Catch up on the week in HR with our at-a-glance news round up including HR’s top worry, management failure to switch off, why it’s no longer ‘grim’ up North and IT giant to shed HR jobs.
W/C 18/07/05
Absence tops HR worries
HR professionals have ranked absence management as their number one concern yet most don’t know how much it is costing their business.
Sixty per cent of respondents in health provider FirstAssist’s survey put absence management at the top of their key concerns. One in five, however, admitted that they didn’t know the scale of their absence problem.
CBI figures say the problem costs almost £500 per employee a year, a figure that equates to an annual cost of £12.2 billion to the UK economy.
Over a quarter of those quizzed said they didn’t monitor stress, despite its influence on wellbeing. Just under half (41%) claimed to use return-to-work interviews to manage sickness absence.
Sixty-six per cent provide Employee Assistance Programmes, which means that a third are either using alternatives or nothing at all.
Tim Ablett, Chief Executive of FirstAssist said the results were ‘shocking’, “Many HR professionals still seem to be working in the dark when it comes to stress in the workplace, sickness absence levels and its financial impact. This is alarming and we urge businesses to look at ways of getting to the root cause of staff absence by creating a healthy working culture for employees.“
UK undervalues vocational skills
The UK is placing less importance on vocational skills than other European countries, and it’s affecting our competitiveness, according to research from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).
The study revealed that 57% of people in the UK thought vocational skills were most important for their career, compared to three quarters (76%) of people in France, around two-thirds of people in Germany and Sweden (67% and 64% respectively) and 60% in Italy.
The LSC’s research, revealed at its recent Skills Summit, showed that recognition of the value of vocational skills increases with age, suggesting that those in the workplace have first-hand experience of the fact that academic qualifications alone do not automatically translate into competency in the work place.
For more on this story see: www.trainingzone.co.uk
Managers find it difficult to switch off
With holiday season upon us, many managers are finding it difficult to switch off, according to a new survey by the Chartered Management Institute(CMI).
Its survey of 6,000 managers found that many are fearful about the impact of their absence and almost half (49%) contact their organisation by choice during their break. A majority (68%) will also respond to requests from their employer, whilst on holiday.
Almost half (48%) regularly check their work emails and 43% monitor voicemail. In an effort to keep in touch with colleagues 57% take away their work mobile phones, 20% take their laptops and 14% regularly visit Internet cafes.
The survey also shows that managers put in extra hours to make up for the time they lose by going on holiday. For a typical one-week break, the UK’s management community works an additional 36 million additional hours, beyond their contractual requirements. The CMI calculates that this represents a cost saving to UK organisations of £880 million.
For more on this story see: www.trainingzone.co.uk
Value of strategy workshops in question
Strategy workshops or away days have become common place, but the findings of a new survey raise questions for UK organisations about how much real value they deliver.
Despite the expense and time spent on strategy workshops by senior management teams, few measure the impact of these events, according to the study by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and the Advanced Institute for Management Research (AIM).
Many respondents reported that away days fall short of expectations with 10% saying the workshop they last attended failed to meet its objectives and over 40% reporting either no or a negative impact on a range of measurable outcomes.
The report, The role and importance of strategy workshops, is the UK’s first ever study into the effectiveness of strategy workshops. It reveals that almost 80% of UK organisations host workshops at regular intervals. Nearly half (46%) claim they occur at least once a year at a cost of £10,000-£50,000.
Despite this investment, four in 10 also suggest they have no clear-cut impact on productivity and profitability and only a third (34%) think that strategy workshops improve innovation.
For more on this story see; www.trainingzone.co.uk
Information overload affects 66% of managers
Technology often hinders rather than helps executive decision-making by providing solutions that are either too difficult to use or that fail to deliver the information managers need most, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit survey.
“Information is everywhere, but knowledge is hard to come by,” was a key conclusion of the EIU report, Know how: Managing knowledge for competitive advantage.
Two-thirds of the 122 firms interviewed for the survey complained that IT systems generated huge volumes of data, but left managers struggling to turn this into information they can act on. Either there was too much information for managers to handle, or a lot of it was not accurate or reliable, the researchers found.
