmas in coming to the decision and have looked at every feasible option before finally deciding. Make it clear to people that they are losing their job as an absolute last resort. If you are unable to communicate these four facts to the individual, you should question whether you are making the right decision.    

The IPA has a suite of training for senior managers and representatives to help everyone understand the basics and good practice related to redundancies. If you would like more information, please get in touch with me at [email protected]

Derek Luckhurst is Training and Development Director at the IPA    

2020 has probably been the strangest year of so many people’s lives with the global Covid-19 pandemic, subsequent lockdown and quarantine forcing the majority of the population to stay indoors. For young people this has been especially difficult, as we have not experienced anything like this before.

For those still employed during lockdown, this could have provided the opportunity to save on costs. Being placed on furlough may have been attractive to some, being paid the majority of your salary and having free time to either learn new things or engage in leisurely activities.

However, for the majority, the stark reality presented worries. A 20% pay cut is detrimental and faced with high rent and other living costs, during lockdown some may have had to turn towards food banks or move back to possible unstable environments with their families. This time also would have been extremely taxing for those young people with little support such as young carers and single parents.

Furthermore, the furlough scheme was never a long term solution to the outbreak and taxpayers will definitely have a lower level of disposable income as a result. Some employers have also realised that by placing their employees on the scheme and retaining the same level of productivity, their businesses were able to operate more efficiently, thus leading them to let go of many of their employees either during or after the furlough scheme. 

With the introduction of the new job support scheme, an even higher level of employees are expected to lose their jobs, with hospitality in particular being hit the worst as pubs, bars and restaurants struggle to break even.  Young people, who are more likely to work in these sectors as opposed to other demographics have been greatly affected. For example, roughly 13.4% of 16-24 year olds are currently unemployed due to the virus in comparison to the national average of 4.1%. 

Many employers initially appeared to be worried that levels of productivity would drop during furlough.  However, it appears that the opposite effect is happening with many companies not renewing leases on large office space and opting for downsizing and flexible working as a more permanent solution while saving costs.

Remote working although having advantages, does not allow for the same level of interaction that would be experienced in an office environment, which could lead to more people feeling isolated as well as not being able to join in on certain social activities, ranging from after work drinks to sports especially if they live on their own and as a result, the novelty of working from home did seem to wear off for some.

From the period of March 2020 to July 2020, the amount of people claiming unemployment benefits increased by 122%. Over the coming months when the furlough scheme is set to come to an end, I have no doubt that this will increase. I was unfortunately one of the 543,000 plus 16-24 year olds left unemployed. I was working from home and not furloughed during lockdown, but then the company decided to restructure their operations. As a result, most of the recent graduates, including myself, had their contracts terminated. 

Lockdown has given me a chance to reflect on many things. For example, what do I actually want from life? I have had a lot of free time on my hands to do the things which I enjoy. While working I would have some days where I would feel far too tired to do anything else as I was working harder and not taking as many breaks as when I was in the office.

As a result I lost interest in things which I would often find fun. I like to be creative and the increase of free time gave me the opportunity to design and make my first pair of jeans.  I once again realised the importance of setting time aside for myself in order to help mental wellbeing. Although it was extremely disappointing to have lost my job, it has been beneficial to be able to set aside some time to myself.  Free time is something extremely valuable, we are conditioned to believe that we must always be super productive but in my opinion, resting your mind and having downtime can be just as important.  As a result, I have found myself feeling less exhausted and therefore waking up earlier and having more of the day to myself. This leads me onto my next point: finding a new job. 

The job market at this moment especially for graduates, feels particularly bleak. Having a degree today is not enough. Graduates should consider whether their degree is really worth their return on investment and how they can set themselves apart from equally talented candidates. Another consideration is that just because you have a degree in a particular subject, that does not guarantee you will end up in that field. This may be involuntarily, by struggling to find a job in your field or voluntarily by wanting to try something completely different or finding your true calling. There are also graduates who may be competing for roles against non-graduates who have more years of experience on their side, which in some fields may be seen as more favourable. 

