HR Magazine

The web is deluged with companies selling paraphanalia with the logo, "I agree with Nick", a play on the other candidates - primarily Brown's - attempts to ingratiate themselves with the LibDems in the first election debate. Pundits are falling over themselves to name Clegg the next Obama, more popular than the next Churchill. Amidst all this hysteria, beatification seems seconds away. The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail are reacting with much indignant frouthing at the mouth, presumably irate that public frustration at the political status quo appears to have found an outlet in someone other than the Tories, who (they quietly remember to forget) voted against consitutional and political reform during the parliamentary wash-up period.

We have been here in previous elections though. Is it a bubble?  Possibly. Probably. Who knows. It's certainly opened up the election. The Electoral Commission has reported that six times as many people have downloaded voter registration documents from their website this year than previously (300,000 on the 16th April 2010 compared to 49,000 in 2005). Voter turnout is expected to be high this year, especially amongst the young.

Clegg has certainly pitched himself well, tapping into the general public disatisfaction with the nature of our Tweedledee/Tweedledum politics. He's stolen a march from the Tories since with his plans for green britain. He'll undoubtedly be under intense pressure at the next debate as the LibDem policies are put under greater scrutiny. The Tories and Labour have to strike a fine balance between discrediting Libdem policies and ensuring that they keep them onside in the increasingly likely event of a hung parliament. The LibDem manifesto is here by the way, in case you want to base your vote on more than a solo x-factor style performance.

The key issue, of course, is to see if any of the current LibDem surge has any impact on the day. Interestingly, with the LibDem support spread evenly throughout the country, the current structure of our electoral system means that, in the event that the Libdems do garner the majority of the public vote as some tentatively suggest as a remote possibility, they still wouldn't have a majority of seats in parliament.

A party with majority support unable to govern? Now there's a constitutional crisis if ever I saw one.

I was interested to read the assertion by Theos on the HR magazine website that 32% of employees think that religious freedom has been restricted over the past 10 years. The more obvious headline to me might have been that 68% of employees don't (assuming that includes the 'don't knows'). Theos, as the name suggests, is a religiously motivated think tank and, to give them their due, are open about their agenda on their website so I suppose that its unsurprising that they use the stats that support their views. Welcome to religion, I suppose. The findings really are rather odd for anyone with more than a marginal knowledge of history. There has been a huge advance in religious freedom in the UK. I can't recall the last time local leaders arranged a progrom against the Jews or the church decided to burn a modern-day John Noyes. These political, social and cultural advance have been made despite resistance by established religious groups.

"The right to religious freedom is itself a basic right," says Mr Roger Trigg author of the report.

Yes. We probably all agree on that. Although it seems to me that Theos, in conducting this research, are attempting to portray attemps to reduce the influence of religion on every day life as an attack on religious freedom in general. It's not the same thing at all. I'd quite like to know how my religious freedom, if that’s not a misuse of the term for someone who classes themselves as a humanist, is advanced by the existence of 26 unelected bishops sitting in the House of Lords? They voted against the right to die reform against the wishes of the vast majority of the public. They engineered an exemption in the equality bill allowing religious employers to discriminate against homosexuals and others. Always good to see worthy people putting dogma and superstition above basic humanity.  

Ah well, as Thor, Odin, Ba'al and Zeus found out, several centuries hence, humanity will have launched a new product range of Gods to fight over. Although, maybe, hopefully, in the future employees will find more empathy and understanding in this?

I've been trying to scale the complexities of the childcare voucher scheme this week as my eldest son starts nursery in September. It took me three days to scope out the nurseries in our areas and four days for the police to convince me that the costs are not actually extortion, and therefore deserving of a mass execution, but are, in fact, legal. My bank account, already under manned, limping from a nasty bout of trench foot and in dire need of reinforcements after 12 months fighting off the worst of the recession, is now being kicked repeatedly in the shins by an outflanking force of two small boys armed with demands for nursery fees and shoe sizes that seem to double in size every nine days. That these vouchers exist at all is great but the fact that my company also contributes 10% is a godsend. Although, like most things in these days of pay freezes, pay cuts and redundancies, they only meet some of the costs of real life. So, in fact, it’s a Godsen, then, noun, pron: god-sen, a particularly useful and timely event (or employee benefit) that, while greatly appreciated, unfortunately, just doesn't go far enough.

My wife and I are on the opposite sides of the employment spectrum. Me: large company. Her: freelancer. Being a freelancer, she can work according to her needs but unfortunately, recieves none of the benefits that I get from being a full time employee. In boom times, this set up gave her the flexibility to work when she wanted, earning a decent wage and be on hand for the children too. The media often applaud any overly-hyped method of interconnected working different to the norm, spurred on by their desire to identify the 'new, new thing' and developments in social media and the web. The traditional company structure will soon be dead, monoliths transformed into mobile, loose affiliations of remote working employees, we were told. Wage slaves, claims the Daily Wail, I tell you that you will soon be free to work at home, railing against the decline of western civilisation while sitting in your pants. Unfortunately, the recession came and this emperor found that not only did he have no clothes but also lacked body parts and a torso. The Wildebeest are right. It's safer in a herd.

