IPA Involve Homepage

ben

Employment and rewards after the pandemic: investment or austerity, compassion or carnage?

Most of us this last weekend were able to enjoy the admittedly slightly strange experience of being table-served in our local pub, and taking the bread of communion again (if not the wine) in our hymn-less churches and equivalent in local mandirs and mosques. But the poor parishioners of Leicester are continuing in full lockdown due to the local spike in corornavirus inspections, which had reached as high as half of the daily totals reported in the whole of England.

Leicester and Boohoo

Leicester is the story of the UK’s economy and employment since the last major recession in 2008/9 writ large.  And it highlights the choice now facing us as a nation, as employers and as individuals, in terms of whether we really do want to change our employment model, economy and society, to #buildbackbetter as the Prime Mister promised in Dudley last week. And whether we have learned anything from the dreadful experiences and tens of thousands of deaths of the last three months.

‘HONEY, you NEED these pj’s!’ Fast-fashion online retailer Boohoo told its half million Instagram followers in the first week of lockdown. And while traditional bricks-and-mortar based retailers with their good staff remuneration packages well above the legal minimum, such as John Lewis and M & S, initially struggled with the impact of closing their stores and re-organising their complex international supply chains, Boohoo was able to pivot almost immediately into home loungewear and sofa-clothes. April sales were, incredibly, up on last year and their share price has almost doubled since the middle of March.

Announcing annual profits of £92.2 million CEO John Lyttle highlighted the company’s ‘ability to be agile and flexible’, an agility heavily dependant on its supply chain of often Gujarati-owned and staffed factories in Leicester. The company now takes an estimated three-quarters of the city’s entire garment output.

Last Friday, the company’s remuneration committee was ‘pleased to announce’ details of a new share price-driven, three-year incentive plan ‘as the Group targets a continuation of the exceptional levels of performance that it has delivered since IPO, ensuring that the Group’s leadership team is motivated to deliver long-term sustainable growth (and) focused on members of the Group’s management, who are most able to impact the Group’s shareholder returns’.

The plan will pay out up to £50 million each to Lyttle, the Company’s two founders and a group of other senior executives. Boohoo trades on the lightly-regulated Aim small companies market, thus avoiding the requirement on larger quoted companies for a mandatory shareholder vote on its executive remuneration and incentive policy every three years.

Rewarding a British success story? If you are an executive perhaps. But probably not if you are one of the workers in those Leicester supplier factories. In 2018 an investigation by the Financial Times’ brilliant Sarah O’Connor found ‘a bizarre micro-economy of tiny sweatshops crammed into crumbling old buildings, out-competing legally compliant factories using expensive machines,  through illegally underpaid humans…paid £4 to  £4.50 an hour (the legal National Living Wage is currently £8.72 an hour if you are 25 or older)’.

Flexibility versus security in a pandemic

Leicester, rather than the Cambridge Science Park or Mayfair private equity offices, is the best and most representative example of the UK’s  flexible, ‘gig’ and market-driven, winner-takes-all, unequal economy, which has grown at pace since 2008.

After more than a decade of real pay cuts for most, widening pay differentials and the growth of this low-paid, ‘precariat’ workforce, we know that the Leicester economy and employment model is now far from unusual. My colleague Professor Sian Moore at the University of Greenwich has carried out similar research for the Low Pay Commission. Her team found common examples amongst the amazing care workers we have been applauding on Thursday evenings, as well as across other sectors, of zero hours contract employees electronically tagged so that they could be paid in 15 minute chunks; of workers too worried to take sickness absence as they feared being fired as a result and couldn’t live on just statutory sick pay anyway.

O’Connor’s work helped to stimulate a House of Commons Select Committee investigation last year which recommended wide-ranging changes in labour market and environmental practices in the fast-fashion sector. Yet as it reported, ‘Government rejects all recommendations to force fashion industry pay to clean up its act’.

Employers avoiding their responsibilities on pay and sickness, an employment deal so heavily weighted towards employer flexibility at the expense of worker security, suddenly seems less attractive once a pandemic inconveniently strikes. Campaign group Labour Behind the Label alleges that coronavirus has taken hold in some Leicester clothing factories, with rules on social distancing and protective equipment commonly flouted, and some never having closed since lockdown began. The Health and Safety Executive says it has contacted 17 clothing businesses in the city, was actively investigating three of them, and taking enforcement action against one.

Even before the pandemic, the government had recognised some of the downsides of the gig economy. It had adopted many of the recommendations from the review it commissioned by Mathew Taylor in its Good Work Plan. These focus on increased transparency and enforcement in the UK labour market.

Our experiences over the past three months, in highlighting the amazing contribution but appalling pay and conditions of many of our low-paid but no-longer low skilled keyworkers, might you would think reinforce a significant strengthening of the Good Work agenda. According to Paul Johnson of the IFS, ‘the world post-Covid-19 is likely to see many existing inequalities magnified…it should lead us to reassess the value of an effective welfare system and collective security’. The UK has become a low skill, low pay, low productivity economy.  

A recent Financial Times editorial commented on the need for a new social contract with business, as ‘the pandemic has exposed the limitations of unfettered markets’; and ‘the frailty of the social contract’ which sees self-isolating keyworkers paid just £94.25 per week on SSP. It called for ‘radical reforms to forge a society that will work for all’. 

But with more than 10,000 redundancies announced last week, heavily concentrated in the retail sector, some feel that any jobs rather than secure, fairly rewarded, good quality jobs is what the government needs to concentrate on creating. As influential Tory Brexiteer Daniel Hannan put it last month, ‘when a million more people are on the dole, does anyone think it will be a priority to publish gender pay gaps’.  The government’s awful decision to cancel this years’ compulsory requirement to report this gap information a week before the deadline in April does not bode well, especially for low paid, insecure workers such as those in Leicester, more than two-thirds of whom are female.

So now is a critical decision point for government, employers and us all: investment or austerity, compassion or carnage?

The Way Ahead for Employment and Rewards

I would not question the need to ensure the affordability of any reward improvements and changes in an organisation; and clearly, the essential improvement of care and keyworker pay and conditions in the public sector will require major additional state investments.

But that is the point – they are investments. The research record on human capital investments is unequivocally that they pay off: for the individual, the employer and society. Purely focusing on short-term cost concerns will simply induce another decade of austerity, falling living standards and millions of low paid, low productivity workers and contractors ‘one pay cheque away from poverty’.

Mathew Taylor now believes that ‘The crisis has led us to recognise the importance of jobs that might previously have been seen as low status’; and so the government’s forthcoming employment bill should ‘be bold’ in areas such as employment status and enhancing protections for casual workers. The Good Work Plan now needs to be a foundation for far more extensive improvements, such as the removal of the confusing ‘worker’ status. 

One-way contractual flexibility and token board representation by a non-executive director I believe need to be replaced by genuinely two-way contractual negotiation, meaningful worker representation and far more extensive employee participation and ownership. There needs to be a statutory right to a permanent contract after 26 weeks, rather than just the proposed right to request one; with far more detailed reporting of human capital statistics beyond just pay ratios.

Gig economy and those Leicester clothing workers need improved security and benefits, funded by closer alignment of rates of taxation for the self-employed and agency workers with employed staff. Banning umbrella companies would be a stronger move rather than just the current proposal for better regulating them, while the proposed single labour market enforcement agency, as well as the HSE, need much greater power and funding.

As far as employer rewards are concerned, I have been working with a small group of fellow reward professionals on our Reward After the Pandemic charter, which defines the key questions they need to be answering to avoid a repeat of the post 2008, short-sighted anorexia on employee pay and conditions.