As a graduate of financial economics, working in finance is the first option for me.  An alternative career I have also recently considered is teaching. Making a positive difference to the lives of children would be extremely rewarding.

As part of the job seeking process, I expect to receive a high volume of job rejections (some organisations do not even get back to you or provide feedback) due to the unbelievably competitive market. I’ve seen job postings where almost 1000 people have applied for one role after 24 hours of going live which can feel very discouraging. Searching for a job during the pandemic is extremely difficult.  This is a very challenging time for all and it seems especially bleak for young people with very few job opportunities at the current time. It is unknown how long the recovery of the economy and the job market will be, I suspect it will be a very slow recovery. However this is not the time for young people to give up, as perseverance is key and we will need to show resilience.

The current economic impact suggest that competition will remain increasingly fierce for the coming years. According to the ONS, the number of vacancies as of July to September 2020 were 40.5% lower than 9 years ago. In addition, the period of December 2019 to June 2020 saw an extreme reduction of vacancies available by 58.1%. I believe this will lead to a lot of young people staying in education for longer in order to upskill and differentiate themselves by enrolling in Masters degrees or even PhD’s.

Alternatively, being able to learn a wider range of skills online, more young people may opt for the self-employed route by setting up their own small businesses and pursuing entrepreneurship. However, this is precarious at the moment due to lack of business and government support.

Students currently in further education may also take this opportunity to opt for more vocational routes due to the high demand for these jobs and current skills shortage among younger generations for jobs such as construction and plumbing. Moreover, with the increases in the state pension age set periodically, younger people may find it more difficult to progress into more senior roles, especially as the levels of turnover are significantly lower at the highest levels of management.  The smaller possibilities of promotion and pay rise may stunt businesses looking to be innovative with fresh new ideas and for the individual may delay important financial milestones such as paying off a mortgage. 

We must also consider is the digital skills shortage. Technology is currently moving at a rapid pace and an increasing number of jobs are now becoming automated leading to higher outputs, productivity and increased levels of efficiency. A lot of the job roles that are currently available will no longer be needed in the future in replacement of new roles. Even a decade ago the job titles such as social media influencers and content creators were non-existent. These new jobs which are set to arrive will be highly technical, yet there is currently a large digital skills shortage. Young people will need to adapt to what is ahead in order to survive in the future. We have already seen large cuts to important industries such as the creative arts yet, government campaigns are encouraging people to retrain into new jobs which are simply not feasible for everyone. This leaves young people in the dark of what their next steps should be.

The impact of not being able to socialise with friends and family has also had an impact on young people. Although social media is easily at our fingertips, nothing quite compares to meeting friends and family in real life who we seek comfort in. It’s not surprising that anxiety levels have risen especially as some people may also live in unsafe environments and may face or witness domestic violence.

There is also the perception from some that young people are to blame for the spikes in Covid-19 infections through irresponsible behaviour.  While some have not followed all of the rules, it would be unfair to solely blame young people, as there has been irresponsible behaviour amongst all age groups.  In university towns, students were told to return to university and subsequently to campus and private accommodation and were locked into rent agreements. 

The lack of clarity and confusing messages from the government has not helped and fuelled conspiracy theories that some older people are beginning to buy into, therefore pitting older and younger people against each other.

This has been a year like no other, causing difficulties and hardship for many people with a bleak outlook for young people, due to lack of jobs and opportunities causing mental anxiety.  I try to remain optimistic and hope that an end to this situation is in sight and we can return to some sort of normality soon.

Yasmine Modeste is a recent graduate in Financial Economics from the University of Kent

The Intent and Hope

‘Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1. Requirement of equal treatment for men and women in same employment. The provisions of this section shall have effect with a view to securing that employers give equal treatment as regards terms and conditions of employment to men and to women, that is to say that for men and women employed on like work the terms and conditions of one sex are not in any respect less favourable than those of the other’.

This original Equal Pay Act was passed on May 29^th 1970 and the issues of womens’ pay have been debated in parliament since before even the IPA was founded. I have been working with civil servants and employers most of my career on how to build more gender-equal workplaces. But I have never been busier or more optimistic in doing so than at the moment.