Larger companies have made efforts to retain their key staff over the last year or so, acknowledging that the cut and run techniques used in the last recession ended up hurting them when it came to recovery. In contrast, I listened to the audible smacks as members of the freelancing community, in the depths of the recession, hit the wall on an unpleasantly frequent basis. Often, it was people that we knew. Occasionally, we thought that it would be us.

And then, suddenly, those that had previously taken pleasure in being their own boss - the perceived zenith of employement evolution - began clamouring to become a wage slave, envying the regularity of our work, the childcare vouchers, the regular income and, at the end of it all, the safety net of a redundancy payment. The trick of course, will be to see if any of us have learned our lesson for the future. Personally, I doubt it. We never do.

As the snow and ice has turned my daily form of transport from an energy efficient miracle to a two wheeled suicide device, my bike has been given a well earned rest as I tentatively make my way to the tube every morning at 8.00 a.m. In most other circumstances being this inappropriately close to another human being would invariably result in a beating and/or prison sentence (not necessarily in that order) but like the millions who endure this ordeal, we politely grin and bear it as we awkwardly rub bodies, gaze intently at each others' pores and study a terrible advert for car insurance as though it were a novel. I've been cycling to work for so long that its almost refreshing to recognise old acquaintances - the idiosyncracies and behavioural rituals that have evolved to define the London commute to work. The no speaking rule. The invisibility of the old, infirm and pregant to those with a seat. The stress of the conditions are such that no speaking is a rigidly enforced requirement. Without it, ear drums would perforate in a sea of frustrated expletives. The head-clearing effects of 150 different types of aftershave and scent wafting from 150 bodies in a steel tube hurtling through the black depths. A perfumists Inferno. The collective disdain for any tourist who dares bring luggage onto the tube during rush hour. Tsk. Shake head. Look disgusted. The desperate cramming of bodies into this packed carriage, because Something Important Is Happening That Means I Cannot Wait An Extra Three Minutes For The Next Carriage. The collective fury that errupts at the turnstiles when someones pauses to find their ticket. Madness. Commuting is insanity masquerading as normality. Same time tomorrow, then?

Life begins the slow descent into festive insanity that is the Christmas season. My particular bête noire is Secret Santa. For those that don't know, Secret Santa is the evil ritual whereby your colleagues anonymously buy each other presents. So invariably, one ends up having to chose a present for a colleague that you are only vaguely aware existed. I say evil as it adds extra complexity to a season already riven by indecision and strewn with my desperate attempts to remember to buy presents for my thousands of extended family members. The only thing that I may know about my Secret Santa colleague is that they occasionally walk on the same bit of office carpet. As if this wasn't enough, an additional hurdle is that presents are limited to five pounds. Now. I work in the City of London. The last time shops in the City of London stocked something worth five pounds was back in 1705. Five pounds then bought you seventeen footmen, a peerage and a sugar plantation in Jamaica. In 2009, shops around here charge you five pounds just to read their signage, recession or not. Fortunately, I have been told of a new place that stocks 'novelty items'. Now, that phrase makes me grimace as much as outlets that call themselves 'Ye Olde Shoppe', the word 'leverage' and the anyone describing themselves as a 'motivational speaker'. Shops which sell novelty items are an indication that the collapse of Western Civilisation is imminent. Future citizens will find our bones buried under plastic dog messes, cartoon loo paper and fluffy trolls perched atop coloured pencils. Nevertheless, it must be done. I shall sally forth buy my colleague their present and hope that what they have always wanted was a stapler in the shape of a naked Father Christmas, his modesty covered only by a small red hat. On the plus side, as its secret, we don't have to share the crippling awkwardness of them pretending to be pleased with it. Thank heavens for small mercies, I suppose.

(Note to self: You should really caveat this with the admission that last year my Secret Santa gave me quite a good gardening book. But then again, you might want to leave that out as it'll make everything that you've written before that admission look quite contrived).

Well, my second son came barrelling into the world a few weeks ago now and life has suddenly got messier, nosier and busier. The first child makes you realise how much free time you used to have while the second child makes you understand that life with one is quite like holidaying in Bermuda in a staffed boutique hotel, by comparison. So, I ricochet from home to work, from board room to bath time from conference calls to coo-coos from reading the FT to spotting ladybirds on my eldest's favourite picture book. We're haunted by sleep deprivation, robotically changing nappies and feeding frantic mouths, collapsing at the end of the day to snatch some supper and choose to watch mindless TV, the programes invariably chosen because our addled brains can only process people using words of less than two syllables. Thank God for the modest, intellectual heavy weight, Katie Price. Weekends are more of the same. Our life is a running machine set slightly too fast. With both of us working, my wife and I share the childcare so we both find ourselves more sketchy than usual, more fractious, less tolerant. Damn, children are hard work. I'll post when I can. It may smell a bit of baby sick. Sorry about that.

