Sickness absence rates remain stubbornly high in the NHS but they are moving in the right direction: the latest figure across the service is 4.2 per cent. This improvement has come about as a result of more sophisticated strategies, policies and practices, a greater focus on health and wellbeing and support for healthy workplaces. Improvements include a focus on avoidable muscular skeletal injuries through improved manual handling training, better health and safety compliance, addressing mental health issues such as stress and being a mindful employer.

There is much to boast about, and these are all great progressive approaches. But have we focused enough on the sensitive subject of abuse? I’m not talking about abuse in the sense of staff taking ‘sickies’. I’m talking about domestic abuse. And it’s far more prevalent than you think.

The NHS has the largest female workforce in England, standing at some 700,000 women. Research into domestic violence shows that it affects an astonishing 1 in 4 women (yes you read that right – 1 in 4) and 1 in 6 men in the UK. Could this be one of the reasons for our high absence figures?

What could be the impact of domestic violence in organisations’ staff attendance?  According to the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence (CAADV):

• The overall cost of domestic violence to the NHS, including caring for patients who are victims, is £1.39 billion a year
• Victims are likely to be late to work an average of five times a month and need to leave early
• Victims take twice as much sickness
• Victims will often be subjected to abuse at work (phone, email) so have reduced productivity
• Two women and one man a fortnight are killed. This can have enormous impact on friends and family at work.

I believe it’s time we raised our game in this area. As an employers’ organisation we have set up a section on our website including draft policy and the signs for employers to look out for with staff they think might be affected. Check them out and you will see this area of work is about as far from pink and fluffy HR as you get.

NHS Employers is currently working hard to raise this matter as a key service and business issue. It is sensitive but we need to address it head on. We owe that to the victims.

Your organisation may want to have a look at CAADV and see how you can become involved. You could start by joining them and gaining access to the wide range of advice and tools that they can provide.

And perhaps it time to check if abuse is a contributor to your sickness absence.
We will be addressing these issues too when we run our free NHS Employers webinar on domestic violence on 16th May.

Most managers I worked with were what I’d describe as reluctant managers – and this includes me. 

They were reluctant because, in order to progress, there had come a point in their career where they had to stop doing whatever they were good at and start getting results through other people. If you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up they say they want to be a pilot (it used to be an engine-driver!), or a nurse/doctor, or a teacher, or a lawyer – they might even say they want to be an accountant.  They don’t say they want to be a manager. This is very sensible of them because being a manager is nothing but trouble.

Who in their right mind would opt to have a bigger job than they can manage on their own without having to delegate parts of it to other people?  Who would opt to give up doing something that gave them satisfaction, and, quite possibly, recognition for their accomplishments, and instead take on the thankless task of trying to get the best out of people?  Who would expose themselves to never-ending criticism from disgruntled people who, if/when they become managers, will do no better?

The latest CIPD Employee Outlook survey has predictably gloomy feedback for on-a-hiding-to-nothing managers.  According to 2,000 employees they ‘don’t know how bad they are managing people’.  There are fascinating ‘reality gaps’ between what managers claim to be doing and what their staff perceive to be the case.  For example, managers say they meet each member of their staff twice a month to review their workload, that they often coach people and discuss their development needs, that they indulge in joint problem solving, and all the rest of it – but the survey suggests that they are kidding themselves. If managers are telling whoppers, at least we can take heart from the fact that they know what they should be doing.  Alternatively, maybe they are doing what they say they do but so subtly that staff don’t notice.  Simple to solve; have some notices at the ready saying things like, ‘I’m coaching you’, ‘I’m reviewing your workload’, ‘I’m offering you a development opportunity’.

Anyway, all this manager-bashing should be taken with a large pinch of salt.  Upward grumbling is inevitable and universal; the managers I used to work with complained incessantly that their bosses were hopeless. No doubt if you’d surveyed my staff (too late now, I’m very pleased I haven’t got any!) they’d have said they didn’t see me enough, that I failed to give them enough direction, that I was too lax with poor performers and that there weren’t enough development opportunities.