In fact we now have another proposed piece of equal pay legislation, introduced as a private members’ bill and given leave to proceed after a rousing speech by Labour MP Stella Creasy in the Commons last Tuesday.  As she pointed out somewhat ironically to  members, ‘we have been here before!’. The Equal Pay Implementation and Claims (EPIC) Bill, now starting out on its Covid-delayed-journey through the Byzantine  parliamentary process, with a second reading on Equal Pay Day next month, set me reflecting on the progress we have made and still need to make on gender equality over the past fifty years.

Or perhaps I should say inequality. Because we still have serious gender-gaps evident in many aspects of UK employment, from the continuance of a near 20% gender earnings gap; through to the under-representation of women in senior positions across all sectors of the economy; and the over-sharing of domestic chores and childcare responsibilities. And the reason for the current urgency is that once again, under the influence of Covid and the recession it has created, it is getting worse.

I was preparing earlier this month to give verbal evidence to the House of Commons Women and Equality Committee’s inquiry into the gendered and unequal impact of the pandemic, which I did on the previous Wednesday afternoon. But as with many aspect of this unique crisis we have been facing over the past six months, the two-hour session reminded me that amidst the all the horror and suffering of this horrendous pandemic and its associated social and economic damage, there is more than a glimmer of opportunity for improvement, for what feminist writer Rebecca Solnit based on her research of disasters termed a ‘paradise built in hell’.

 

The Impact of Covid: Female Employment Hell?

Sitting that Wednesday afternoon in my bedroom-office, staring at the Committee members on my Zoom screen and surrounded by headlines of ‘The Coronavirus Crisis taking women back to the 1950’s (The FT) and ‘Women sacrificial lambs in Covid childcare crisis’ (The Guardian), it is perhaps easier initially to discern the current ‘hell’ rather than any future ‘heaven’. The Commons’ inquiry was set up after a raft of early research evidence showing that, despite the higher death rates of elderly males from Covid-19, and unlike most previous recessions such as the last following the financial crash in 2008/9, women have been taking a disproportionate share of the negative impact of the virus.

IES analysis of the over nine million workers who have been on the government’s furlough scheme, which finishes this month, and planned redundancies by employers in the months ahead, concludes that: ‘low-income workers are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic’; and these workers are ‘more likely to be women, to be lone parents, to be from certain ethnic minority groups (Black, Pakistani or Bangladeshi), and/or to have no qualifications’.

Women are much more likely than men to be in the precarious jobs and in low-paying sectors such as entertainment and hospitality hardest hit by the lockdown and slow, stuttering pace of subsequent economic recovery. Women also predominate in the keyworker roles which are mostly not amenable to homeworking, which have seen the highest occupational mortality rates from Covid, notably care home workers and retail assistants.

This month’s latest employment figures from the Office for National Statistics found that a remarkable 90% of the 490,000 fall in employment in the first six months of 2020 has been in part-time jobs, and most of that majority-female population is going into economic inactivity rather than onto benefits and seeking work. I think a reasonable hypothesis for this population is that it comprises of a combination of two large categories of female-dominated work:

• part-time/Zero Hours Contract/agency low-paid workers, who are easier and cheaper to lay off than full-time better-paid men, or even to go through the hassle of furloughing them; and
• largely better-paid women who were just about coping with their part-time work and children before the pandemic, but home-schooling, etc. during lockdown has driven them to give up working altogether.

On the latter category, a similar situation seems to be occurring in the US and is evident in their employment data at the moment. Over 800,000 women dropped out of the labour force there last month alone, compared to around 200,000 males.

The results from the UK’s quarterly Labour Force Surveys for January -to June 2020 of those still in work but not working normally (that is temporarily away from work or working fewer hours), shows that both for employed and self-employed women, the impact of the pandemic has been much more significant on them than for men. The data shows a major and continuing reduction in their working hours and pay, as they have been forced to spend more time on domestic and caring responsibilities rather than on their paid work. The national gender pay gap is almost certain to rise as a result.

