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

I’ve read these five words more times than I care to remember when a brown envelope has plopped gracefully on my mat and I’ve raced eagerly to open it to find out whether my job application was successful; then read ‘I regret to inform you that your application was unsuccessful on this occasion’

Unfortunately I’ve had to cope with a big disappointment - but then that’s life.

New research published by Saville and Holdsworth (SHL), the psychometric testing company (8th June 2010) picks this theme up and reveals results that will be a cause for employer concern.

SHL’s research (based on job applicants’ views of applying for work in the retail sector) reveals that the way in which job applicants are handled can leave a long-lasting, damaging effect on that organisation. In other, words this is all about customer care and brand…and getting it right - or in many of the survey respondents’ cases, wrong.

Nearly 50% of the survey respondents told SHL they had a negative view of the organisation because of how their application was handled. 18% were going to take their retail custom elsewhere, 46% were unhappy to receive little or no feedback and 36% had no acknowledgement of their application.

SHL’s Chief Executive, David Leigh was quoted as saying “…unsuccessful job applicants are also potential customers and ignoring them could impact the bottom line,”

In my view this is also an issue for all employers, including the public sector - OK we don’t aim to make a profit, but we do have a community reputation to foster and many job seekers will also be local residents and tax payers. Whilst we are staring into the abyss of significant service retrenchment in the public sector we will still need to employ key skills. Anti public sector press is also hardly helpful to our employer brand image and features in an editorial piece in the MJ magazine of 10 June 2009 (page 2).

Clearly there is resource pressure to dealing with high-volume applicant enquiries, but I believe this research teaches us some salutary lessons. What do you think?

Dean

Hello Blog-viewers

This week I received a ‘phone call from headhunters - no they weren’t after me, but they were trying to extract talent from my organisation. I expect you might receive similar calls, “Any aspiring talent in your organisation that could fulfill this wonderful new job opportunity?”

This creates a bit of a conundrum for me. Generally, I take a stance with headhunters that I’m polite to them - after all they have a difficult job to do (in case any are reading this!) and equally I hope I’m not too over-confident to realise at some future point I might need the services of Tribal, Gatenby Sanderson, Odgers and the like. But - and this is a big BUT - ‘phone calls of this nature engender a feeling in me of “Please go away and stop trying to rob me of my best people”.

However, my conscience then pricks me and I ponder, “But should I keep my people shackled to the organisation - don’t they need to develop grow and move on?” I might even contemplate “Are some of my best people on the cusp of making their next move in any event?”

As we embark on a journey of public sector transformation, my prognosis is that we’ll need to retain the best talent we possibly can as we’re in for tough times ahead. That might mean trying to persuade top people to stay through fulfilling their development needs, or even looking to increase their salary to hold on to the very best - although this will be tricky with the piggy bank hemorrhaging pennies as fast as trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

So what would be your answer to my ‘phone call - and the broader issue of having too much talent?

Dean

My old mum used to say to me “you have to be cruel to be kind” – usually when administering iodine to a bloodied knee, or convincing me that swallowing cod-liver oil (or some other semi-noxious substance) really was good for my health.

The analogy of my formative years can roughly translate to the contemporaneous age of impending austerity - the public sector is poised on the brink of swallowing, what appears to be, some rather nasty medicine.

But, on reflection, my mum had a point - and the medicine actually did me some good. In the traditions of a SWOT analysis – the challenge ahead provides enormous opportunity, as well as threat.

Sir William Beveridge (see previous blog post - the Beveridge Curve) founder of the welfare state (The Beveridge report 1942) realised that his socio-economic model whilst addressing many societal problems also created another set of issues…in particular the creation of a dependency culture in people.

Sutton’s Chief Executive, Paul Martin, comments on this societal concern in MJ Magazine (page 13, 13 May 2010) in an article titled ‘Why independence is key’. Paul advocates the transformation of service delivery for vulnerable adults to promote independence and to redefine the social contract between the individual, family and state – making a shift to a ‘liberating’ relationship, rather than a ‘dependency’ relationship. It’s well worth a read.

Shifting embedded behaviour is not to be under-estimated in terms of the scale of effort required, whether in society or within organisations. Equally, reducing the UK’s deficit is also a daunting task. But the situation, by necessity (see previous blog post – Necessity the Mother of Invention) does provide the momentum for real change and the cuts, if managed well, could produce better outcomes for our citizens. Without this ‘necessity’ it’s arguable that we’d all carry on in the same old way.

Pass me the cod-liver oil…

Dean

When I refer to a Greek Tragedy I’m not talking Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and the March Dionysia - for the classically educated amongst this readership.

No, rather I’m referring to the straitened state of the contemporary Greek economy. You may recall I blogged a few weeks ago concerning the austerity measures in Ireland (When Irish Eyes Aren’t Smiling) taken by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan – who is tragically suffering from terminal cancer but is making superhuman efforts to straighten Irish finances in what appears to be a final act of courage and leadership; putting country before self. In this blog I compare two different approaches taken to repair respective economic wreckage.

Ireland and Greece are joined by two other European countries (Portugal and Spain) making up a rather unkind acronym these ailing economies have become known as amongst economists and journalists in equal measure – ‘PIGS’ (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain).