How about giving managers a break and investing energy in getting staff to take more initiatives to get better value from their reluctant managers?  Just think, they could be encouraged to initiate conversations about their objectives, to ask questions if they weren’t clear, to invite feedback/coaching, to suggest how a development need could be met. 

Surely better than grumbling?   

Technological advances, economic pressures, globalisation and huge shifts in our society has meant that the what, when, how and where we work has changed. While our working patterns created in a different technological, economic and societal era remain, conflict and tension will ensue, with consequential effects on our productivity, creativity and health.

We need a new way to work that provides an integrated and inclusive approach that supports choice and balance for every employee in the delivery of their contractual obligations, and directly supports the organisation’s strategic direction and goals. Flexible working is not just about working fewer hours under formal arrangements; it is a way of working that matches our societal structure, boosts wellbeing and engagement, and leverages our physiological and psychological energy for sustainable high performance.

Flexibility is a prime example of an HR initiative that is so often misunderstood in terms of what it is, how it should be embedded, and what the returns are for business. ‘Work/life balance’ and ‘Flexible working’ are of course well-established terms, and many organisations have policies that set out the various working patterns that are acceptable to the company and the rules on their use. While it is important to ensure a common understanding of what is available in terms of flexible working, policies cannot on their own change attitudes or engender a flexible mindset and approach. This needs to be done through a programme of education and communication to shift the corporate culture and embed flexibility as the norm for all, rather than a benefit for the few. True flexibility is a hugely beneficial source of competitive advantage and will deliver significant returns.

Traditionally the assumption has been that flexible working benefits women caring for children through part-time hours.  But it is not just about family commitments. The call for flexibility comes from all sectors of the population. It could be for volunteer work, sport and leisure pursuits, education or other aspirations that we want to fit into our lives. As we want to do more, be more and have more, our lives become more complex, layered with responsibilities, wants and needs. We need autonomy and control in order to manage and move our focus between shifting priorities and that requires flexibility. Without it, the stress contagion will continue to spread through our workforce.

Flexible working is not a benefit for some – it is a business imperative in order to succeed in tomorrow’s economy. Extending the right to request flexible working to all is a classic no-brainer.

The discrepancy – which Thompson has explained away as an “inadvertent error” but is now the subject of an internal investigation – was only uncovered because hedge fund boss Daniel Loeb, a shareholder and critic of Thompson’s, discovered that the college he attended did not offer computer science degrees at the time he was a student.

The rights and wrongs of the case remain to be seen. But the incident got me thinking about a recent debate in People Management’s LinkedIn group about the appropriateness of ‘massaging’ your CV to fit what a particular recruiter is looking for. A large number of HR professionals think it is acceptable to amend job titles and job descriptions to make them sound more suitable – a fine line, you would think, to telling outright pork pies. I’ve also known respectable professional friends who think it’s fair game to be creative with dates on their CV, especially when it comes to covering for embarrassing career gaps.

But could the days of such tricks be numbered? With the increasing use of LinkedIn, and so much biographical information publicly available on the web, it is now surely becoming much easier for those willing to do some digging to spot anything that has been misrepresented. Where once a CV might have been a piece of paper that would lie forgotten in a drawer, it’s increasingly now something that’s up on the web for the world to see – especially in more tech-savvy professions and at more senior levels.

How often do you come across questionable CVs, and is it becoming easier to find people out? Let us know what you think.

That shouldn’t be too difficult. So why do so many HR functions struggle with it? Our observations show they are in the main only dealing with developing skills and knowledge in the first half of the definition. Much of the training given is really finance for non-financial managers. It is not surprising then that the second half of the definition remains allusive. Being able to make good judgments and quick decisions are skills required in many other aspects of HR. Can HR train themselves in these skills or are they something people are born with? 

