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Home > All site sections > HR blogs and comment > HR blogs > Specialists' blog

A word in private

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Iain Mackinnon

17 Nov 2011 | 09:42

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Articles more than one month old can be viewed only by CIPD members or PM Subscribers.

One of my earliest duties as a college governor was to chair an appeal against redundancy by a senior lecturer. No doubt my enthusiasm for my new role made me an easy target: the Principal knew I’d say ‘yes’ - but I think he was less pleased when I upheld the appeal.

The format was a classic set piece: at-risk employee plus union representative, and three of us on the panel (all governors – in other words, lay volunteers). With his back against the wall, the lecturer made an excellent case to keep his job, setting out a credible and persuasive plan to put right things he accepted were going wrong in his team.

As a panel, we wondered why he hadn’t offered any of these ideas before, but we could see no reason not to let him have the chance to make it work: the college, and our students, would be better off if he succeeded.

That’s why I welcome the Government’s new consultation on “protected conversations” and reject the cynical responses of some that this is just another sop to employers from the Tories. A protected conversation in my example would have enabled this chap’s manager to say, “Look – cards on the table. Unless we get these problems sorted, I’m afraid you’ll have to go. What else can we do?”

Do we really need to make people go through the worry of redundancy or sacking – and put management to unnecessary cost? There may be hidden traps in this idea that others will see, but it seems to me that this could be a helpful step forward.

Comments

1. At 12:23 on 17 Nov 2011, Leon wrote:

Well sir I beg to differ. Without the 'benefit' of protected conversations the scenario you described seemed to play out well. And therein lies my point. The ability of poor employers / managers to have protected conversations I'm sure will mean more bullying and make difficult situations for employees even worse. For me it is simple. Invest in training line managers and have good, robust and workable employment policies to enable them to make decisions effectively.
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2. At 16:11 on 17 Nov 2011, Jan wrote:

What a shame in the scenario mentioned it took a "redundancy" situation to bring out into the open what were poor performance issues. If we have skilled and trained managers who see performance management as one of the key responsibilities of their roles, then we would not need to be considering protected conversations in this type of situation.
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3. At 19:32 on 17 Nov 2011, Mark Law wrote:

Rick at "Flip Chart Fairy Tales" has had similar thoughts: http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/protected-conversations-another-non-runner/
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