That the former population of low-paid/low-power female workers is already apparently being prioritised in redundancy exercises, is possibly even more concerning from an equality perspective, especially with the number of redundancies having doubled in the last quarter and almost all forecasts being that it will to keep on increasing for the rest of this year at least.

 

Insight

The interim report for our research project at IES funded by the Standard Life Foundation on the impact of the pandemic on low paid workers, which I shared with the Commons Committee, provides some remarkable and moving insights into the real-life experiences and hardship evident behind the national statistics.

To quote from the findings:

‘Some of those who worked on-demand via agencies, such as (female) domiciliary care workers, saw a significant reduction in the hours they were being offered during lockdown. Others, usually working part-time hours and on zero-hours contracts, were made redundant from their job. Several asked their employer why they had made this decision and why they were not being furloughed. The reasons given included their employer questioning their eligibility for the Job Retention Scheme (despite working for their employer several months prior to lockdown) and being unable to calculate their furlough entitlement due to losing records of their employment’.

When asked about what additional support they would value, ‘a wide variety of recommendations were put forward’ by these low-paid employees:

‘including better awareness of workers’ rights and legal protection in context of COVID-19; greater assistance with job searches, retraining and childcare for those currently unemployed; and a range of financial support measures, from access to free financial advice services to further raising Universal Credit standard allowance.

Which is pretty much what we supposed experts were recommending to the Commons’ Committee last week!

Although this research is only involving 40 households, I think alongside other quantitative data, it reinforces the general applicability of our findings, and reinforces the need for greater awareness of employment rights and legislation, as well as new protections, for example for pregnant women.

A recent survey by ACAS found that 25% of employers were unaware of basic redundancy legislation such as minimum employee notice periods, never mind more detailed aspects, such as the existing priority protection from being selected for redundancy for those on maternity leave.

 

Ignorance by Governments

Outside of the Commons’ Women and Equality Committee, you could be forgiven for thinking that the empty benches around Stella Creasey on Tuesday had to do with more than just social distancing, and that the UK government are at best unaware and at worst consciously ignoring the gendered nature of the pandemic’s impact Their totally-no-evidence-based decision to suspend compulsory gender pay gap reporting two weeks before the April annual deadline, remarkably and disgracefully endorsed  by the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission,  rightly came in for criticism from all other quarters.

It is likely to mean that as Fiona Cannon, Head of Inclusion from Lloyds Banking Group explained,  in many organisations gender pay is liable to ‘ fall off the board agenda quite quickly’. Analysis of the 5,822 reports already posted on the government’s website before the compulsion was suspended shows this to be happening already, with a 0.9% increase in the median pay gap amongst these employers over the last 12 months to 12.8%, reversing the progress of recent years.

There was no heading, or even mention, of ‘gender’ or ‘equality’ in Rishi Sunak’s Winter Economic Plan which in this difficult and uncertain climate replaced the government’s planned Budget last month, reinforcing the perception that gender is being ignored. Unfortunately, the UK government seems to be far from unique here.

UN Women have launched a new tracker of government policy responses to counter the social and economic consequences of the pandemic for women. The tracker shows that 42 countries, one fifth of those analysed, have no gender-sensitive measures in response to COVID-19 at all. Only 25 countries, 12% of the world studied, have introduced comprehensive measures. Social protection, care crisis and jobs responses they observe ‘have been largely blind to women’s needs’.

The UN’s conclusion is that “Despite the clear gendered implications of the crises, response and recovery efforts tend to ignore the needs of women and girls until it’s too late. We need to do better”. According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who chastised governments at the start of this month for their lack of response: ‘a higher level of ambition is needed to make the necessary policy changes’

 

An equality policy paradise?