Our research defining the difference between the good and the excellent in HR business partners shows that being able to make good judgments and decisions is indeed a key feature of the most successful HR business partners. They have not just skills but have also adopted a particular mindset. This includes, of course, clearly understanding the business; not just the numbers but the levers that drive profitability. It also includes understanding the competition and the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition, the best are interested in the impact of the wider economic, political and international factors that influence the business. It means reading widely, making connections and understanding context, not just data.

But people can be good at all of these things and still not have the right judgment and decision-making abilities.  Judgment and decisions, we are learning from neuroscience, is more of an art than a science and involves the use of the emotional and rational centres of the brain. No decision happens without the input of our emotions and, in business at least, those emotional signals need to be backed up with data. So knowing what will help a leadership team make the right decisions about restructuring, boosting productivity or even picking the right candidate, is all about deciding from the vast array of information available what data will really make the most difference. 

Learning to do this requires practice, an ability to put yourself in the shoes of others and a mindset that is curious. It also requires digging below the surface of the data and importantly being able to tell the story around the data.

It can be difficult to achieve on the job without being exposed to risks, so having training that helps HR professionals hone their skills is also important. Besides formal programmes, the best way to develop business acumen in practice is through ‘lunch and learn’ sessions from business leaders, supplemented by discussions and analysis of real business issues with informal or formal groups of colleagues.

Business acumen does not need to be the Holy Grail but it can make a big difference to the value and standing of the HR function.

As journalist Deborah Orr commenting on the Panorama expose of care home workers put it pointedly: “why be poorly paid and poorly respected for caring when you can be poorly paid for not caring?” A recent study clearly shows the strong relationship between pay levels and quality of care in such homes, just as wider research in the service sector shows that the highest levels of customer service are reinforced by good, secure total rewards and benefits packages.

Of course in virtually all UK employers, times are tough and money tight and these packages are under pressure. But then this weekend we also had the gloss taken off the stellar sales performance of both Apple and Abercrombie and Fitch by further allegations of labour mistreatment, in the former case at one of their major suppliers in China, Foxcomm; and in the latter at its alleged staff ‘looks’ policy.

In a fascinating book, Professor Guy Standing argues that the current global cost pressures and ways employers (and their HR professionals) are responding to them is creating a new ‘Precariat’ of unskilled, casual workers with no regular jobs, poor working conditions and pay, with the concomitant risk of social instability.

One of my teenage nephews was offered a service job on this basis recently, expected to pay for his own uniform up-front, working on a part-time basis, with shifts only confirmed 24 hours in advance. As Standing alleges, “a large and growing number of young people in western societies have no security at all, while the affluent luxuriate in it”.

I don’t meet many HR professionals who are deliberately worsening employee conditions. But a combination of cost pressures and the mindless implementation of standardised, ‘best practice’ HR systems and processes is having this effect. Take supposed off-the-shelf job evaluation and grading systems, implemented globally in the name of cost-efficiency across some of our largest corporations. These incorporate built-in, hidden valuations of what work is important and why, often exaggerating the worth of senior jobs with ‘business impact’ and under-valuing the importance of social and other ‘soft’ skills, which are critical in our increasingly elderly Western societies and service-driven economies. (And talking of customer service, where these systems have self-service aspects, they are often in practice awful from the employee users and experience ‘end’ as well).

This is not though what many of us came into HR to achieve, quite the reverse. As Linda Holbeche’s excellent profiles of the leading exponents of HR Leadership reveals, they come from a wide diversity of backgrounds, such as social work and teaching. And like David Fairhurst at McDonalds, many have had and succeeded at delivering a broader social mission, beyond achieving high business performance through excellent people management of their own employees, in his case to improve the image, education and rewards of service sector workers as a whole.

Providing secure employment and a living wage is critical in maintaining the living standards of the bulk of our employees in the current environment and addressing wider social issues such as child poverty.