Employers we believe need to make permanent changes to prevailing pre-Covid orthodoxy, beyond the welcome job and pay guarantees and the immediate, voluntary executive pay cuts we have seen from some forward-looking employers in recent months. We need to see permanently improved pay and career progression opportunities for low paid workers. Allied to far more extensive sharing of the gains of future performance improvements as the economy recovers though profit sharing plans, perhaps making this a legislative requirement as in France, rather than just returning to the failing executive incentive model.

I am working with the High Pay Centre on their research into the new pay ratio reporting requirements.  They calculate that reducing the pay of the highest quartile of employees by just 3% could fund a median pay rise of £2,000 for the lowest earning quartile of employees in the companies they have reviewed.

Our group believes that a stronger emphasis on fair, collective and compassionate reward policies and practices in future would be a justified and highly beneficial outcome from the horror of Covid-19.

But we all will need to act to make that happen, if we are not to let the hard learning from this crisis go to waste.

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

Confirmation bias and consultation

In the 1960s, an English psychologist called Peter Wason noticed something interesting about human behaviour: people are usually happy to believe something, as long as they can find any evidence at all to support that belief. You may be thinking that this doesn’t sound too terrible; after all, if they’ve found evidence, what’s the problem? However, this can lead us to making mistakes.

Wason ran a series of experiments, where he would tell the participants that he had a rule in his mind. He told them that he would show them a series of numbers, and that he wanted them to then guess the rule in his head, and give him examples illustrating that rule. He would let them know if their example conformed or not to the rule.

The series of numbers could have been: 2, 4, 6.

People thought they’d sussed out the rule straight away and came back with examples like 6, 8, 10 or 20, 22, 24. Someone really enterprising might say 3, 5, 7. All of these illustrations conformed to the rule in Wason’s head. And so, people thought they knew the rule – it was a series of numbers, two digits apart.

Unfortunately, this was not the rule in Wason’s head. The rule was: any series of increasing numbers. The series 50, 99, 1 zillion would have satisfied the rule just as well.

Wason found that most participants in his experiments only tried number sequences that proved their hypothesis, and only a few subjects actually tried to come up with a sequence that would disprove it. In other words, they wouldn’t come back to the tester and say, “How about 5, 3, 1?” At which point, the tester would let them know that this didn’t conform to the rule, therefore giving them more clarity as to what the rule might actually be.

Wason called this confirmation bias.

Essentially, confirmation bias says that people actively look for and choose evidence that supports what they already believe. And, equally, they’ll have a tendency to reject or ignore any data or information that refutes what they already believe.

You can probably already start to see how this relates to consultation.

In any consultation, both management and reps (and I include both employee reps and union reps here) will go in with an idea in their mind of what the other group is thinking. In many TUPE consultations, reps who are new to TUPE are very worried because they believe redundancy is the next step. In my experience, this is not often the case as the new company want them to hit the ground running, with as little disruption as possible.

But imagine if you go into a consultation with that assumption in your mind – the questions that you as a rep ask will be aimed at confirming that hypothesis. You may therefore miss something entirely different that is important for people to know.

Management worry that reps will think their decision-making is terrible or that they’re psychopathic monsters who don’t care about employees. Again, imagine going into consultation with that frame of mind: as a manager, you may therefore shape all your communication around dispelling those fears, and not provide enough information on other important areas of change.

One of the best ways to counter confirmation bias is to make sure the consultation stays focused on the strategic narrative, the long-term survival of the business, and stay away from personal questions (“what’s going to happen to me?” “why me?”).

Some key questions to ask then, whether you are a manager or a rep:

  1. What happens if we don’t do this?
  2. What were the other options?
  3. Why were those options rejected?

Jasmine Gartner is an IPA Associate

Corporate support for Black Lives Matter needs to be more than just lip service

In the last few weeks we have witnessed many organisations and institutions responding to the Black Lives Matter movement by posting black squares on the their social media platforms and issuing lengthy anti racism statements. But is this just a performative exercise?  What are they really doing to combat discrimination within their own organisations and exactly how are inequalities in the workplace going to be tackled? To have honest and meaningful insight, which will lead to action,  organisations need to look at their structures and practices and address the difficult and uncomfortable questions.

Of course this is not just an issue for employers.  It cuts across the whole of society, not just employment and career opportunities but also injustice and biases in education, housing & the justice system, all of which affect an individual’s life outcomes.  There are also stereotypes of BAME (Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic),  leading for example to young black men being ten times more likely to be stopped by the police.  So we have to find out if racial profiling based on bias and stereotyping happens in the workplace too.

Let’s begin with the recruitment process – is there any unconscious, or for that matter conscious bias, when sifting through CVs – for example bias against candidates based on their ‘foreign’ names, the school/university they attended, area where they live, the type of previous work experience or if they are able to demonstrate specific types of extra curricular activities.  Would it help if all CV’s were submitted blind, with all of that information omitted?  Does the use of artificial intelligence help or hinder the selection process of minority candidates, when looking for key words in CVs.  Indeed who is responsible for programming of AI platforms?

Who is charge of the recruitment and selection process in an organisation? Are those responsible for hiring and particularly promotion within the organisation, simply doing so replicating their own image – demonstrating hierarchical nepotism, pandering to the stereotypes and assuming that BAME candidates are not up to the job or lack the experience (without of course thinking about why they might lack experience)?   Organisations that still have unpaid or expenses-only internships exclude a large amount of candidates, particularly those from working class & minority backgrounds who usually are unable to take up these placements for financial reasons.

Once recruited within the organisation, is there a visible presence of minorities and at what level?  Why are there so pitifully few BAME CEO’s, board members and those in the higher echelons of management? Why has this number barely moved in the past few years?  Many BAME employees feel they go above and beyond to prove their worth with no recognition of their talent, and just hit an invisible ceiling. According to the latest figures, only 11 of the Big Four accounting firms’ 3000 partners are Black.  Deloitte has just one Black equity partner, EY & KPMG have two each and PwC has six.  Mandatory ethnic pay monitoring may go some way to highlighting these discrepancies.

Are there mentoring schemes to help address this imbalance? What are the other internal structural and institutional barriers to fair representation at all levels?

How do organisations investigate retention issues among BAME staff?  What are the mechanisms for employee voice within the organisation, particularly for those from minority backgrounds?  Do they feel comfortable speaking up or are they afraid to express their concerns, fearing that there will be repercussions, harming their career aspirations by being labelled a trouble maker or “playing the race card”?  Are these concerns simply dismissed? 

Feeling helpless at not being able to change the culture and not being listened to, denied meaningful participation and with no career advancement, many just leave the organisation, leaving those issues to continue, with the organisation probably not even realising they have a problem unless they carry out proper exit interviews.  As a result the organisation ultimately loses experienced and talented employees.

Those who decide to stay may suffer from Imposter syndrome, especially those who may achieve higher positions.  Not receiving any support, or acknowledgment for their achievements, many  begin to doubt themselves,  believing they don’t deserve to be in the position, or that they are  not as intelligent as their peers; perhaps they are just there because of tokenism. Sometimes this feeling is enforced by colleagues.  If they do make a mistake they sense they might also face more severe consequences than others, enhancing those feelings. 

And just consider, if you are the only BAME employee in the organisation, you may fear that you are in effect representing all Black/BAME people, in a spotlight and under scrutiny unlike other colleagues.  Anything that might reflect badly on you could affect the future recruitment of other BAME employees.

We may need to consider whether many the catch all BAME label may be problematic in itself. How useful is it?  Within the Black label, do people from African and West Indian backgrounds have different experiences?  The same can be asked of people Asian heritage, are there different outcomes for those from India and Bangladesh.  And exactly who is included – does it for example encompass traveller and gypsy communities?

Everyone is an individual, and this term can skew figures when looking at representation within the organisation.  An organisation could quote having 20 per cent BAME employees, but on closer scrutiny there may only be 1 per cent Black or 3 per cent Asian partners in a senior position with the remaining 16 per cent in lower grades. 

