Hello Blog-viewers

I was recently on a long haul flight and to pass away the tedium I flicked idly through the film channels and came across ‘The Damned United’. The film was also shown on BBC 2 last night (18th July 2010). The plot concerns Brian Clough’s disastrous 44-days leading Leeds United and his (losing) battle with the team who had developed a strong union under former manager Don Revie. Brian Clough’s abrasive approach and his clear dislike of the players’ style of play made it certain there was going to be friction. The more consensual Peter Taylor, his right hand man, loyally stayed with Brighton and Hove Albion (my team!) and Clough missed him enormously.

The film (for me) was reminiscent of what goes wrong with an off beam management approach. In this case Clough was the personification of macho management and the Leeds United team the obdurate trades union. Something was bound to go amiss.

HR Academics Boxall and Purcell in their seminal 2003 work ‘Strategy and Human Resource Management’ note the anachronistic conflict-driven style of management and trades union relationships in the UK public sector. Granted the book was written seven years ago but I would suggest not much has changed culturally since then. Followers of the press this year will have observed recent 1970’s-type references to a ’summer of discontent’ reflecting growing strain in the public sector employer and trades union relationship - in my view only to be fuelled by the drastic cuts in expenditure, threat to public sector pensions (see last week’s post) and a two-year pay freeze to boot.

Now, even more so than ever, is the time for discourse not disagreement. Public sector HR professionals have a tough task ahead of them with changes and challenges to the employment landscape not witnessed since World War Two - so please…don’t score any own goals.

 Dean

The following article features PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Brown Announces Senior Public-Sector Pay Freeze published 10th March 2010 on peoplemanagement.co.uk

The following article features PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Wanted: Fast-Trackers published 25th February 2010 on peoplemanagement.co.uk

The following article features PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. HR wary on plans for public-sector co-ops published 22nd February 2010 on peoplemanagement.co.uk

Happy New Year to everyone. I do hope that you all had a restful festive period and are now feeling refreshed enough to start the New Year with lots of energy.

There is no doubt that this year will be a rollercoaster ride for many of us as we struggle to manage the implications of dramatically reduced public sector funding. You can all be sure that PPMA will be doing everything it can to support it members through difficult times by offering thought leadership, peer support, best practice and opportunities to discuss topical issues.

The first of these opportunities will of course be the impending PPMA Conference in March this year. I can’t quite believe that my year has gone so quickly. I am not yet in ‘wind down’ mode and have lots of things that I want to see progressed before I hand over the reigns to Dean’s very capable hands. In particular, I want to see the next phase of PPMA’s exciting proposals for business development in place and I will be taking a report to the next Policy Board in February on my plans for seeing this happen.

I have some Policy Board changes to notify you of too…unfortunately we have recently seen the resignation of both Jim Savege and Lorraine Hallam from the Board. I’m delighted to inform you that Mike Cook from Camden has now been appointed the new Lead Officer for Reward and that Leatham Green from East Sussex has been appointed the new Lead Officer for Wellbeing and Worklessness. I wish both lots of luck in their new roles and look forward to welcoming them to the next Board meeting.

We are now starting to see the first signs of election fever with the Conservatives campaign launch this week. I suspect that things will hot up even more as we approach the spring. Hopefully the date of the election will be revealed soon to put us all out of our misery.

Over the next couple of weeks I have a number of PPMA duties including a visit to the North West region and will be speaking at a conference on OD in Birmingham on behalf of PPMA. Other presidential duties include media interviews, which keep me busy and writing my regular People Management article. As always comments are always welcome on all of the topics I write about.

In the meantime, stay safe in the snow.

Regards

Gill

The following articles feature PPMA President Gill Hibberd:

1. Perils of a public sector pay cap - published 13th December 2009 in The Sunday Times
2. Public sector faces job losses ‘on unprecedented scale’ published 11th December 2009 on peoplemanagement.co.uk

Interesting article in People Management on ‘Outsourcing’ of recruitment (featuring comments from Gill Hibberd) published on 5th November 2009.

