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Europe hits HR professionals hardest at the point when European directives are implemented into UK law. Implementation usually involves consultation. This is the chance for the knowledgeable practitioner to influence the shape and content of UK law. Unfortunately, consultation on European directives is limited and the scope for change is marginal as a recent example highlights.

In November the government consulted on implementing the Recast European Works Council (EWC) directive. Since 1974 I have lived and breathed EWCs, negotiating one in 10 of all EWC agreements. Having attended over 500 EWC meetings, the consultation exercise should have been manna from heaven. However, as I waded through the consultative document I became depressed and sorry for the civil servants charged with implementation.

To understand the difficulties civil servants face you need to understand how employment law is made in England. The traditional process is green paper and white paper consultation followed by employment bill with detailed examination by Commons and Lords standing committees. In short, a series of checks and balances to turn ideas into practical realities. Consultation on European directives is constrained because the scope for change is minimal.

Law makers have two fears. First, any variation (however practical and well meaning) to an EU directive risks legal challenge by the commission. Second, any addition risks accusations of “gold plating”. The inevitable consequence of these fears has become “copy out”, an old Greek trick beloved of law makers.

A superficial examination of the Recast EWC directive suggests that there are simply a few changes to definitions. The practical reality is that those few changes in definition fundamentally change EWC’s from annual meetings to “ongoing” consultative bodies, while ill-thought-out drafting of the restructuring clause will damage UK multinationals and those other companies that fly under the UK flag. Far from a minor change there will be very real practical issues to be addressed by companies. At a minimum, effective liaison between meetings and management control will be vital.

Instead of rushing to implement, there needs to be a better understanding of the way cross-border consultation currently operates and the impact of any changes for the future. Civil servants should propose a review from the ground up. There is plenty of time for such a review. June 2011 is member states implementation date, but that is not set in stone. No EU member state met the original EWC deadline back in 1996, with implementing years later. In fact delayed implementation is commonplace and the European norm, particularly when a member state does not like a proposal. The UK was opposed to revising the directive and should take the long view on this issue. Anything else, particularly the current proposed rush to implement, is against our national interest.
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Most years we can say: “A new year and a new European Presidency”. 2010 is very different - it is also a new decade. Further, it’s a new European Commission as well as a new European presidency (which, for the first six months of 2010, will be Spain).

We now have two new senior European posts. First, members states have created a council president, or “president of Europe” - held by the former Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy. The post has a very grand title for what is actually a mundane job. There will be inevitable confusion with the commission president Jose Manuel Barosso, creating a new version of an old proverb “too many presidents spoiling the broth”.

To make matters worse, the commission also has a new vice-presidential post entitled “high representative on foreign affairs and security policy”, shortened to “HR”. The UK commissioner Baroness Ashton was appointed to this role, and is now known as HR Ashton. Unlike the council president, whose job is bureaucratic, the high representative is charged with leading EU foreign affairs and creating an EU foreign office whose size and budget will dwarf the UK’s.

Whether the EU foreign service will amount to anything is a subject of much debate. Success will involve a Brit undermining our own national sovereignty in foreign policy matters, while failure - which is highly likely - will be laid at the UK door. Damned either way. One can only wonder what persuaded our prime minister to believe pushing someone into this post was a shrewd move.

Commissioners must pass “confirmatory hearings” with the European Parliament before their appointment. Not quite a modern day version of the old Roman games, but they still manage to produce a little blood. Pithy questions are supposed to be asked, but the truth is these are a political charade where the sensible course of action is to read up on your subject and give frankly anodyne answers.

Confirmatory hearings are a rude introduction to the politics of Europe. National political parties are aligned to the political groupings whose power dictates both progression and protection. The hearings have complex rules and candidates are expected to provide answers to written questions. Baroness Ashton, flummoxed by the question: “Should Europe press for a seat on the UN Security Council?”, answered boldly that she did not know and would have to check what the policy was. Truth, however, is sometimes misplaced and as a result of her honesty Ashton has had a very rough ride.