If organisations simply cash in on the current narrative for PR purposes, without elevating their own talent or having structures within the organisation to do so, it will be a token gesture, and could backfire with accusations of preferential treatment.

And what will happen once BLM has moved on from the current headlines?  After all discrimination and injustice has been with us for decades; there have been countless reports and enquiries all with very similar conclusions but hardly any of the recommendations have been implemented.

Nevertheless, there are grounds for believing that this is the opportunity for real change.

All organisations have had to adapt and change in response to the Covid 19 pandemic, and in order to survive have adopted new ways of working in a short amount of time, showing that if there is a willingness from all levels of the organisation particularly the top, serious change can be achieved. This is a chance to look at current structures, including diversity and inclusion, ultimately becoming more representative and resilient in all areas.  As we move to an ever more global economy it must make sense to for organisations to be representative of all in our society.

Looking ahead, we will be facing a severe economic crisis with potential mass unemployment and a very difficult job market.  Will organisations just carry on as normal with diversity & inclusion relegated to the back burner, or will it become an integral part of real and lasting change that benefits not just employee, but also the bottom line, ensuring the success and growth of the organisation into the future.

Lorraine Modeste is IPA Office Manager

Steering your course back to work

It is always a good sign when you have been lined up to follow someone you find yourself enthusiastically agreeing with, as I did when I recently heard IPA Director of Training Derek Luckhurst speak on the subject of employers and unions, and putting in place key strategies for workplace return. Derek said:

“Organisations need to take a leap of faith. Bring the trade union representative in and  tell it as it is.  If they need to make significant cost savings, be honest about it – don’t dress it up.  This is a period of time people need to be brutally honest about the messages they are giving each other.

It is a big risk to wait and see how the trade union will react to something you have already decided to do. Certainly, if a Trade Union doesn’t have all the information behind the decision  making, it is going to react negatively.  If you bring in the trade union, they might , just might come up with an idea or a comment about the  risk analysis. There are huge benefits to doing it.

The risk of not doing it is something that I don’t think any organisation can control and at the moment they need to control the strategy narrative, they need to control what they tell staff, and they ned to do it in conjunction with whatever representative body they’ve got.”

For employers, there are a number of certainties on which to plan the return to work; public health guidance, government restrictions, risk assessments and occupational health changes,  legislation, financial position. There are likely to be some tough messages to be delivered as we face a challenging recovery period ahead that has the potential to adversely impact, or worse still, derail any return to work plans. In addition to this, there are a number of uncertainties that must be considered in developing the return to work message. It is vital that employers both identify and factor in those most relevant to support a successful transition back to work, and this is also an area where union representative engagement can help.

When it comes to identifying and developing difficult narratives, understanding the mindset of those receiving and responding is absolutely critical.  This is primarily to:

  1. Understand the levels and sources of anxiety – health, job security etc
  2. Understand levels of engagement – or detachment (especially with furloughed employees returning)
  3. Identify common themes and trends
  4. Flag any issues not previously identified in risk register

In the case of employees and COVID-19, the additional challenge is the fear factor that will linger on for some time until the virus is under control.  The level of fear will vary according to each individual perception of the risks they may have when it comes to juggling homelife that has changes, travelling to work, and being at work. There may also be mental and general health issues as well as grief and bereavement influencing how employees feel.  Combined with organisational or market uncertainties, all can have an impact on how employees react if the narrative isn’t properly researched and developed.  Communications and engagement are therefore key – especially with a difficult narrative. Methods include pulse surveys, sending out an CEO video message or email of intent to employees broadly outlining what is planned and inviting feedback.

Once you have a better idea of the uncertainties facing the return to work, flagged issues, ideas and opportunities, fine tuning the return to work plan and crafting the narrative can be  developed. This is when it is a very good idea to have trade union involvement.  It is better to work through a potential issue rather than deal with a crisis of confidence post-announcement.  Trade union representatives will also have a good sense of how the narrative will land in terms of impact and influence.  The basic composition of the narrative :

  • Return to work announcement – confirmation of the intent ; what is happening and when. Leave no room for ambiguity.
  • Facts – include hard and soft facts, and why.
  • Tone – a human crisis requires a human response. Be empathetic.
  • Evidence – include any scientific evidence, guidance or attributable facts to support the return to work plan.

Once finalised, consider the method and timing of delivery.  The spoken word is the most preferred, delivered by the leadership. It is also important to have a robust and extensive FAQ, as well as the framework for employees to follow up anything they are concerned about. Typically, this would be though their line manager, a HR help desk or perhaps an agreed arrangement with the trade union representatives, particularly if they have been involved in the return to work planning.

Finally, to understand how I identified with much of what Derek said, I am drawing from my former experience in the Royal Navy for an analogy on approach. Part of the rigorous training for everyone is to spend time in the Damage Repair Instructional Unit (DRIU).  This is a metal box mounted on hydraulics that simulates a ship hit by a missile. It is highly coordinated teamwork and situation reporting that will save the ship and everyone has their role; those most impacted are managing and repairing the incident to ensure the survival of the ship.  Others onboard have a role too as ‘all hands to pumping stations’ ensure the water entering the ship is discharged as soon as possible.

As we look forward and plan to repair the economic damage to organisations, engaging with others onboard to get other situations reports, as well as engage with those that contribute directly to the damage repair.

COVID-19 we hope is a once in a lifetime event .  There is no playbook on how to approach the fallout from a medical, economic or personal perspective.  What helps to give us all a sense of control with the best chance of successful outcomes is effective communication.  That is best achieved when you involve all impacted parties, or their representatives to keep the organisation afloat and resume your post-COVID-19 course to calmer waters.

Sheena Thomson is Founder and Director of Conduit Associates

The Challenges of Being a Representative of People Working From Home

One of the more positive consequences of lockdown has been the been the way we have come to re-evaluate certain jobs that, previously, were considered unsuitable for home working. A typical example of such a job is that of a call centre customer service operator. With the use of appropriate technology now available to these workers, many organisations have moved quickly to keep the lines open to their customers and staff have generally responded well to the challenges of not having their colleagues around them. Some of these staff will be eager to get back to working with their teams while others will be thinking seriously about whether they really want to go back to travelling to an office simply to do the job they have performed successfully at home for more than three months.

There is no doubt that organisations will need to think carefully as to whether they adopt policies that apply to everyone regardless of circumstances, or whether they can navigate through a more individual-based means of achieving business needs balanced by peoples’ preferences. This creates another challenge around how organisations listen effectively to both the collective and individual employee voice. In turn, if a particular organisation has a staff forum, it presents an equally difficult challenge to the representatives to balance the same problem. For trade union representatives, handling this particular issue is more straightforward. Union members pay a fee for individual representation for when they feel they might need it and the representatives will feel obliged to involve themselves in peoples’ personal issues if asked to do so.

Staff representatives, however, are not there to do the same job where individual representation is concerned. They are set with the task of receiving strategic information from the organisation and responding with an accurate assessment of the different reactions that will result in any changes, as well as discussing any alternative ways of meeting the objective that has been explained to them. Many people, including me, firmly believe that this plays a critical role in helping staff to become more informed as well as presenting representatives with an opportunity to solve problems jointly. The key issue now is how do staff representatives articulate these collective voices when individual issues might become more prevalent as more and more staff ask to work from home?

It will be important for all staff representatives to clearly set out what they are there to do and what they are not there to do. In matters that involve staff requesting to work from home and being refused, every staff representative will need to understand exactly what the organisation’s policy is and how that policy is being managed. It would be hugely advantageous for organisations to involve their representatives in developing this policy but, even if they are presented with it as information, there needs to be a shared understanding of its objective and how managers are being briefed to carry it out. By understanding its strategic intent, staff representatives will be able to present an accurate temperature check of how it has been implemented, and where improvements might be needed, rather than getting bogged down in individual disagreements. All line managers should be given the opportunity to resolve problems between themselves and their staff with support from the HR team.    