Greece’s 2009 deficit reached a massive 13.6% of gross domestic product (GDP). Just in case you’re beginning to feel smug the UK deficit for 2009 (according to the Office for National Statistics - ONS) was £159.2 billion, equivalent to 11.4% of GDP.

Comparing Ireland and Greece however, there is a marked difference of approach. Ireland has severely tightened its belt – especially through diminution of wages and pensions – reducing 6.1m public sector workers’ income by an average of 15%. However, all of this has been achieved in Dublin without the strikes or riots we’ve witnessed, via the media, in Athens. Greece, by comparison, has just secured a three-year, £95 billion bail-out from eurozone finance ministers. Whilst Greece has, in effect, secured loan money from Europe to address the problem it resembles paying off debt through a gigantic credit card.

Despite the cash injection the Greek Government is also taking unpopular employment measures - increasing the retirement age for women from 60 to 65 and scrapping bonus wages for Greek public sector workers. President of the Greek GSEE union, Yannis Panagopoulos, has declared, “It’s time to step up the social battle” – in a modern-day parody of a Greek Tragedy.

Whilst I have trepidation about UK finances it’s clear all three main political parties appear to concur public spending has to be reduced. With news breaking that we have a hung Parliament (the first time since 1974) it will be fascinating to see how the UK economic condition will be dealt with. Cut or spend to save the economy – what’s your favoured approach?

Dean

Hello bloggers

Have you read the press headlines recently about public sector services? If you haven’t they go something like this…’Public sector bad, private sector good’ or ‘Town Hall fat cats overpaid and clueless’ or ‘Public sector needs a bonfire under it’.

This type of crude reporting, quite frankly, gets my goat.

Gillian Hibberd and I met Jackie Orme, CIPD Chief Executive, last week to discuss mutual agendas and how we can work in successful collaboration. Fortunately, we see balanced reporting concerning public sector management from the CIPD through People Management magazine. However, we discussed the current plethora of anti-public sector reporting that appears to plague the more sensationalist elements of the media.

The damage crude and melodramatic reporting may cause is of considerable concern both now and for the future. Jackie, to her great credit, was quick to identify the problem. The problem being that we need to recruit and retain talented people if we are to be successful in the challenge of transforming public sector services. Bashing the public sector as a ‘basket case’ puts at risk our ability to recruit and retain those talented people who will be tasked with making fundamental change to public services. If employee engagement takes a hit, so will our ability to provide good quality services at an affordable cost - empirical evidence from Investors in People, MORI, the Work Foundation, to name a few well-respected research organisations, demonstrates a casual relationship between employees engagement and organisational performance.

If the UK is to emerge in reasonable shape from the recession, we need the nation to get behind the public sector to reduce the country’s level of debt and bashing us isn’t going to help one little bit. If top talent leaves the public sector, how will we deliver the fundamental change that’s needed?

Jackie agreed that we need to promote the successful changes already being implemented across the public sector, share the learning and spread the success.  If only others were as enlightened - but then I suppose good news seldom sells newspapers, unless it’s ‘England wins the World Cup’?

Have a good week.

Dean

It’s Sunday evening and the prospect of going into work isn’t half as appealing as watching another bout of Phil and Holly on daytime TV. Isn’t my throat just a little bit sore, or my nose prone to an extra wipe of the Kleenex? Time to throw a quick ’sicky’ methinks…or is it?

April sees the launch of the new fit note - the note replaces the old sick note. This new government initiative follows the excellent and pioneering work of Dame Carol Black and in particular her report ‘Caring for a healthier tomorrow’.

Dame Black’s lobbying of Government has made ministers review the need to get Britain working properly as the cost to the economy of absenteeism is estimated to be an eye-watering (not conjunctivitis!) £100 billion per annum (see People Management, 25th February 2010, pp 19-22 for a fuller account).

However, despite the very laudable intentions to reduce absence and ensure employees are working well for their own health and wellbeing, the Jury’s out as to whether the new fit note is actually fit for purpose? If you were able to attend the 2010 PPMA conference on 23rd March, you would have heard Stuart Chamberlain of Croner, voiced concern about the practical implementation of the new fit note during his presentation on emerging employment law issues.

The concern includes the culture change for GP’s who have had years of looking at what patients can’t do rather than what they can do and the inevitable risk-aversion culture that is embedded when consideration is given to returning someone to work early.

GP’s may also struggle to understand the working context and environment of a patient and therefore be reluctant to advise early return.

The fit note is also unlikely to tackle all forms of short-term absence - such as my introductory tableau above.

Still, one good thing for HR practitioners is that line manager customers are likely to be knocking on your door to seek advice on how to make the necessary adjustments to employees’ work to comply with the fit note, or indeed, whether or not they should accept the recommendations made on the fit note in the first place. Let’s hope you don’t all become stressed out dealing with it!

Dean

Chancellor Alastair Darling made his budget statement this week on Wednesday 24th March. There are some glimmers of hope for public sector services and possibly the axe we’ve been expecting didn’t fall as heavily as we had feared.

