Our Bridget Jones was not deterred this week by a staff turnover of 60%; having grappled with the problem she found the evils of the NMW were to blame but if only finding Mr Darcy could be as easy …
W/C 31 May 2005
Hurrah for Bank Holidays! I came across a quote recently which I think should be every HR practitioner’s mantra – “Not only do I want to be the best that I can be. I want other people, and the organisations they work in, to be the best that they can be too,” and on that note Diary, here are some interesting scenarios for the week:
Change – Scare v Dare?
It’s amazing how different cultures can exist within disparate factions of a business.
Take a holding group with five subsidiaries. The largest employs 62 staff and has a great culture – open, organised, structured and a great focus on loyalty and retention of staff by way of an excellent benefits package.
This subsidiary is the ‘youngest’ acquisition but the parent company has no real structure in place – so much for leading by example! The remaining four subsidiaries employ between six and 10 staff each and are somewhat ‘stuck in the dark ages’ with a closed culture, ad hoc organisation, no solid structure or real benefits. Apart from the largest subsidiary, they are very obviously ‘stuck in a rut’ and have never reviewed what they are doing and how they may do things in a better way.
I am contracted to assist the Board of Directors for the holding group to implement a sound structure in the parent company and bring their smaller subsidiaries out of the dark ages and into the 21st century, by using the success of their larger subsidiary as the benchmark.
So far this has been an interesting and challenging journey from my point of view, simply observing the resistance to change from the established staff. I would love a glass of wine for every time I have heard “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” It would seem though that my ‘softly, softly’ approach has begun to swing the staff around to the new way of thinking and behaving.
The Board support an open approach so I thought, what better way to start than to give HR presentations to their staff to explain the plans to them prior to implementation. I shared one of my quotations with the staff in my presentations, that being “Without change there can be no breakthrough, without breakthroughs there can be no future” – they appear to have taken that idea onboard well.
The feedback was very positive in that everyone appreciated that the proposed changes and ‘reasons why’ had been shared with them and explained clearly. Therein lies the first lesson – ‘open communication.’
This approach has helped me to identify how to get the best out of people. The Board and I have focused on forming more effective teams, and by communicating openly with those teams they have understood more fully how they are instrumental to the organisations success and future – they are learning the process of ‘embracing change.’
I’ve spoken to individuals wherever possible so that I can better understand where people are in the change process. I call this my ‘prevention, rather than cure’ method, it’s better to be prepared in advance rather than be caught out by any nasty surprises!
The best demo to all of the subsidiaries has been the fact that the parent company is going through exactly the same process, so the ‘parent’ leads by example! I’ve even provided job descriptions for the Chief Executive and his Driver – it made them both feel really important, which of course, they are!
This has been a very satisfying project so far as I feel I’ve brought real value to the organisation and know that when I move on I will have left my footprint on it.
I feel a headache coming on!
I spent an interesting hour with a Rewards Officer of a large healthcare company employing some 8,000 workers in care homes all over the UK. The enquiry was relating to advice regarding staff rewards and benefits with the aim of improving loyalty and retention. Their turnover is currently running at 60% – horror!
With such a high churn, I had to find out the reasons behind it and I’ve subsequently discovered that most of the employees only receive the National Minimum Wage, or thereabouts. This employer goes to great lengths to train their staff and achieve a high level of competency, only to then lose their staff to competitors who offer better pay scales – surprise, surprise! In addition the company are only just keeping their head above water financially, so they have very little in the pot to play with.
I was also told that they were looking to introduce a rewards system that may involve the employees making contributions of some kind in relation to a better pension scheme, medical cover, high street/holiday vouchers and dental/optical cover. Bearing in mind that the nature of some of these rewards may attract the ‘benefits in kind’ banner, therefore attracting tax and NI to the detriment of the employee, I asked how they expected their employees to contribute to these ‘extras’ if they were scraping by on little more than the NMW. The Rewards Officer admitted that therein lies the problem!
Other than introducing a more beneficial pension scheme, rather than the basic Shareholder and possibly implementing a Life Assurance Scheme, which wouldn’t attract ‘benefit in kind’ status, I reckon they really need to have a look at their salary bandings and budgets.
They have a major job ahead of them, but they know I’m on hand if they need any further input on this strategy. I suspect the Rewards Officer has a long journey ahead of her with many headaches along the way!
Big players have fun!
My observation day with the brewery went well. They are a very pro-active bunch when it comes to course participation and I’m now looking forward to the next course on Disciplinary and Grievance later this month. If my group are half as much fun it should be a great day. Who would have thought that such a subject could be enjoyable, hey?
Little players turn up trumps too!
The local business I’d approached have finally confirmed that they will refer to me from now on regarding their HR dilemmas.
What seemed to sway them was the cost of me versus the cost of a solicitor. They could see the value of using me as a solution for HR problem solving, only bringing in a solicitor if it looked like litigation would be involved.
I shall keep plugging away at companies like this, as there are so many scraping by on hunches that could get them into serious employee trouble.
Oh well, off to Yorkshire tomorrow to see another client, let’s hope they pay considerably more than the NMW!
Vital Stats:
For all of those ‘singletons’ out there:
- Weight – 9st 11lbs (started Summer de-tox)
- Chocolate – nil (trying to resist with de-tox regime)
- Wine – two large glasses of Red (can’t resist under de-tox regime!)
- Boyfriends – one date. The return of the ‘polar bear’ with apologies and flowers. He didn’t want to spoil a good two year friendship, his line: “we all need friends and I’d like to be yours!” We shook hands on friendship, but he knows it will never be any more than that. Some people are soulmates, others are not, and I prefer honesty, he’s always known that, but you can’t blame a chap for trying I suppose!
- Deep thoughts – I believe in soulmates and enjoyed 19 years with mine, but fate plays its hand just when you think your life’s all mapped out and suddenly your single again – scary, a forty-something Bridget Jones! My hopes and dreams may have been dashed once, but every girl has a ‘Darcy’ out there somewhere and I have a whole new set of dreams to work towards.
Keep it simple everyone and enjoy your week ahead!
*Sue Kingston is a self-employed HR Consultant with 23 years HR experience. Sue can be contacted on T: 07966 216561 or at hr@suekingston.co.uk
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