If staff have been granted their request to work from home, other issues might crop up. Staff may start to feel isolated or believe they are not receiving enough information from their line manager and may contact their staff representative for guidance or to complain. In every case the representative will need to refer the person back to their manager, but this information should also be part of a regular anonymous temperature check back to the senior managers who have formulated the policy. As challenging as it may be, however, that temperature check must also include feedback from those staff who are more engaged and productive as a direct result of working from home and are being managed effectively. This balance is critical in order that staff representative do not put forward a disproportionately negative view of how the policy is really working.

Staff representatives will, in most cases, have the means to keep in contact with their constituents on a regular basis. All of those who have been trained by the IPA with have their “Hot Topics” template to ensure they connect with everyone ranging from those who are disengaged to those who are highly motivated and enjoy their job. All perspectives are equally important and must be presented as so. Without knowing where areas of good practice are happening, solutions to problems will be there but not reported. This often results in long and unproductive arguments about a policy that is actually working effectively but is being criticised as unfit for purpose by staff representatives who are only speaking for a small minority.          

The role of a staff representative is never going to be straightforward but, now and in the near future, its importance cannot be over-estimated. To help them navigate these issues, the IPA is writing a guide for staff representatives who have constituents mainly working from home. If you would like to contribute to this guide, your input would be very welcome.

Derek Luckhurst is Training and Development Director at the IPA

[email protected]

07780 697024

If you want any more information on IPA’s consultancy or training packages to support employee representatives, please get in touch with Derek to discuss how we could help.

Working From Home – How Do Firms Keep In Touch With Their Staff?

I am used to working from home and, over the years, have developed a number of strategies to make the working day efficient and to create a contrast between the working day and the non-working evening. Some of them sound obvious – having a defined working space away from your living room (if possible), taking breaks, avoiding distractions and making sure your posture is right. Working from home for two consecutive days is usually fine. You are more productive and rested – particularly if you normally have a long commute. On the third day, however, I have noticed that some things change – albeit subtlety. You tend to feel slightly isolated – not overtly but enough to lose a degree of focus. You might also notice that the boundaries between your working life and home life is blurring when you don’t have the commute to separate these. In short, you don’t have the time to wind-down. After many weeks of lockdown, it is highly likely that third day syndrome has morphed into three-month syndrome.

The UK is in an unprecedented situation where millions of people are working from home and for many of those, it is still a new experience. I have argued that it is vital for organisations to develop strategies to avoid the sense of isolation that many workers will be noticing. It is clear that Covid 19 will continue to affect all of our lives for some considerable time, so it is imperative that we all consider how we inform and listen to our staff in these extreme circumstances.

Informing staff about what is going on is vital to address feelings of isolation. However, in these difficult times, people are likely to be more anxious over the here and now as well as the future in terms of their health and job security. Organisations will not have all the answers but the need for an outlet to raise fears and concerns may become as important as the strategic messages designed to provide people with perspective. In these unique circumstances, providing people with perspective through factual information is, arguably, the greatest challenge facing organisations right now.

There is, as expected, plenty of fake news about the virus on social media. The government is setting an example for regular communication with daily briefings using expert knowledge to present key messages. Organisations should be communicating what these messages mean to their particular staff through a series of similarly regular briefings – this should not be difficult if senior managers remember that this will be critical to keeping people engaged and that technology is used to ensure everyone feels involved and included.

The technology available to keep in touch with people is highly effective. Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Skype are being used regularly by many organisations but I have noticed that there is a tendency to try to replicate the usual meeting format with large numbers of people logging in. This is fine if people mute their microphones (the background noise can be overwhelming if they do not) but the chairing of the virtual meeting can be tricky, especially if people start to speak over one another. Based on my own experience, I would suggest that 12 people is a realistic number for these types of meeting. This may not be possible for some organisations but it is important to remember that these meetings are vital to keep people informed and involved – if there are too many people on a single call, the feeling of isolation may not be overcome. It is also important to remember that some people are less technologically experienced than others and I have heard of a number of meetings where people have become frustrated either by the technology or their ability to effectively input.      

Regardless of the amount of information we give to staff, it will not completely stop people from worrying. This is why an effective channel for voice should be at the top of any organisation’s priorities. Many organisations have staff forums or trade unions and they can play a key role in facilitating high quality communication. This situation is, however, different to ones that these representative bodies have been set up to address. People working from home will need regular contact with their organisation on a macro level, but they will also need to talk to their colleagues.

Sharing stories, concerns and good experiences will help everyone to feel more engaged and involved. Some organisations are scheduling regular team teleconferences so that people can keep in touch with the business and each other. Others have set up Whats App groups or have used Facebook and Instagram. In normal circumstances I would have some reservations about the use of social media as a voice mechanism for workplace issues, but these are not normal circumstances and we all need to keep open minds about what is right for now.

Managing people who are working remotely is challenging in normal circumstances so organisations must ensure that their line managers are fully supported during this crisis. They will need to allocate work for people, keep in touch with their staff personally and talk to their peers. I am sure they will make mistakes and they will need to feel that they will be supported to address them. This is why everyone – managers, HR teams, trade union and staff representatives – will need to work together. If there are organisations where battle lines exist between managers and trade unions, for example, these battle lines need to be suspended now.

Anxiety might be the biggest challenge facing people at the moment. It is vital that managers offer one to one sessions with all of their staff on a regular basis. This is where applications like Zoom and Microsoft Teams will be equally important because face to face discussions will help managers assess how people are coping far more accurately than a voice call. Whether managers have the skills and confidence to handle these difficult conversations is a question they really need to ask themselves. This is a time to seek help and guidance to gain those skills and that confidence rather than feeling it might be a sign of weakness. Line managers need to speak to their managers and these senior managers need to act as coaches.  

It is also important that we do not lose sight of the need for people’s development. As I’ve already mentioned, line managers will need a greater level of support at this time. It is quite understandable that conventional training workshops and conferences have been postponed but I have already run four shorter sessions for new staff representatives via WebEx, so the technology is there for us to use – it just takes some preparation and planning.

I have been suspicious in the past of government claims that “we’re all in this together” but, this time, we really must be. Feelings of isolation will create more cynicism and suspicion amongst people when the priority is to build trust. In these times, that trust will be built on regular, factual information to staff together with inventive voice mechanisms. There is really no excuse to leave anyone out.            

Derek Luckhurst is Training and Development Director at the IPA

[email protected]

07780 697024

If redundancies are inevitable

Given the severity of the current crisis, it is unfortunately the case that some organisations are starting to look at the question of redundancies. This is never an issue that should be approached lightly and there are a whole host of things organisations should look at before even considering this possibility, as laid out in our previous article on facing big decisions – most notably making full use of the government’s furlough scheme and other government support for as long as it is available.

I can honestly say, though, that I have never met a senior manager in any organisation that enjoys making people redundant. I would go as far as saying that most hate it and do everything they can to avoid it. Why, in that case, do so many people I have met over the years who have been made redundant believe that they were specifically targeted?  These people all had one thing in common – they felt that their redundancy was a result of a “first resort” mentality; the classic idea that as soon as an organisation needs to save money, it will knee-jerk to a solution that results in job losses. This apparent lack of thought sharpens their idea that the redundancy was personal and people in this position tend to tell everyone who will listen about how they were badly treated by an organisation they felt they had shown loyalty to. These key words have cropped up in most of the conversations I have had with people over the years.