Many of the CIPD’s founders more than a century ago didn’t have it easy either, in making the case for investments in the care and welfare of their employees. They prospered in value-based organisations, where Quaker owners such as George Cadbury recognised that business performance and employee welfare were “different sides of the same coin”, whatever the short term cost and business pressures he faced.

HR has to get back to looking at the fundamental purpose of what we are doing. As I am currently reflecting on for my Abercrombie and Apple-loving teenage girls, we need to get home each evening and ask ourselves, are we building the sort of workplaces of the future that we can be proud for our kids to work in?

I’m sure we’ve all shared a desk with a ‘Chief Chatter’, but may struggle to identify the ‘Creator of Happiness’ in our organisations.

These are just some of the most peculiar job titles revealed on LinkedIn this week.

Recruitment consultancy IntaPeople searched through thousands of profiles on the social media site to compile what it believes to be the Top 10 most unusual:

1. Digital Overlord
2. Creator of Happiness
3. Retail Jedi
4. Wizard of Light Bulb Moments
5. Dream Alchemist
6. Chief Chatter
7. Change Magician
8. Accounting Ninja
9. Chief Biscuit Dunker
10. Direct Mail Demi-God

A quick straw poll in our office unearthed a budding ‘Web Mistress’ as well as a ‘Chief Copy Ninja’.

One colleague previously worked with a ‘Lord of the Firewall’ – a moniker that was actually adopted in the workplace as a preferable alternative to his otherwise long and confusing job title.

But is using such frivolous role descriptors on a LinkedIn profile showing a sense of humour, individuality and creativity, or displaying unprofessional behaviour on what is meant to be the professional network?

Arguably no-one would list such job titles on a paper CV, so is it acceptable on a digital site often used as recruitment tool? As an HR professional, would this dissuade you from approaching someone with an employment opportunity? Or could it depend on the industry that you work in?

This ‘Purveyor of Wordsmithery’ would like to know your thoughts – as well as any job titles that you feel missed out on a spot in the latest Top 10…

Firstly, thank you for acknowledging that the incorrect date was quoted regarding the original publication date of Belbin Team Roles. This was in 1981, and not the stated 1959.

What the Learning and Talent Survey did highlight was that Belbin Team Roles (along with Honey and Mumford and MBTi) have been heard of by a high percentage of respondents, and are also used by a significant percentage. On the face of it, the inference that opportunities are being lost by L&D professionals by using older models seems fair. However, knowing about a theory, by reading an article or book, and using the theory effectively are two different things.

Perhaps a question that could have been asked is – How many L&D professionals keep their knowledge and understanding of learning models up-to date?  At Belbin we are constantly changing and evolving the Belbin reports (the only way of finding out your Team Role preferences) to ensure that they remain as relevant today as they were 30 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Belbin reports are generated each year.  In March this year we launched the 7th version of the Belbin Team Roles reports and have also updated the Self-Perception Inventory and Observer Assessments to reflect current working practices. This took 3 years of R&D, and involved listening to feedback from professionals who have used the reports with individuals and teams world-wide.

In conclusion, a good theory doesn’t stand still. It develops and evolves to ensure that it remains relevant. The challenge to L&D professionals is to ensure that their understanding and knowledge evolves too.

When asked my opinion of the study, I stressed two critical success factors based on my work at the interface between the public and private sector:

• that the process should role model the desired outcome (in other words, it should be engaging)
• it must move swiftly from study to pragmatic outcomes (and give people answers rather than point to problems they already know about).

Four years later and we are still experiencing the worst downturn to have hit this country outside of a world war. All of the data from every credible source is pointing to record levels of disengagement.

The economy is flat-lining. Yet similar studies point to a very clear link between engagement, performance and innovation. Employees at all levels are searching the skies for hero leaders. Wouldn’t this be the perfect time for a “task force” to rip open the pinstripes and lead the way? Sadly, that’s not about to happen if the reports of the meetings are anything to go by.