My second child is due to be born any day now and my interest in paternity leave developments has been reignited. Unfortunately, lobbying my local MP to allow fathers like me to take 5 years off on full pay and beer, for some reason, hasn't made much progress. Never mind. However, I was interested to see that Labour's suggestion that mothers could transfer their unused maternity leave to their partner met with a frosty response from the two high profile business associations recently - both cited 'the administrative nightmare' that such legislation would open up for employers. I can see what they're saying but we probably all know that this is business code for 'We hate this idea but can't say so directly, so we're going to exaggerate the problems to try to prevent it going through', don't we? What would have been refreshing to read is: 'the spokesperson admitted that their members hated this this idea and - no matter how well intentioned the initiative - they generally hated ideas that would impact on their profitability. However, the spokesperson also conceeded that most people are quite lazy and this irritating idea just added to everyone's workload. He then added that "as this position would make them look like a heartless steroetypical employer pressure groups, they generally used the euphamism 'administrative nightmare' instead."

This isn't just an isolated example. Using the power of computer hacking and an over active imagination, exclusive to Human Resources Magazine, I can show you an entirely fictitious selection of discarded policy drafts from some of our leading business organisations:

• We object to minimum wage increases because it simply gives workers more money to spend on beer. In addition, people probably enjoy poverty.
• Children actually enjoy working in sweatshops producing cheap clothes as it gives them a sense of style.
• Women do not really deserve equal treatement to men because they are, on average, shorter.
• Flexible working is a bad idea because it sounds like it might hurt. This might lead to an increase in business insurance premiums.
• An opt out from the Working Time directive is vital. We recognise that most people are unhappy in their relationships so, as caring employers, we 'd like to encourage them to spend as much time in work, away from each, other as possible.
• All laws must be as flexible in their appliation as possible in order to allow our members room to not do anything. Unless the law benefits us, in which case it must be enforced vigorously.
• Interestingly, you may know that Earl Shaftesbury, the man who campaigned against child slavery faced considerable opposition to his plans from the political classes. These MPs also happened to own many of the factories, stately homes and mills that Shaftesbury's legislation would effect. In one notable case, an MP was concerned that he wouldn't be able to keep his stately home clean if 5 year olds weren't allowed to crawl up soot encrushed chimnneys for 14 hours a day retiring at 11 with a generous pension of cancer and lung infections. How times change......

I'm currently being stalked by various sub -groups of the UK's further education establishment. I've received four emails in the past few weeks all asking for sponsorship. There have been two Rugby clubs at College X and University Y, one from a group of actuarial students at University A and B, a woman's hockey club. All have been, as far as I can tell, authentic. Not a Nigerian banker, requesting my bank details on headed note paper, in sight.

Now, big hand for their initiative but where's the personal touch? Email, social networking sites, even twitter have their role in life and business for good or bad, but the clincher is that in business, the human link still dominates. A phone call from the ether pitching an idea, a meeting, a proposal is far harder to dismiss that an email from someblokethatI'venevferheardofsolet'sdeletesthis@gmail.com.uk.

At least the Nigerian banker would try to interest me with tales of riches beyond my wildest dreams as compensation for emailing me an anonymous missive. It would be a lie clearly, but it shows that Nigerian Con artists understand the sales pitch and the win-win concept.

My stalkers simply ping me an email announcing:

"Dear Sir, While I haven't quite got around to finding whether you have responsibility for this area, I thought that I would take the plunge and email you anyway. While I realise that most people delete unsolicited emails, this course of action allows me to feel that I have completed the fundraising task, even if the phrase 'to best of my ability' has no place in the same sentance. As this weighty file, attached in this mass mail out demonstrates, we'd appreciate your involvement. In order to challenge you mentally, I will leave it to you to work out why, at a time of tight corporate budgets, supporting us would benefit your company. It's not up to me to convince you, of course, I shall simply say that it will. However, far more importantly than this, is the fact that your funds would buy my rugby playing colleagues 15 shirts, 5 extra large branded jock straps and 190 beers per player per day for an entire calendar year. I await your response.

Yours, A. Student.

P.s Oh, and if this isn't your area, can you forward it to the right person and ask them to call me?"

Unfortunately, the outlook delete button makes very little noise in cyberspace, so they may be waiting some time. Really, though, if you're asking someone for money at least try to stack the odds in your favour by calling your target first. It makes a difference.