The commissioner of particular concern to HR professionals is László Andor from Hungary, who is responsible for employment and social policy. He may speak English fluently but his answers at the hearing were grey and devoid of controversy. Unlike Ashton, he knew how to deal with the difficult question. In responding to an accusation of being a communist that rejected globalisation, he replied that this was a “gross exaggeration” but that the allotted one minute to answer was not enough to respond. Now, that is how to respond to a question you do not like and get away with it.

So what can HR professionals expect from Andor? He gave little away and kept to the broad outlines of existing policies on employment and the fight against poverty and social exclusion. He identified the law concerning posting of workers and working time as requiring action (but only after a thorough impact assessment) and defended migration. No big surprises then. Andor is an economist by training and, aside from academia and working in banks, his only other work experience has been for the Hungarian trade unions nearly 20 years ago. Only time will tell whether this will cloud his judgment.
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As intergovernmental conferences (IGC) go, it could not get much bigger, or, many argue, more important. The United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change Conference has started. At a mundane level, anyone who wants to get an idea of what London will be like during the 2012 Olympics should check out Copenhagen. Any remaining hotel rooms were snapped up as soon as the US president announced he was coming to town. Room rates started at $500 (£306) and went through the roof, congestion and security traffic control will make normal movement impossible for ordinary citizens while the whole logistics of an IGC are a carbon nightmare, however you look at it.

It is far too early to do anything other than guess as to whether the conference will be a success. Rest assured there will be an outcome. Whether that outcome will be meaningful, and lead to a real, verifiable deal on actual cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is unclear.

What is clear is that this will be the first IGC following the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. EU member states act at IGC’s on a sovereign member state basis, but there is considerable EU co-ordination and leadership with Andreas Carlgren, Sweden’s environment minister as the lead negotiator under the rotating EU presidency system. The commission itself is present in force, led by environment commissioner Stavros Dimas and nearly 300 staff.

Copenhagen affords an opportunity for Europe to shine and to prove it can co-ordinate member states’ interests effectively as well as act on the global stage. How can it do this? First, one of the big political issues at Copenhagen will be transfer payments from rich to developing countries to help them adapt. Transfer payments underpin EU finances. People tend to not mind paying monies when economic times are good, but that is not the case now. Any transfer payment system has to be based on real, verifiable and transparent processes. Europe needs to press for effective systems and stop a repeat of the UN “Oil for Food” type scheme. The long EU experience of the problems with the common agricultural policy and social funds should help remove the underlying dangers of fraud.

Second, combined with the right underpinning for any transfer system Europe needs to be vocal in championing free trade over protectionism. At Copenhagen it needs to take the lead in standing up to the anti-industrial and anti-capitalism tendencies of many of the environmental campaigning groups. Trade and not aid will allow developing countries to prosper. That points to going beyond Copenhagen to the World Trade Organisation and reducing protectionist policies.

Third, the debacle of leaked emails from my old alma mater, the University of East Anglia, has provided an important opportunity to ensure that there is freedom of access to all scientific data in this area. The withholding of source data is unacceptable. Science is science and debate and alternative hypothesis is how science progresses. Political lobbying disguised as science has to stop and a real robust science of climate change needs to develop. Denmark was home to Bjørn Lomborg, aka “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, and a fitting outcome from Copenhagen would be honesty and transparency going forward. Europe, take a lead please.

Lastly, the press activity around Copenhagen will fuel the political hot air. A shared editorial published in 56 papers from 45 countries (including the UK’s Guardian newspaper) led the charge calling for tough action on climate change. When a publication as quietly conservative as the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported the IGC as the “most important event in the world” you fear that journalists have been watching The Day After Tomorrow too often and forgotten it is a movie. Europe needs to take a lead in ensuring that there is a real, sustainable and meaningful process going forward and not just hubris.

So now Copenhagen is off and running. Andreas Carlgren has stated that China and the US must go further and propose deeper emission cuts. Come on Andreas, you can do better than that. Propose for one day of the IGC that instead of riding around in air-conditioned limousines, participants should get on the freely available bikes and look at all the very real practical actions ordinary people in Copenhagen have undertaken to change their environmental footprint. It is real people not politicians that will make a difference.

