News In Brief: The week In HR – 27/06/05
This HR news roundup covers key workplace developments including union pressure on the Prime Minister ahead of the G8 summit, government initiatives to mentor at-risk youth back into education, and a CMI survey revealing that nearly half of UK organizations face manager recruitment difficulties due to skills shortages.
How to: Improve brainstorming sessions
Learn how to make brainstorming sessions more effective using TRIZ theory and the 40 principles. This systematic approach helps teams resolve contradictions and generate innovative solutions by leveraging proven problem-solving methods that others have successfully used.
Colborn’s Corner: Assessment Centres – are they worth it?
Assessment centres have become a standard recruitment tool, but their effectiveness deserves scrutiny. While they test multiple competencies and involve managers in hiring decisions, candidates increasingly game the process. Organizations should validate whether assessment centre exercises actually predict job performance rather than treating them as a sophisticated recruitment panacea.
What’s the answer? AML notice and pay
When an employee resigns from additional maternity leave, her termination date is effective one month later (not immediately), unless her contract specifies otherwise. Whether she receives notice pay depends on her length of service and statutory entitlements under UK employment law, though she is entitled to accrued holiday pay regardless.
HR Practitioner’s Diary: Tribunal teasers
A HR practitioner shares workplace anecdotes, including how to address inappropriate dress codes professionally and a case where an employee strategically handled unwanted sexual harassment from her manager. The diary explores HR challenges from dress code management to workplace misconduct during summer 2005.
Coaching Insight: Coping with stress
Workplace stress can be managed through effective organisation, planning and prioritisation. Coach Graham Alexander shares how senior executives escaped the stress trap by implementing better scheduling, prioritising tasks, and leveraging support networks to achieve work-life balance.
Feature: Beat e-learning inertia
Organizations often struggle with e-learning adoption due to cultural resistance and lack of strategy. This guide outlines key approaches to overcome inertia, including securing senior management support, creating peer support programs, and providing dedicated learning spaces to maximize engagement and program success.
Review: 40 Activities for Training in Self-empowerment
This practical training manual contains 40 structured activities designed to build self-awareness, confidence, and personal responsibility. Divided into eight areas covering self-esteem and interpersonal skills, the exercises can be adapted for management training, teamwork, conflict resolution, and communication courses.
Member wire #105 – HR Diary – Fingers in the till; Maternity dilemmas
HR Zone’s member newswire covers workplace issues including employee theft concerns, maternity leave and pay disputes following stillbirth, and speed-dating recruitment methods. The issue also addresses stress-related disabilities, back pain prevention, and SMP calculations.
Structured learning the CPD way
Continuing professional development (CPD) is a structured cycle of learning and improvement promoted by professional bodies like the CIPD. Through seminars, courses, work experience, and self-directed study, professionals update their skills and knowledge to stay competitive, build confidence, and benefit their organizations.
Payroll Tip: Employee making purchase on company credit card
When an employee uses a company credit card for purchases, the employee is legally liable to the vendor, and the employer’s payment of the bill creates a taxable benefit. This benefit is reportable on form P11D for tax purposes and subject to Class 1 NICs, unless the expense is exclusively for business use.
How Did I Get Here? Corinne Spencer, Towry Law
Corinne Spencer, HR Director at Towry Law Group, shares how she transitioned from operations management into HR and her mission to improve workplace culture. She discusses overcoming challenges in embedding organizational change, managing proactively, and addressing poor management practices that have shaped her commitment to building supportive, high-performing teams.
How to: Employ foreign workers
Employers hiring foreign workers must navigate complex immigration laws and work permit requirements. Recent government proposals introduce a points-based system to streamline recruitment across skill levels, while companies remain responsible for ensuring compliance with Home Office regulations and employment standards.
Editor’s Comment: Hiding behind the arras
Email has empowered people to express themselves boldly online, but this digital courage often bypasses the social restraint of face-to-face interaction. An editor examines whether this “e-boldness” is eroding professional norms, using viral workplace disputes as examples of how email’s anonymity enables behavior people would never attempt in person.
News in Brief: The week in HR – W/C 20/06/05
This week’s HR roundup highlights key challenges facing UK employers: persistent skills shortages are forcing companies to hire and train less experienced staff, with 85% of employers reporting recruitment difficulties. Senior leaders report sleep disruption from work stress, particularly management issues, while new government proposals could jail employers of illegal migrants.
HR Practitioner’s Diary: Fingers in the till
An HR practitioner helps a client investigate and dismiss a company accountant who illegally transferred nearly £10,500 to her personal account on her last day of work, leading to police involvement and summary dismissal for gross misconduct.
What’s the answer? Quashing ‘sickies’
Employers seeking to reduce suspicious absences can issue clear warnings about potential disciplinary action for suspected “sickies,” particularly when sick leave coincides with denied holiday requests. Legal experts recommend combining motivational workplace improvements with formal communication to staff about increased scrutiny of suspicious absenteeism patterns.
Case Law Digest: When expletives get expensive
Employers using aggressive management styles face increased legal risk, as employment tribunals increasingly protect workers from verbal abuse and intimidation. The dismissal of rugby coach Ian Millward for abusive language highlights the importance of proper investigation procedures and progressive discipline before resorting to termination.
Lobbying Tales: Battle on the Eastern front
The Recruitment & Employment Confederation launched an unprecedented lobbying campaign across new EU Member States to defend UK labour market flexibility against the proposed EU Agency Workers Directive, which threatened to impose costly bureaucratic requirements on temporary work arrangements.
CSR and beyond: Should HR care about ‘Non’ & ‘Nee’?
The EU’s rejection of its constitution reveals divergent views on business regulation and the state’s economic role across Europe. HR professionals should understand these philosophical differences, as they shape corporate social responsibility approaches and how businesses operate within their regions.