However, many of these conversations have taken a darker turn. Naturally, I will ask people how they are coping and whether they have found a new job. They generally state that they are coping well but reveal that they have been in job interviews where they are asked why they left their former employers. The majority, not all, reply with phrases such as, “Oh, I tell them straight”. It seems, on first hearing, a fairly innocuous remark but it proves quite clearly that the effects of how their redundancy was managed can have a detrimental effect on the person’s chances of landing the new job. I have spoken to many HR professionals who have been in interviews when candidates have said something like this, and they have all confirmed that such perceived negativity would preclude a job offer.

Unconsciously displaying disengagement, chips on the shoulder and baggage will reduce a person’s employability. Organisations tend to focus on the process of redundancy at the expense of the human effect it will have on individuals. This is not a criticism – no organisation wants to get the process wrong and HR professionals and managers have to tread a careful path between supporting people and becoming their “agony aunts”. Detachment is a key survival mechanism for those who are making the redundancies and no one should dismiss the dilemmas decision-makers go through. But here lies the fundamental problem – we all know senior managers have doubts about whether they have thought everything through and whether they are making the right decisions. Why, in that case, do they not share these dilemmas with the staff who are directly affected?

Many senior managers admit that it would never occur to them, some state that they believe it would show weakness. The latter belief is an unfortunate result from the way managers have traditionally been trained but this is now an out of date perception. Where senior leaders have been honest about their dilemmas, people have been able to put their personal situation in perspective. They know the redundancy is not aimed personally at them because the individual is fully informed about why the redundancies have happened and what other options were investigated before reaching the final decision. The key factor here is that managers have proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the redundancy is an absolute last resort.

The conversations I have had with people where this has been communicated are very different from those previously described. When people have this perspective, their performance in job interviews is more positive because they are looking forward not backwards. It also indicates that this person is adaptable and not afraid of change. This will be key to re-employment in the post-lockdown world and it is within every senior manager’s gift to influence that positive mindset.

There will always be a small percentage of people – around 5% of any workforce based on my personal experience – who will never believe the facts and will invent hidden agendas regardless of how detailed communications from senior managers are. This should not, however, deter managers from “telling it like it is”. The COVID-19 crisis will force some organisations into the ultimate decision to reduce their workforce. When this is inevitable, the organisation will need to be very clear about the following:

  • The core objective that has led to redundancies – if it is about the organisation’s survival, be explicit about that
  • Outline the dilemmas and different options that were considered to try to avoid redundancies
  • Explain why those other options would not have met that core objective
  • Outline factually what would happen to the organisation if the redundancies do not happen
  • Acknowledge the risk factors, particularly around employee engagement and business as usual
  • Keep everyone in the organisation informed – all employees need to know this key information
  • Keep communicating – repetition is not negative because some people need this to fully digest what is happening
  • Help people to prepare themselves to seek re-employment effectively, without “the baggage”
  • Be honest at all times
  • State explicitly that the redundancies are an absolute last resort rather than infer that fact

Even if organisations are having to move at a rapid pace, these questions will have been addressed. By taking a step back and reminding themselves of the longer-term effects of disengagement, senior managers will play a significant part in establishing a better future for all of those they have to let go.

Derek Luckhurst is Training and Development Director at the IPA

[email protected]

07780 697024

If you want any more information on IPA’s training for managers and representatives going through or considering redundancies, please get in touch with Derek to discuss how we could help.

Guidelines for organisations facing big decisions

During the last recession, UK companies came up with innovative ways to retain staff while reducing costs, in an attempt to maintain a strong workforce for when recovery came. As the IPA stated in June 2009, most employees understood the impact of the recession on their organisation, and many employers raised the quality of their communications with staff to ensure that engagement levels held up during those challenging times. The current Coronavirus crisis is different in many ways from the last recession but there are a number of lessons that could be re-visited. Our five key messages to organisations are:

  • Don’t make hasty decisions or irreversible decisions without thinking them through carefully
  • Don’t lose staff unnecessarily
  • Hold the difficult conversations and keep staff fully informed
  • Find out what views and ideas staff have
  • Leaders need to set the example

These are explored in more detail:

  1. Avoiding Hasty or Irreversible Decisions

It is not surprising that the first cost-cutting option that may be considered by organisations is to make redundancies. Most staff in the UK will, in fact, believe that redundancies are the only option considered by their senior managers and, even when that is the most appropriate course of action, staff will have no idea that anything else had been looked at. 

The reality is that, if you can keep skilled staff, you won’t need to re-recruit later when the economic climate improves. Re-recruiting is expensive, in terms of advertising, management time, induction and training costs. Making staff redundant is also not free of costs – if employees have two years’ service or more, you will need to pay statutory redundancy pay or the employee’s actual pay, whichever is lower. Employees aged 43 or more are entitled to more than this. You may also have a contractual redundancy scheme which provides for more generous payments than the statutory scheme.

The impact on staff that remain can be high – staff may feel unsettled and morale may suffer. In 2009, more than half of employers surveyed by the IRS noticed the negative effect of redundancies in their workplaces. The research, which surveyed 266 organisations, found that 58.8 per cent of employers had seen a negative effect on the morale of the remaining staff.

The results of the survey came as employers tried to find ways to avoid compulsory redundancies. Toyota announced that month that it is would cut base pay and reduce working hours by 10 per cent to cut costs and avoid redundancies. A Toyota spokesman said, “Following extensive consultation with our employee representatives, and with input from all employees, it has been agreed that the best way to secure long-term employment is to temporarily reduce working hours and base pay by 10%. We believe the measures we have announced give us a greater opportunity to maintain employment through this difficult period.”

The ability to take a step back and view the current crisis in a wider context will be a vital part of strategic decision making and time will need to be taken to explore a series of key questions:

  1. What is our core objective?
  2. What options will potentially meet that core objective?
  3. What risks are involved in the short and long term?
  4. What are the potential knock-on effects of each option?
  5. What are the potential costs of disengagement of each option?
  6. What will happen if we do nothing?
  7. How are we going to consult and communicate with all of our staff?

Senior managers need to assure their staff that, like everyone else, they do not want to go through the distressing process of redundancies, if it can be avoided. 

  1. Don’t lose staff unnecessarily

There are several options that organisations can realistically consider:

Access government support ­– before even considering changes that might affect workers’ incomes, companies should consider the full suite of government financial support available that may be able to cover their costs without needing to reduce jobs, hours or wages. Foremost among these is the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, under which all UK employers with a PAYE scheme will be reimbursed 80% of wage costs, up to £2,500 a month, for staff who are ‘furloughed’ – i.e. kept on payroll but asked to stop working. Furloughing workers is a change in their employment status and as such may be subject to negotiation with the workforce – however in most cases this change will be more advantageous to workers than the other changes below and so should be considered before any other options. The government has offered to backdate this scheme to 1st March once it is up and running in the coming weeks, but to access it employers should be taking actions to designate affected employees as ‘furloughed workers’ immediately. Even where workers have already been informed they are being made redundant, employers should urgently reconsider whether they can cancel the redundancies and instead redesignate affected staff as furloughed workers. Employers with large numbers of staff on zero hours or minimum hours contracts might need to consider how the rules for the scheme could allow them to continue paying some wages to those workers, rather than simply taking the ‘easy’ route of not allocating any hours of work to those workers. For more details on the full range of government support packages as they are announced, including the Job Retention Scheme, companies should regularly check this page for updates.

Cut pay – if you need to, you could consider negotiating a pay cut with employees. This cannot be done without the express agreement of each of your employees and without a really clear business case. An organisation would also need to specify whether the pay cut was intended to be permanent, or for a specific period. If an organisation is considering this route, the pay cut would need to apply at senior levels too.