EMPLOYMENT IMPLICATIONS

Of most significance from this year’s Budget, from an employment perspective, was the Chancellors’ announcement that ‘The Young Person’s Guarantee will be extended until the March 2012. This means that for the next two years no-one under 24 will need to be unemployed for longer than six months before being offered work or training’.

I see this as a positive announcement in the support of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET), as we know this recession has had a particularly adverse impact on young people and their prospects of finding meaningful employment and a meaningful place in society. This will help support our work in the public sector to stimulate jobs and training for 16-24 year olds, in particular via apprenticeships and work experience.

PUBLIC SECTOR AND PUBLIC SPENDING

Borrowing this year should be £11 billion less than forecast at £167 billion. This will mean that debt is £100 billion lower than was expected at last year’s Budget. The government will stick to planned levels of overall departmental spending in 2010-11 to help support the economy.

PUBLIC SECTOR PAY IMPLICATIONS

As we expected measures announced in the budget included:

• a new code of practice on setting pay for senior public sector workers, following the pay freeze for these workers in 2010-11. Whilst this is financially prudent, it may have challenges for us when it comes to competing for the best leaders and the recruitment and retention of them
• the government will seek a 1% cap on increases in public sector basic pay for 2011-12 and 2012-13. Again this may create some recruitment and retention issues
• halving spending on consultants, reducing the number of quangos and using online systems to provide information and advice to the public. The use of different communication channels to provide greater efficiency for tax payers makes sense. Employing consultants is not always necessarily bad, but this is an area that requires careful review

The government aim to make savings will be made by moving civil servants from more expensive London offices to other places around the country. In the long-term, the number of civil servants in London will be reduced by a third. Step one, 15,000 posts will be relocated within the next five years. I have some concern about whether this will actually be a false economy, as locating employment in London and the South East tends to have the best return on investment, given the general levels of economic vibrancy in that region - so we will have to see how this pans out.

In total, over £20 billion worth of savings have been identified to reduce borrowing and the government aims to protect front-line services. As we enter a period of significant public service retrenchment, it is axiomatic that front line services to our vulnerable citizens should be prioritised.

It would be great to get your thoughts on this week’s Budget. Leave a comment on this blog post or become a PPMA fan on Facebook and post a response there.

Have a great weekend!

Dean Shoesmith - PPMA President

Hello PPMA bloggers - this is my first post as the newly instated PPMA President.

I very much hope that those colleagues who were able to attend this year’s conference enjoyed it as much as I did - we will be asking for your views through a survey questionnaire to be issued in the next few working days.

The keynote speakers did a fantastic job delivering highly motivational speeches, as well as providing content that was professionally developing and thought-provoking. All speaker, master class and workshop presentation slides will be posted on the PPMA website in the near future.

We had a wide range of keynote speakers styles and were - quite literally - kick started by the evangelical Dr Dennis Kimbro from Atlanta Clark University, USA, who provided deep insight into leadership traits required to take us through this period of public sector retrenchment. The oratory power of Dr Kimbro was, I expect, a new experience for what was predominately a UK audience and launched the conference with a high energy, high impact, keynote presentation.

Our next keynote speaker was Professor Katie Truss who provided brand new research from Kingston University Business School into employee engagement. Her academic work was published in the US last week through Harvard Business review - quite some achievement for a UK academic.

Our second day opened with the tremendously energetic Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe from Bradford University. Beverly’s address was highly accessible, whilst packed with academic rigour. Beverly discussed the leadership correlation between competence and engagement - she convincingly argued that to be an effective leader you need both in copious supply and this will be essential for public sector services over the next decade.

The conference concluded with the sensational Richard Gerver - former educational advisor to Tony Blair’s government and a recipient of the head teacher of the year award.

Richard delivered a vision of hope for the future, where he challenged us to be more risk-confident if we are to take the necessary steps to innovate and create sustainable change in public sector services and to derive the best possible skill-level from our workforces. 

I concluded with a ‘call to arms’ for conference delegates to go back to their workplaces and identify skills shortages, then take up the challenge to address this need, that in turn will impact upon service delivery for the benefit of our local communities - as well as the country as a whole - as we strive to come out of recession and compete within the hyper-competitive global economy. I estimate that if every delegate accepted my challenge this could be to the collective benefit of 1/4 million public sector workers.

Dean Shoesmith - PPMA President

You may have picked up in the media that the CIPD have recently issued a paper entitled ‘Building Productive Public Sector Workplaces’. The document highlights the inevitable and lengthy period of public sector transformation that we are going through and positions effective people management as an essential prerequisite for success.

The paper goes on to make a number of recommendations for improvement in people management practice across the sector. For those that haven’t seen the document I have arranged for a link to be sent directly to PPMA members in the next couple of days. Although the paper is, in my view, positioned as a policy and lobbying paper by the CIPD, it has unfortunately been translated into a negative portrayal of public sector people management practice by some parts of the media.

Dean Shoesmith was busy responding to media calls with the PPMA view yesterday but we are also interested in hearing your views on the document. Let us know by commenting in the blog if you agree or disagree with the recommendations? Does it represent a fair and balanced commentary on the sector or not?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Gill