Oxford Professor Linda Scott’s new book, the Double X Economy, contains even more negative statistics than I have related here. Yet like me, she remains optimistic that the pandemic’s extreme impact will highlight as well as exacerbate existing inequality, stimulating a counter-reaction and belated recognition of the trillions of dollars that can be produced to combat the recession ‘if women are enabled and empowered to participate fully in the global economy’. And that indeed might not be as difficult at it first appears to be. Governments and employers face difficult economic conditions, but we all have agency here, we have choices

Perhaps my key point  to the parliamentary committee was that a lot of what is required in a reform agenda to #buildbackbetter, to stem this more equal pay and employment roll-back and to realise this potential, to better protect women and reinforce progress on pay and representation, already exists somewhere in the parliamentary domain. So pursuit by government through to implementation, rather than developing lots of new legislation, is required.

Beyond the new equal pay bill, this is particularly the case in terms of the government’s 2018  Good Work Plan which promises amongst its 50 odd proposals adopted from Mathew Taylor’s 2017 report:

• A right to flexible work rather than the existing right to request it;
• Rights to request stable working hours after a minimum period in employment;
• Tougher labour market enforcement against law-breaking employers and in supply chains such as Boohoo’s in Leicester, as recommended in the new CIPD report which I co-authored for them.

Consultations have been held on a number of these issues already, but we still await signs of the promised Employment Bill which we understand is supposed to be progressing at least some of them. They would all have major benefits, especially for female workers.

Other legislation which the pandemic has highlighted the need for includes:

• The Pregnancy and Maternity (Redundancy protection) Bill, put forward as a private members bill recently by the Committee’s former chair by Ms Maria Miller MP, vital for the government to support and enact as redundancy levels escalate;
• Improved childcare and family support to help stem the current wave of financially-induced closures of nurseries and childminder facilities; a number of research studies highlight financial and cultural reasons for the low take up of shared parental leave by fathers, highlighting the need to introduce shared parental pay, as in Germany, and possibly additional requirements, such as the Swedish ‘use it or lose it’ approach, in order to encourage a greater sharing of parental duties;
• Banning the discussion of current pay levels in recruitment interviews, which is now operating in many US states such as California and appears already to be operating very effectively there to stop the importation of gender pay gaps from the external market;
• Better pay and conditions for keyworkers, for example in the care sector.

I noted that the Committee might also want to recommend that to celebrate 10 years after the last major piece of equality legislation, the 2010 Equality Act, parliament finally implements Section 106 of the Act which mandates political parties to publish diversity data for their candidate and MP selection processes.

Encouraged by government, employers similarly already have many of the processes and tools, from job evaluation to talent management,  to deliver their gender equality ambitions into practice, as well as excellent resources from the IPA, CIPD and other reputable organisations to assist them. What’s needed now is the bravery and the will.

 

A Brave New World of Gender Equality

‘Brave New World- gender and Covid 19’ was the optimistic title of one of the excellent panel sessions I took part in on a recent digital conference. Is the future heralded in the title likely to be a the nirvana of true ‘gender equality’? Or closer to the nightmare of an exploited race of underlings described in Aldous Huxley’s novel?

On 1 October 2020, the UN General Assembly held a High-Level meeting on the theme, ‘Accelerating the realisation of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls’. The UK government needs to do the same; and follow it up with immediate action on social and economic fronts, finally to start seriously breaking down the ‘say/do’ gap on gender equality that is still evident and unfortunately enhanced by recent events in UK society, our economy and in many of our employers.

Like Linda Scott and Rebecca Solnit, I am even more optimistic after my Commons’ Committee appearance and the reaction to Stella Creasey’s bill, which is supported by a petition signed by 55,000 of us. As Solnit put it some months ago,

‘Ordinary life before the pandemic was already (one of)… exclusion for too many, an obscenity of inequality. It is too soon to know what will emerge from this emergency, but not too soon to start looking for chances to help decide it. It is, I believe, what many of us are preparing to do.’

I am, the IPA are, and I hope parliament and the government, and you and your employer, are too. And please sign the equal pay petition at: https://www.change.org/p/incoming-prime-minister-stop-pay-discrimination-give-women-the-righttoknow

Dr Duncan Brown is Visiting Professor at the University of Greenwich and Principal Associate of the IES