Reduce hours – organisations could agree with their workforce, or some individuals, to reduce hours (and therefore pay as well) for a specific period. Again, this is not something that can be imposed, unless there is a contractual right to reduce hours. Organisations would need to discuss with employees the reasons for the proposal, how long the reduced hours would last and would need to obtain the agreement of each employee. Part-time working may well be preferable to being redundant, but organisations will need to make sure they confirm what is agreed in writing, as a temporary or permanent variation to the contract. Organisations also need to bear in mind possible impacts reduced hours might have on reducing any equivalent support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Offer sabbaticals – you could offer a period of unpaid leave. Some employees may even welcome a period of time off, knowing that they will still have a job at the end of the period. 

Redeployment – can you use the recession to develop the capacity and skills of your organisation? Could you move staff from quieter areas of your organisation (if there are any!) to cover needs elsewhere, to help keep staff motivated and save the costs of recruitment? Consult with your staff team and see what is possible. 

Ask staff to take a long holiday – this might well suit a number of people. In 2009, BT asked staff to take a 75% pay cut in return for a long-term holiday. BT said they would give staff an upfront sum of 25%of their annual salary in return for taking the whole year off. Staff were also given the option of a one-off payment of £1,000 for going part-time.

  1. Holding the Difficult Conversations

It is more important than ever to ensure all staff are kept fully informed about how their organisation is planning to deal with the current crisis and what its longer-term thinking is. This is more of a challenge with so many staff working from home but this need to be a serious priority despite this. There is an increase in uncertainty and anxiety amongst people and the people cannot be left to fill the information gaps in themselves.

 There are all sorts of techniques for holding difficult conversations but the most important is to prepare thoroughly and explain the answers to the seven questions outlined in the previous section. The danger of information gaps are serious in the current circumstances. When people are working from home for, what could be, a lengthy period of time, their feelings of isolation will increase and the need for factual and consistent information will become critical. 

Senior managers are often hesitant to engage in these types of conversations because they are not sure how to approach their employees. Often, leaders fear the conversation will not go well and employees will become upset. The fact is that some will but they are still entitled to know the facts and to judge the quality of the decision-making process.

Whatever options that are being considered, organisations need to make sure they consult effectively with staff through their representatives and by direct means. During these extraordinary times, organisations need to consider their long-term reputation and responsibility to act as a fair and sympathetic employer.

Line managers will face more pressure in trying to manage their staff effectively while still maintaining the operation as much as they can. They will need to be equipped to deal with difficult situations and given support when mistakes are made. 

  1. Find out what views and ideas staff have

It is always important to ask the views of your staff, staff forum or trade union as they may have some good idea about how the organisation could run more efficiently and save costs. Involving them also demonstrates that the organisation values their thoughts and getting them involved will help to maintain engagement and commitment.

In times of crisis, the value of their input cannot be overestimated. If staff are fully informed, they will be more innovative, more creative and more willing to share ideas. In May 2009, workers at Honda’s Swindon plant voted in favour of a 3% pay cut for 10 months in an attempt to safeguard 490 jobs. In return, workers received a bonus of six additional days’ leave. Managers’ pay was cut by 5% at the same time. This happened because the information was comprehensive and staff were fully aware of the alternative options.

Staff have proved adept at creating new shift patterns when the core business objective was explained to them. Over the last twenty years, the IPA has documented a large library of case studies where staff have reacted to challenges with positivity and a mindset committed to solving problems when given the chance.

  1. Leaders need to set the example

The current situation is unprecedented, and people are looking to their leaders for information, clarity and honesty. It will also be important for leaders set examples to their staff and will need to be willing to accept the same or similar sacrifices they are asking their staff to accept. Looking at the airline sector, who have all been hit hard by the crisis, Boeing’s Chief Executive and Chairman have both agreed to forgo all pay until the end of 2020, as has the Chief Executive of Qantas. In contrast, British Airways pilots have all been asked to take a 50% salary cut before any indication that their Chief Executive was willing to cut his own salary (he later agreed to forgo it for two months) and when the CEO of parent company IAG had only offered a 20% cut to his own salary.

Unless top executives lead by example they will not secure buy-in from staff for the very difficult sacrifices they are asking people to make. When the crisis eventually passes, such incidents will not be easily forgotten or forgiven and will make recovery much more difficult. In the 2008 financial crisis many workers were asked to make tough sacrifices with the promise that they would be rewarded once the crisis passed; such promises were by and large not fulfilled, as median wages stagnated for years after the crisis, while the remuneration of top executives bounced back very quickly and have continued to grow since. Workers will be much less likely to trust similar promises again unless corporate leaders can demonstrate through deeds as well as words that this time will be different.

Extraordinary demands have been placed on business leaders and they are finding out that what they during a crisis is not a predefined response plan but behaviours and mindsets that will prevent them from overreacting and to help them look ahead. Some have already realised that they will need to relinquish the belief that a top-down response will engender stability and, as a result, must also empower others to direct many aspects of the organisation’s crisis response.

If there is anything more that IPA can do to support you and your organisation at this difficult time, or if you are just looking for advice on how best to talk to your workforce about the issues in this article, please get in touch via [email protected] .

News in Brief February 2020

Senior civil servant resigns claiming culture of bullying

Sir Philip Rutnam dramatically resigned last week as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, accusing Home Secretary Priti Patel of bullying and belittling staff and of orchestrating a “vicious” smear campaign of press leaks against him. While Patel has denied the allegations, Sir Philip said in a written statement read to BBC News “I regret I do not believe her”. In an unprecedented move for a civil servant of his seniority, Rutnam is suing the government and Home Secretary Priti Patel for constructive dismissal, claiming he has turned down a financial offer from the Cabinet Office to leave quietly. His statement claimed her treatment of him was “part of a wider pattern of behaviour” which included “shouting and swearing, belittling people, making unreasonable and repeated demands – behaviour that created fear.” The Cabinet Office has announced an internal inquiry into the allegations.

 

Only 42% of UK employees rate their experiences at work as positive

According to a survey of nearly 2,000 UK employees and leaders, less than half of UK employees – 42% – rate their overall ’employee experience’ as positive. Meanwhile, only 53% believe that the ’employee experience’ is taken seriously by their organisation, compared with 47% who say their employer treats it as an afterthought. 48% felt that their employer was sacrificing employee experience in their focus to try and please customers. The figures were drawn from the wider survey of 20,000 global employees as part of the O.C. Tanner Institute’s 2020 Global Culture Report.

Robert Ordever, Managing Director at O.C Tanner Europe, commented that “Many companies are still viewing employees as a means of production and profit but this must change… A great corporate culture is crucial to delivering first-class employee experiences. Failure to act on this will lead to disengagement, mass burnout, high staff turnover and a talent deficit that will see organisational profits nose dive.”

 

New Commission launched on future of early years workforce

A new Early Years Workforce Commission has been set up to bring together a group of leading sector experts to examine key workforce challenges and develop innovative solutions. Their key goal is to ensure that the sector receives the recognition it deserves and is seen as providing a rewarding and attractive career path to current and prospective employees. It aims to publish a report with recommendations later this year, looking at training, CPD, pay, recruitment and retention, as well as demonstrating the importance of the sector for wider society.

Speaking on behalf of the Commission, Julie Hyde, Executive Director of Education and Training at the awarding organisations NCFE and CACHE, commented that “it became clear that whilst the problems facing the sector were well-established, to move the conversation forward, we needed to develop evidence-based solutions. After further discussion we decided to focus on workforce issues. Whilst these are just one part of the puzzle, we believe that an effective workforce strategy is crucial to underpin the long-term sustainability of the sector and quality of provision.”

Advice for employers on preparing for a UK coronavirus outbreak

Latest figures report at least 39 cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in the UK. The risk of death to most working age people remains very low, but responsible employers should be taking steps to ensure they are prepared for the potential widespread transmission of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the UK over the coming weeks and months. Employers should bear in mind that they have a statutory duty of care for the health and safety of their workers and to ensure a safe place to work.