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At long last, after several false starts, the Lisbon treaty will finally come into force. As births go it was painful, including rejections, failed referenda and minor changes, not forgetting to mention that undue delays were the order of the day. At least the Irish referendum brought some relief with a spate of humorous campaigning. One commentator suggested there should be three boxes on the referendum ballot paper – as well as “yes” and “no”, a third choice of “yes please” was suggested to be appropriate, given that 77 per cent of Irish GDP in the last year has come in the form of European Central Bank loans.

For generations, many of the brightest and the best left Ireland to seek their fortunes abroad. European Union membership changed that migration, bringing investment, wealth, jobs and self-confidence. Ireland punches above its weight in Europe and has benefited from being the English-speaking member of the Euro zone. Whether or not the decline of inward investment, collapse of the housing market and the debacle of the two referenda will put a long-term dent in Irish influence within the EU is unclear. What is certain, however, will be the tragedy of the inevitable brain drain that follows economic decline. History, unfortunately, often repeats itself.

In the UK, we often forget that the EU is the only real game in town for nearly half of all member states. This does not mean that such countries always follow the path set down by Brussels or the big member states. Václav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, showed that smaller member states duck and dive, leveraging every opportunity to deliver national self-interest. Securing an opt-out for his country from the charter of fundamental rights was a brilliant coup – it has precluded Germans from using the charter to claim compensation for property seized during the forced removal of millions of Germans from Eastern Europe after the second world war.

Attention in the UK has been focused erroneously on who will be the president of the EU and high foreign affairs representative. With a government low on popularity, UK influence is not high. The harsh reality is that successive administrations, both Labour and Conservative, have had real difficulties in being at the heart of Europe and any claims to the contrary are demolished by a cursory examination of the evidence. Now the UK needs to be thinking about how to protect national self-interest under the Treaty of Lisbon. The prospects look bleak. Incoherent policy and strutting on the European stage is not an answer and neither are opt-outs that marginalise influence. Leveraging the contribution – or rather “money”, as the UK is a net contributor to the EU budget – is the key.

What is a self-evident truth, regardless of who forms the next UK government, is that we cannot afford to throw advantages away for nothing. This is precisely what we did in 1997 by signing up to social Europe with much fanfare and chest-thumping but for no commensurate benefit. We squandered real advantage for nothing. There needs to be a new approach to Europe based on national self-interest and not hot air.

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Summer is my main opportunity to read all that research put aside during the year when I was travelling around Europe in one European Works Council meeting after another. It is a chance to think about the future. Also, in my case, it’s a chance to make sense of all the changes in Brussels. 2009 is going to be a significant year for many things European. We have already had the European Parliament elections. The outcome came as a surprise to some people who had mistakenly predicted a drift to the left. The new parliament will start to wield its power in the autumn as it crosses swords with the European Commission.

A new European Parliament means new committees. For HR professionals the only one that really counts is the employment and social affairs committee. The new chair will be Pervenche Berès, a French socialist, highly experienced MEP and former chair of the influential economic and monetary affairs committee. Her vice chairs include Elizabeth Lynne, a UK liberal democrat and vice-chair of the previous committee. She stood up and argued for continuing the UK opt-out in the working time discussions.

Aside from Lynne there are four other UK MEPs who are full members of the employment and social affairs committee. These are: Philip Bradbourn, Conservative; Derek Clark, UKIP; Jean Lambert, Green; and Stephen Hughes, lifelong UK socialist MEP and ringleader of the vote against the UK government’s position on working time.

All of the above tells us very little about how the new committee will function aside from the simple fact that with an EU of 27 member states national influence is marginalised unless you can build alliances.

Turning away from the European Parliament, there will also be a whole new European Commission from November. We do know it should be led by the current president, José Manuel Barroso. Vladimír Špidla, the Czech commissioner responsible for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities will not be reselected. So we can definitely expect a new social affairs commissioner and we can predict with a degree of certainty that he or she is unlikely to be Czech. In the medium term (2010-11), there will also be a new civil servant in charge of social affairs. Robert Verrue, a lifelong commission official appointed at the start of this year, is seen as a short-term appointment and he will slip into retirement when a new commissioner is appointed so that they have a free hand to choose a new director-general to serve alongside them for a full five-year term.