Of course, if I recieve an email mentioning that they're starting up a ' We move with technology but would like to ensure that people understand the importance of personal contact' student group, then I have £14 billion in funds for them, left to me by Mugabe's Zimbabwean cronies. All they have to do is send me some headed note paper and their bank details……

This year, I've begun an effort campaign to find greener alternatives to my usual day to day routines. I'm then pitching the ideas to our Employee Forum which lobbies senior management on changes that the employees would like to see. It's always struck me that many companies begin and end at 'recycling' when thinking of offical policies to show their staff that they're environmentally friendly. It's often down the individual to suggest smaller changes that could effect an even bigger change. 

I was intrigued to see the Health and Safety Executive call for a more common sense approach on the HRMagazine website and for business leaders to show some support for the initiative. In one of my previous corporate lives, the facilities manager announced that employees cycling to work could no longer keep their wet cycling shoes under the benches in the office changing room - or hang our towels and jackets on the wall - to dry. If you've ever cycled to work in the Winter, you'll know why this rankled. When we queried this inconvenient decision and were told that, according to our company's Health and Safety consultants, a serious accident could occur if one of the shoes/towels was dislodged and an unsuspecting (aren't they always?) changing room user fell over it. Truth be told we agreed with him and felt that being damp was certainly best. After all, after negotiating blindly lumbering HGVs, towering buses, aggressive white vans and speed freak motor cyclists, often in the rain, on our daily commute, perched on a two wheel steel frame with no other form of protection than a foam helmet and two canvass gloves, it was certainly comforting to know that the HSE collective were protecting us from a horrible death at the hands of a rogue Shimano R300 cycling shoe.

So this week's post is simply to mention the pressure group 38 degrees, who are petitioning parliament to give members of the public the power to instantly recall their disgraced MPs rather than rely on the local party to do it.  A good democratic step if ever I saw one. If you're interested, do sign the petition and pass it on.

38 degrees

I'm starting to find Unions and the role they now play in our workforce rather interesting. I studied the trade union movement at University as part of my degree from their idealistic creation as a worthy barrier to prevent the exploitation of the workforce. So far, so good but be warned a sweeping generalisation is about to burrow into the next few sentances. They seem to increasingly resemble organisations which do all they can to protect the vested interests of their members. It's a move from promoting solidarity and equality to one reinforcing divisions and ensuring inequality. The difference in pension provision between the private and public sector seems to be a case in point. No matter the circumstances, be careful what you do, have Union, will strike. Maybe working has changed my viewpoint from my student days. In the current economic climate when pay freezes are the norm, on the HRmagazine website, I read the story of Unison demanding a rethink local government pay deals. 

According to HRmagazine, the spokesperson, Heather Wakefiled commented on the current offer: "Who can honestly expect us to consider this acceptable? It is just not realistic and we know employers have already put aside money for the increase of between 1.5% and 2.5%. How can they hope to recruit and retain enough social workers to make sure children at risk are protected when they are offering a ridiculously low amount - what sort of carrot is this?"

I agree, Heather. And well done for associating the danger to children with your pay rise. Others might accuse you of highly cynical emotional blackmail. I wouldn't of course. I echo your words. Well, your first sentence anyway. The vast majority of the population work for private firms, many of which have introduced pay freezes on the basis that this is a better alternative to redundancies. We're also aware that all of us will be facing a tax increase in the short to medium term in order to pay back the fantastical amount of money that has been spent bailing the banks out and preventing a full blown collapse of our economy. For better or for worse this is the situation that we are all in. Things are tight for all of us. We're all making sure that we are living to our means and not spending unecessarily. Private and public sector. Union members and not. The pay rises that you demand for your small section of society, are, of course, funded by all of us.

Solidarity indeed, sister.…..

So. Back from a lovely chilled holiday way from the stresses of the world. And careering straight into a wall of overdue requests, urgent queries, half urgent queries, mild inquiries and 46 additional missed calls. My phone, desktop tyrant that it is, enjoys letting me know that I'm in demand while petulently refusing to let me know who called. Punishment for not using it for two weeks, I expect. A ridiculous 695 emails clogging up the arteries of my Outlook. Initially, I was slightly pleased as clearly the number of emails indicates you connectedness within the company...Right? I had to challenge this assumption after clearing out numerous Dilbert Cartoons, BBC newsletters, magazine news alerts, and hundreds of CC'd emails left me with approximately 3. So, NOT having very many emails clearly indicates that I am so efficient that work goes on seamlessly in my absence. That’s more like it. Interestingly, I have also been offered the chance to make millions via some generous scammer in Nigeria. Relentless aren't they? It must be the most well known scam in the world by now. But...if you'd like to see how some enteprising bloggers are dealing with the situation, go here.