In the workplace, this means providing sufficient clean places for employees to wash their hands regularly with water and soap and encouraging them to do so, as well as providing hand sanitiser and tissues for staff. Face masks will not be helpful in most workplaces outside the health sector but some employers may wish to consider providing them for those working in exposed situations or close proximity to very vulnerable people.

HR policies will also have a key role to play in slowing the spread of the virus and helping organisations cope with the fallout. Employers may want to review their remote working policies and explore ways that they could allow a much larger proportion of their workforce than usual to work from home, potentially for a period of several months. Business travel and meetings may also be curtailed by quarantines and closure of some public transport routes; in any case reducing the amount of travel and number of meetings will help to delay the spread of any outbreak and reduce the chance of infecting your workforce. Where possible, organisations should look to use Skype or other digital collaboration tools to replace physical meetings and reduce the need for business travel.

For employees who do fall ill, HR policies may need reviewing to allow workers to self-certify for extended periods of illness. It can take several weeks to recover from COVID-19 and workers who are ill at home with relatively mild symptoms will be encouraged to self-isolate and therefore may be unable to obtain a doctor’s certificate for their employer.

Although in some cases employers might not yet be legally required to pay sick pay to workers who are either self-isolating or who are forcibly quarantined by the authorities, it is nevertheless strongly encouraged that all employers treat any kind of quarantine or self-isolation according to medical advice either as if it was sick leave, continuing to pay workers accordingly, or exploring opportunities for remote working where possible. If employees are not sick but are told by their employer not to come into work, for example on return from Northern Italy or another affected area, they should also continue to be paid as usual. A failure to pay workers simply because they are not yet showing symptoms will only encourage potentially infectious workers to come into the workplace where they risk spreading the virus among colleagues and customers, leading to much worse business outcomes further down the line. The government also has statutory powers to require sick pay to be paid to quarantined workers by law, something they are reportedly considering.

All line managers and HR functions need to be properly briefed on the organisation’s policies in this area, as well as trained to spot symptoms of the coronavirus and what to do if someone who has recently been in contact with an infected person or who has travelled to a high risk area becomes unwell at work. Official guidance suggests workers in these cases should get at least two metres away from other people, preferably isolate themselves behind a closed door, avoid touching communal workplace surfaces or objects and call NHS 111 for advice or 999 in an emergency.

More generally, it is vital that employers keep their workforces closely informed and updated of any plans being taken either to reduce the risk of infection or mitigate business impacts. Business operations for some organisations, particularly those with key supply chains in badly affected countries or in sectors related to travel, may be severely affected by the global disruption. The UK government’s official planning document envisages that up to a fifth of all UK workers could be absent from work at the peak of the virus and that disruption could last for several months.

Organisations should have contingency planning in place to deal with any disruption either from lost business or from staff shortages, and should discuss these plans openly with the workforce to keep them informed and avoid rumourmongering or disengagement. Such plans might include allowing people to take additional paid or unpaid leave, a shorter working week or other flexible resourcing arrangements. Ideally such plans should be drawn up in consultation with the workforce and the business reasons for any such decisions should be clearly communicated to workers.

Overall a clear sense of leadership and open, honest communications are the best ways for organisational leaders to combat any sense of panic or fear that risks setting in should the situation worsen. It is particularly vital at these times that there is a strong sense of trust between the workforce and senior leaders in order for important communications and advice to be believed and heeded.

For further advice, see the following article from People Management: Coronavirus: how should HR approach self-isolation? Employers should review the following official guidance pages for regular updates:

Acas – Coronavirus: advice for employers and employees

UK Government – Coronavirus: latest information and advice

UK Government – Coronavirus (COVID-19): UK government response

UK Government – Foreign travel advice

National Health Service – Coronavirus (COVID-19)

World Health Organization – Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak

Employee voice is the common thread in solutions to the changing workplace

It is a truism to say that the world of work is changing at an ever headier pace – unfortunately, it’s a truism that happens to be true.  Just as companies try to come to terms with warp factor changes in technology – the role of artificial intelligence for example – along comes another challenge – let’s say from public demands for a clean carbon economy. Then round the corner come major new expectations from employees – to work in new ways, for ethical employers, with their voices heard.

It may help to think of this tsunami as six interconnected pressures:

  • Climate change and the need for countries and companies to reach net zero emissions
  • New technology, automation and its knock-on effects on things like retraining, cybersecurity and the ethical use of algorithms and AI
  • The demands for good quality work that pays attention to workers’ mental health and wellbeing while making work meaningful and worthwhile
  • The need to give more consideration to diversity, inclusivity and providing equal opportunities to everyone at work
  • The need to demonstrate good corporate governance, ethical approaches to investment and respond to new regulation
  • The need to boost productivity and become more adaptable and agile; something that will help with the rest of the above

These pressures are clearly all interconnected and they all flow from multiple directions:

From within: organisations’ own workforces, especially new generations of millennial and gen z employees who expect good work, want a voice at work and care a lot about climate change and other CSR issues.

From investors who are increasingly putting pressure on companies to demonstrate good responsible from behaviour in these areas.

From government and other regulators such as the FRC, with the new corporate governance code; the new information and consultation regulations giving increased rights for employees to demand ICE arrangements; new carbon zero targets, an so on.

From media, consumers and the public: increasing scrutiny of companies’ ethical behaviour, treatment of employees, approach to diversity and the environment. Companies that ignore these areas do so at their peril.

The best – probably the only way – for companies to approach all of these issues is in a close partnership with their workforce. Companies that try and solve these huge challenges with a top-down command and control approach will fail, since they will be unable to take the workforce with them on the organisational changes required. Workers increasingly want to be involved in conversations on all these issues, they want to have a voice at work. Given the right architecture and structures for listening to employees, this is a major opportunity for effective change management.  All the evidence is that introducing changes small or profound in the workplace only works when employees feel involved in drawing up plans, own them to some extent, and feel vested in their success.

As society and our economies evolve to meet the external and internal challenges, enabling employees to be citizens at work – treated as responsible and engaged partners in the organisation, rather than insentient widgets, or untrustworthy children – will be one of the defining characteristics of a successful enterprise. Dinosaurs who persist in believing that management alone knows best run the risk of disappearing along with the once mighty tyrannosaurs.

Nita Clarke is Director of the IPA

[email protected]

News in Brief January 2020

Younger generations struggle to connect at work

A study of 2,000 office workers conducted by ecommerce site Furniture at Work has found that younger workers are struggling to make friends in the workplace. 36% of Generation Z workers reported that they struggle to make friends in the office, compared with only 26% for the whole workforce. In explanation, a similar percentage of Generation Z workers said that they get social anxieties. 29% of workers also said they don’t have the time to maintain friendships at work. The research also pointed to key benefits that workplace friendships provide individuals and the organisation, including promoting mental health, happiness, motivation and productivity. Friendships can also be a major contributor to staff retention, with 38% of workers saying they would stay in a job they didn’t like just because of workplace friendships they had there.

 

Collapse in teen employment signals ‘death of the Saturday job’

According to new research, the number of people of working age (16-64) who have never had a paid job has risen by over 50% since 1998, from 5.4% to 8.2%, despite unemployment reaching its lowest level since 1975 last year. This is almost entirely attributable to the collapse in teenage employment as more younger people focus on further and higher education. A report from the Resolution Foundation has indicated that only 25% of 16-17 year-olds were in any form of paid work between 2017 and 2019 – down from 48% since 1997-1999. Laura Gardiner of the Resolution Foundation commented that “With young people today expected to end their working lives at a later age than previous generations, it’s understandable that they want to start their working lives at a later age too. But this lack of work experience can create longer-term problems, particularly if they hit other life milestones like motherhood or ill-health before their careers have got off the ground.”