Will Baroness Ashton, shoehorned into the trade role left by Peter Mandelson, be the choice as UK commissioner for a full five-year term? Most important of all, on 2 October, Ireland will hold a second referendum on the European constitution. If that is a repeat of the first then Europe enters uncharted territory.

The failure of Europe to offer any leadership in the economic crisis has not gone unnoticed. After the recent elections there is a big question mark hanging over the future. Despite the public words of expanding the European role, the reason Barroso was unanimously supported by all member states for a second term as commission president is precisely because he fully grasps that cutting back the costly European bureaucracy is now firmly on the agenda for every EU member state, including France and Germany.

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Last month my son voted for the first time. We take voting seriously in the Reid household and Jack is no exception. He was a little disappointed that no one called to canvas him personally for his vote and a little confused that at least one of the major parties forgot to mention anything to do with Europe on their campaign literature. That confusion was minor compared with how he felt in the election hall faced with a long list of parties and candidates on a ballot paper nearly a metre long.

He was not alone in being confused. There appeared to be a multitude of candidates from similar sounding anti-European parties. As we were leaving he asked why there was not a box with “none of the above” – a very good idea which would allow the voter to spoil the ballot paper while expressing a clear choice.

The European elections threw up a surprising result for the Kinnocks. Glenys Kinnock resurfaced as UK Europe minister and a baroness to boot, joining her husband Neil, the former labour leader who is already a member of the house of Lords. While Lady Kinnock stood down from the European Parliament after nearly two decades, Marta Andreasen was successfully elected as an MEP for the UK Independence Party. Andreasen, Spanish by birth, is the former chief accountant of the European Commission who blew the whistle on the financial irregularities that have plagued the European institutions for decades. Many claim that she was harshly and unfairly treated for her whistleblowing.

Regardless of those claims, what is unquestionably true is that the commissioner responsible for internal personnel matters at the time and who was directly responsible for the treatment Andreasen received was Lord Kinnock. Expect fireworks from Andreasen in the coming years as she now has the authority of Parliament to challenge the financial incompetence of the European institutions.

What should concern HR professionals in the near future is the likelihood of any further attempts to reform current working time rules. Working time law revisions were one of the most hotly debated European subjects in the past 12 months, with real pressure to end the UK opt-out on the 48-hour week. UK labour MEPs voted against their own government’s position and jeopardised the UK opt-out in November. This issue has not gone away as the consequences of legal challenge remain for several member states other than the UK. Both the CIPD and CBI need to be asking Lady Kinnock whether the government remains as committed as before in defending the UK opt-out.

Of immediate concern will be the institutional wrangling that will determine offices and committee chairmanships of the European Parliament and Commission. Member states may have endorsed José Manuel Barroso for a second term as president of the European Commission, but the left-wing parties on the parliament who were roundly trounced at the recent elections are having none of it. By the end of this week we should know who will be the new chair of the European Parliament’s social affairs committee. My money is on Pervenche Berès, a French socialist and lifetime politician. Unheard of in HR circles, Berès was a very effective chair of the influential economic and monetary affairs committee in the last Parliament. Poor Barroso will need to wait till the autumn to be confirmed as Commission president.

It will be September before we have an idea who will be the next commissioner responsible for employment and social policy matters and early 2010 before we see their detailed work programme for the next five years. That may sound like a long time in the future. I assure readers that it will come alarmingly quickly. Worryingly, employment law reform may be one of the few areas where European politicians believe that there is an appetite for further legislation and harmonisation. Not good news for HR.

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Some 20 years ago Andrew Moore, then CBI Brussels business bureau chief, introduced me to the wonders of the MEP’s daily allowance. Sitting quietly at the back of the Strasbourg hemisphere, I watched the unedifying sight of hundreds of MEPs filing in for a few minutes so as to claim their daily allowance. They left as quickly as they arrived, leaving a near-empty chamber echoing to their departing shrills. How the UK prime minister could have suggested an allowance system a la Europe as a response to the British MPs’ expenses debacle is beyond comprehension.