I’m back from a very restful break – to a mound of emails and papers! Hope that you are all enjoying the summer and are managing to find time to take a break yourselves at some point. With this in mind I am reminded of the wise words of Dave Ulrich at our conference earlier this year when he talked about us looking after our health and being responsible for our own well-being!

I’ve been catching up on news that I missed whilst away and see that the debate on public sector pay still rumbles on. The reality of the current economic climate has to hit home at some point and the need for pay restraint must surely apply as equally to the public sector as it does in the private sector. BA have taken the interesting stance of asking its workforce to volunteer to work for nothing for periods of a week to a month. Can you imagine the response that would be received in the public sector to similar suggestions? Personally I think it’s an innovative response to difficult times and we will all be challenged over the coming months to be more and more creative in the solutions we need to find to keep out organisations afloat.

My first opnion piece in People Management magazine on the issue of the bureaucracy we create in HR seems to have caused a stir! The week after it appeared a flurry of letters were received by People Management on the subject from various commentators – exactly the response I was hoping for. I know that not everyone will agree with my views but it’s always healthy to have a debate and to take on board the views of others.

My next piece will be on the issue of organisational design and should appear in the August edition of People Management.

One of the great jobs I get to do as PPMA President is to judge the overall winner of the Personnel Today Awards, which will be announced later in the year. The rather large judging file has just landed on my desk – watch out for more news on this later in the year!

I’m also putting together a plan for the next PPMA Board meeting which I hope will cover the big issues of the future of reward in the public sector as well as looking at the future world of work and what the challenges might be.

I will be back with more blogs soon, In the meantime enjoy what little sun we seem to be getting!

Gill

I’m just about to go off to the annual MJ Awards in London tonight at which PPMA and the LGE are jointly sponsoring the category of People and Workforce Achievement of the Year.

Shortlisted organisations in this category are Birmingham City Council (2 shortlisted entries), Fenland District Council, Hertfordshire County Council, Lancashire County Council and Winchester City Council. Good luck to everyone and well done for getting to the shortlist stage! I’m also hosting a PPMA table at the awards tonight which is an opportunity for PPMA to say thank you to our key sponsors and regional chairs/Lead Officers who put so much time into the work they do for PPMA. I’m looking forward to a great evening!

Last week saw the publication of my first opinion piece in People Management Magazine. I challenged colleagues to think more radically about the bureaucracy we often create around HR processes. My answer was to go back to basics and think about the real purpose underlying many of the procedures we have created. If you missed the article you can follow this link to an online version.

It’s PPMA Board meeting this Friday. It’s my first Board event and I’m taking a slightly different approach by holding a debate on one of my key manifesto issues. This week sees a debate on the future of reward in the sector and I’m delighted that our friend and colleague, Jan Parkinson, will be joining us form the LGE. Watch out for future blog posts on the outcome of the debate!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Gill

Well, who would have believed that 12 months could go so quickly? I’m still a bit surprised that the PPMA conference is almost here again. As I write this post, I’m already in Manchester at the conference venue, with the team of people that are helping to get everything ready for the days ahead.

The conference run up has once again seen PPMA in the media including our incoming President giving some hard but necessary truths about public sector employment, especially in a time of recession, in People Management last week. I also wrote my last H R Columnist piece in the same edition of PM. I’m also sure the media profile for PPMA will again go through the roof this week as the conference gets into full swing (the cast of speakers alone merits this).

So, that’s really it. My Presidency comes to an end tomorrow at the AGM and all that remains is for me to thank you, the PPMA members, who gave me this wonderful opportunity. It has been my distinct privilege and pleasure to serve as President for 2008/09 and I look forward to continuing to serve as both Past President and Treasurer for the next 12 months.

In case you wanted to ask the killer question has the last year been worth it? The answer is a resounding yes from me, the real test is whether or not you, as the Association, also think my tenure has been worthwhile - I hope you equally agree.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing you in Manchester later this week - Gillian, over to you and best of luck.

Best wishes and thanks to all,

Stephen