 

UK Professionals at risk of mental breakdown from work

According to a survey of 2,000 UK professionals from CV-Library, 42% are currently on the verge of burnout, with over two thirds (68%) listing work as the primary factor. More broadly, workplace stress is attributed as the cause of a wide range of symptoms include having trouble sleeping (45%), feeling exhausted (39%) and suffering from negative thoughts (40%). The number one cause, cited by 31% of respondents, was pressure to meet unrealistic targets (31%) followed closely by excessively long hours (30%) and an excessively high workload (29%). Despite these problems, workers are feeling under pressure not to take much needed time off, with 65% of professionals worrying about letter their team down if they take time off sick and 58% feeling that doing so would be letting down their employer. Lee Biggins, CEO of CV-Library, commented “The stress epidemic is becoming a serious issue in the UK and isn’t set to disappear any time soon. But that’s why employers need to understand how to tackle it and support employees in the workplace.”

Don’t neglect the role of the workforce in meeting climate goals

With the formal adoption last year of a net zero carbon emissions target for 2050 and the forthcoming COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow this summer, there is little doubt that the climate emergency is near the very top of the national agenda. Many major employers too, organisations which might a decade ago merely have paid lip service to climate and sustainability issues, are now suddenly gripped by the urgency and scale of the problem and the need to play their part in finding solutions.

The workforce, particularly its younger millennial and generation Z cohorts, are becoming increasingly exercised around climate issues as well, with interest in a Green New Deal and the concept of a just transition working their way through into the demands of trade unions and other workforce representatives. Investors too are starting to pay very serious attention to corporate reporting on climate issues. Companies are increasingly under pressure from government, consumers, workforce and investors to get a grip on these issues and those which fail to do so risk suffering major reputational damage.

Clearly the things companies can do to reduce their own carbon emissions varies by industry – transportation, construction and energy companies in particular face huge challenges unique to their sectors which they will have to come to terms with over the coming years. There are many other steps though which are open to any companies to take, including important options relating to the workforce and HR policies.

To start with, one of the main workforce contributors to carbon emissions is daily commuting. Companies should take steps to examine their remote working and flexible work policies to see whether they could accelerate the existing trend towards more home working and telecommuting. More business meetings too could be conducted by Skype or other digital platforms, rather than having employees travel long distances to meet in person. Where business travel is necessary, companies should look to default to rail travel rather than car or, particularly, air – even if this proves more expensive.

Companies such as WSP have imposed internal carbon levies on any of their teams booking air travel, with the funds raised being invested in CSR activities. When their staff book travel online, pop-ups are set to appear, asking them if they need to travel at all or whether they could use Skype instead. Some companies are already going further. More than 30 companies so far have signed up to Climate Perks, a scheme launched by the charity Possible which offers two or more paid “journey days” of additional annual leave to employees who agree to travel on their personal holidays by train, coach or boat instead of air.

Looking further ahead, proposals for reducing working hours altogether could make a big contribution to decarbonisation. One of the key benefits of those companies moving to a four-day workweek include a 20% fall in commuting and the option to potentially close the office altogether for one extra day, saving on heating, electricity and other carbon costs. An increase in flexible and home working would also mean fewer people in the office at any time, allowing companies to consider smaller premises that are more carbon friendly.

Regardless of what carbon reduction measures companies are looking at, it is vital that they properly involve their workforce in discussions about major changes to the work environment, buildings, policies and processes and the use of new technology. This is particularly important for industries such as construction, transport, chemicals or energy where there will have to be the biggest changes in workplace practice if the net zero targets are to be met. If these changes are to be implemented successfully, employers will need to convince the whole workforce of the need for change and secure their buy-in to the agenda. Even issues which traditionally have been regarded as ‘tea and toilets’ questions of workplace facilities – things for workforce reps to avoid bringing to high level discussions with senior management – can suddenly take on a new strategic dimensions when seen through the prism of reducing carbon emissions in the workplace.

Climate change poses one of the greatest challenges the UK has ever faced – to rise to this challenge will require unprecedented levels of cooperation and coordination between all stakeholders in the UK economy. Companies are right to now be putting climate issues at the top of their CSR agendas, but a top-down, command and control approach to reducing workplace emissions is unlikely to succeed. Only by bringing the workforce with you on this journey, as equal partners working towards the common goal of preventing a climate catastrophe, will organisations succeed in achieving the radical change that is required.

 

Patrick Briône is Head of Policy & Research at the IPA

0207 759 1004

[email protected]

What will the new government do to the UK workplace?

The new year began with a new government, a degree of certainty over Brexit and a number of employment law developments already on the horizon. We are now in the transition period until 31 December 2020, during which EEA nationals will still be able to come and work in the UK. Employers will need to prepare for a new immigration system that will be in place after the transition period and carry out an audit of their workforce looking for potential skills gaps while considering whether they will need to obtain a sponsor licence to recruit the staff they need from abroad. At the same time, organisations will have to comply with national minimum wage and other statutory rate increases with the added challenge set by the government having pledged that the national living wage rate will reach two-thirds of median earnings within five years. On current projections, this would be around £10.50 in 2024. The proposed rate for statutory maternity, adoption, paternity and shared parental pay is £151.20, up from £148.68.

Arguably, the most striking addition to worker rights is a policy amendment to include parental bereavement leave and pay. This right will allow parents of a child under the age of 18 who has died to take two weeks’ leave. It will be available to the birth parents or those with parental responsibility for the child and can be taken within 56 weeks of the child’s death, in a block of two weeks, or two blocks of one week. Employees will be entitled to parental bereavement leave from day one of their employment, but there will be a qualifying period of 26 weeks for entitlement to parental bereavement pay. Although the government has not yet published the regulations that will finalise the details for the introduction of parental bereavement leave and pay, this is a significant statement.

Reaction to the proposal has followed ideological lines to some extent. HR professionals have generally welcomed the legislation as a potential positive step in avoiding a common employee relations tension point. Representatives have reacted with suspicion with views ranging from a perspective that it does not go far enough to the benefit being a confidence trick to lure workers into a false sense of security over the government’s future intentions towards worker rights generally.

A degree of suspicion is understandable but the overall picture forming of legislation passed already and scheduled later seems generally positive. For example, legislation requiring employers to report on the pay ratio between their CEO and their employees came into effect on 1 January 2019. The first reports, covering information for the 2019/2020 financial year, are due to be published in 2020. Companies covered by the legislation (UK-listed businesses with more than 250 employees) must include a table in their directors’ remuneration report setting out the ratio between their CEO’s total remuneration and the pay and benefits of employees on the 25th percentile, the 50th percentile (median) and the 75th percentile.

Furthermore, the reference period for calculating holiday pay for workers who do not work regular hours will increase from 12 to 52 weeks on 6 April 2020. This change is being introduced as part of the government’s Good Work Plan and should prevent workers missing out on holiday pay if they take their annual leave in the 12 weeks after a quiet period. Employers will need to pay workers without normal hours their average weekly pay, calculated over the previous year, rather than the previous 12 weeks.

In the Queen’s speech on 19 December 2019, the government announced that there will be an Employment Bill, the key elements of which would be:

  • creating a new, single enforcement body, offering greater protections for workers
  • ensuring that tips left for workers go to them in full
  • introducing a new right for all workers to request a more predictable contract
  • extending redundancy protections to prevent pregnancy and maternity discrimination
  • allowing parents to take extended leave for neonatal care; and introducing an entitlement to one week’s leave for unpaid carers
  • subject to consultation, making flexible working the default unless employers have good reason not to

Brexit may well present organisations with the challenge of dealing with unprecedented change over the next few years. Alongside this, organisations and their representatives will need to have serious discussions about artificial intelligence, robotics, climate change and inclusivity. At the very least, these legislative changes should provide some cautious optimism that worker rights will not be diminished by the government while these critical discussions are taking place.

Derek Luckhurst is Training and Development Director at the IPA

[email protected]

07780 697024