At the last “conference”, held on the anniversary of David Cameron’s high profile re-launch of the initiative, the agenda was dominated by talk of:

• the need to prove the link between engagement and performance
• the purpose of the task force, especially the so-called “guru group” and the way it should operate
• the values of the group
• the need to embrace social media to spread the word
• barriers to change.

I am well aware that David Macleod has a tough job, akin to herding cats at times. But never has there been a more compelling need, in theory. And therein lies the rub: there is nothing in the report that any leader worth his/her salt didn’t already know. And there is nothing in the report that the engagement industry leaders hadn’t been preaching for years, with fairly compelling case studies. Yet the engagement problem persists? Why?
Here’s three suggestions:

1. It’s currently an employer’s market and supply out-strips demand.
2. What is perceived as engagement-related activity is largely funded by discretionary budgets – the first to be thrown from the corporate balloon during tough times.
3. There are few internal engagement coalitions forming between HR, marketing and communications, sponsored by the CEO to “make it so”.

In my experience of this and past downturns, it is the enlightened few who will come to their senses and steal the march on the competition by prioritising and finding innovative, low cost ways to address the engagement challenges within. A notable few are already doing it. But what can the Engagement Taskforce do to address these problems?

Unfortunately, in my view, configured as it is, it is unlikely to have much more of an impact than corralling most of the potentially vociferous critics (which does seem to have worked). I think their core task should be to help facilitate a much more timely, appreciative and empowering sense of what can be achieved and to support leaders with the confidence and competence they need to overcome the challenges they face. They should be doing this in a style that role-models the title, especially given the economic climate. And they certainly should be gathering the low-hanging best practices that are actually abundant and could help enlightened leaders swim against the tide of negative PR.

Regardless of your own slant, these are all points worth noting if you’re looking to address the engagement challenges where you can hopefully influence real change, namely where you work. But, almost four years on, is the story of the taskforce proving that the engagement challenge must be owned by business leaders and can’t possibly be addressed by a committee?

Those of us in the business are painfully aware that it is rarely that simple. The ‘right’ level of pay for a given job will inevitably be defined by a number of elements. More often than not, these will be contradictory and counter-intuitive. Interpretation is often more of an art than a science – which in turn is often an unwelcome revelation to the questioner.

So how do you get compensation levels right? Do you maximise short-term financial impact, or do you play a longer game? Do you reward commercial impact regardless of profession, or adhere to the basic rules of supply and demand to focus scarce resources? What premium should you place on the skills and experience of your existing workforce?

There are many more such questions. If I had definitive answers to any or all of the above I would clearly be a very rich individual. And if that were the case, it’s far more likely that I would be relaxing on a sunny Mauritian beach than writing a HR blog.

So evidently definitive, globally applicable answers are thin on the ground. But don’t give up all hope of finding a right answer. I would maintain that it is possible to construct a reasoned approach for any individual organisation at a given point in time.

The clue on where to start is in that last statement. To be credible, consistent and successful in setting compensation levels, the starting point has to an understanding of the commercial requirements of the particular company in question. Where such requirements are contradictory, understanding or setting a priority order is also critical.

Interpreting how to best reach the commercial objective through the application of compensation plans (and use of appropriate supporting data) will then naturally follow. The use of basic economic principles (the laws of supply and demand for example) might help, but more often than not a bit of common sense works just as well.

Once you understand and interpret the commercial requirements of your business, the data analysis (back to those folder and calculators) needed to define ‘right’ level of compensation for a given job should be the easy bit.

A word of warning here though. Once you have worked out your numbers, don’t neglect to ensure all stakeholders understand the full context. Simply providing the ‘right’ answer is unlikely to achieve your goal. You should be able to explain to Line Managers, HR and employees alike the fundamental reasoning, process and data behind your answer.

So correctly identify the underlying business context, and build appropriate analysis based upon your understanding. The compensation structures and levels then set, along with the accompanying communication should implicitly assist in improving business performance, however defined and measured. If you achieve that, then by definition you will have found the ‘right’ answer.