More than half the respondents (55%) said information was not adequately prioritised. The most important steps to improving the speed and quality of decision-making lay in consolidating information and providing consistent performance indicators.
For more on this story see: www.accountingweb.co.uk
It’s no longer ‘grim’ up North
Bosses in the North West are the best to work for while those in the Capital are the worst.
These are the claims of a recent poll conducted by Peninsula, employment law firm.
Of the 2,839 workers quizzed, 80% agreed that their boss in the North West was the best to work for, closely followed by 71% of workers in the North East who felt the same.
Warmth of feeling, however, doesn’t appear to have travelled south. Just over half, 51% of workers in London said their boss was the best while 58% said the same in the South West.
In Wales the picture looks a little brighter with 67% claiming good feelings towards their head and 74% in Scotland.
Being in favour was an issue for 80% of employers who admitted to seeing it as a priority for them.
Peter Done, Peninsula’s Managing Director said:
“Human resources are not as highly regarded as other trendier areas of business such as marketing or PR yet there is a growing recognition of the advantages that investment in people and HR can bring.”
NHS invests in low skilled workers
NHS staff with no professional qualifications will be given access to learning accounts Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt announced this week.
Hewitt said there would be £60m funding to continue NHS learning accounts and NVQs.
The NHS Learning Account (LA) scheme aims to help those staff who do not have a work related professional qualification develop their skills and potential and help to raise standards in the fundamentals of patient care.
It is worth up to £150 per year towards the cost of a learning/training programme.
Hewitt said: “Learning doesn’t just stop at 16 or 18. The NHS can offer more career opportunities for staff than any other and there should be no obstacles preventing anyone on the first rung of the career ladder, such as healthcare assistants, becoming a senior clinician.”
Unison Head of Health Karen Jennings said she was pleased to see the commitment to lifelong learning.
For more on this story see: www.trainingzone.co.uk
European IT training spend set to rise
IT training spend across Europe is expected to increase to combat skills shortages caused by accelerating retirement rates and a decline in IT graduates.
In a recent survey of IT decision-makers from leading European economies, Forrester Research Inc found that they plan to significantly accelerate spending on training between 2005 and 2007.
It also expects companies’ IT skills requirements shift away from technicians and more toward business-oriented roles. Routine activities, Forrester expects to continue to be outsourced.
Firms expect to need more IT/business analysts, architects, enterprise programme managers, and vendor managers in the near future. However, Forrester is unsure existing education system will react quickly enough to meet company demands.
For more on this story see: www.trainingzone.co.uk
Employers’ group welcomes age proposals
The CBI has welcomed the draft regulations on age discrimination, published last week.
From October 2006, it will become unlawful to discriminate on the basis of age. The draft proposals out for consultation present one of the biggest shake ups of employment law in almost a generation.
The new laws will mean that mandatory retirement (below 65) will become very difficult for employers to enforce, while new flexible working options for employees who wish to work after this age will have to be introduced.
John Cridland, CBI Deputy Director-General, said:
“One of the vital factors behind the UK economy’s success is its flexible labour market. These regulations recognise the importance of retaining that flexibility, which can only be good news for both businesses and their staff.
“The CBI does, however, have concerns about the DTI’s failure to exempt all length-of-service benefits from the draft regulations. Companies that currently reward long-serving employees through enhanced sick pay and holiday allowances could risk age discrimination claims from younger employees who have been with the firm for less time. In these circumstances, firms might be forced to withdraw this kind of benefit.”
Hewlett-Packard to shed HR jobs
IT giant, HP will axe 14,500 employees over the next 18 months in a move designed to reduce costs.
HR jobs are under threat together with IT and finance positions. The remainder will be made in business units, in areas where work can be reduced by improving processes and re-prioritising existing tasks, according to the firm.
The company expects these actions will save $1.9 billion annually.
The move will mean that 10% of the regular full-time workforce will go.
“After a thorough review of our business, we have formulated a plan that will enable HP to begin delivering its full potential,” said Mark Hurd, HP chief executive officer and president. “We can perform better – for our customers and partners, our employees and our shareholders – and we will.”