To many of us who love and deal with Europe on a daily basis the financial irregularities of the institutions are more than embarrassing, but we still try to hide them. This blog is far too short to do any more than list a few: the failure to have accounts signed off by the auditors year after year, the refusal of MEPs to reform their own bloated system of allowances, and the endemic abuse of MEP’s assistant payments for decades are just the icing on the cake. The abuse of allowances is legion. Any system that encourages corruption must be changed or ended otherwise it damages the legitimacy of the democratic process. Claiming reimbursement for a first-class fare on a second-class journey is wrong. No more, no less.

For some people, however, the exercise of power without real checks, balances or accountability and truth is the ultimate fraud. In area after area within the EU, grants and allowances are proffered for ill-thought-out schemes where there is no real assessment of their value. “Jobs for the boys” is just too polite for this abuse of power.

Enough of this depressing discussion that demoralises and undermines Europe – let’s turn to social policy. Given the collapse of working time talks last month, readers may have assumed that there would be no further European social legislation for a few months. This would give the new lot (commissioners and MEPs) time to formulate action plans and programmes. I assumed I would be writing an article letting the profession know that there would be “a year of nothing new”. How wrong I was. Step forward the social partners who have trotted in to fill the vacuum (as if we needed any more legislation). So now extended parental leave rights are being debated by employers and trade unions. The proposal raises the minimum entitlement to four months’ leave for parents with children under nine years old, which will have a direct impact upon the UK. European commissioner Vladimir Spidla stated that the proposals would “encourage more parents and hopefully more fathers to take leave and for longer”, while the employers’ spokesperson for Business Europe said that “approval of the agreement would send the right signal about the importance of social dialogue at European level, even in times of crisis”.

After 20 years of Brussels-watching, it is depressing to see that the European institutions are still more concerned with their own internal processes than the economic reality we all face. What about something to really help companies and organisations trying to keep their heads above the water? Do nothing. That’s right; it’s very simple and it would work. No reports, proposals or initiatives; just leave us alone for 12 months.

Oh, and please remember Europe is far too important not to vote on Thursday.

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Late-night negotiations rarely end in happy outcomes: making compromise after compromise just to reach a deal is often a recipe for disaster.

On 26 April, lengthy talks between European Union member states, the European Parliament and the European Commission (EC) on commission plans to remove the UK's opt-out of the 48-hour working week ended in failure.

Reporters say discussions in Brussels on at the start of the month, led by Czech labour minister Petr Nečas, broke down at 4am, but that did not deter the European Parliament and Council of Ministers negotiators from attempting another all-night session. Both clearly flouted the existing EU working time directive, far less any revised additional restrictions.

There was certainly pressure to get a result. The European Commission had threatened member states with legal action for apparently violating the directive in the way they were treating on-call time. And, of course, no member state wants to be in the Presidency when conciliation negotiations between the European Parliament and Council of Ministers have failed for the first time ever.

Mudslinging after the talks broke down came mainly from the European Parliament. Members voted to end the working time opt-out at the end of last year, and those voting this way included UK labour MEPs, going against their own government and party policy and siding with fellow socialist MEPs. They clearly thought member states would back down in the conciliation process. They believed their own hype. When a commissioner pointed the finger at their intransigence, and a member of the Parliamentiary negotiating team stated: “The socialist-dominated negotiating team refused to accept compromises,” and “The all-or-nothing approach ensured that the result was nothing.” Case closed.

European legislative processes are all about building alliances and getting deals. This failure to reach a deal means far more than the collapse of current working time reforms. Doing something once makes it easier to do it again, which does not bode well for future negotiations. The European Parliament should expect more strong bargaining positions from member states and each state’s self-interest will ensure there is no backing down.

So, what does this all mean for UK HR professionals? Obviously, no change on working time at present, and with the forthcoming European elections and new commission to be appointed, threats by the commission to take legal action against some member states will remain threats and not be acted upon. But employers should expect a revised proposal from the commission late this year dealing solely with the issue of on-call time.

There may be no threat from changes to working time, but what about European Works Councils? Member states have slipped through changes that are crude and ill-thought-out. The insanity continues.

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Wednesday 1 April. April Fool’s Day. No one seems sure why it exists or when it was started. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales refer to the celebration while many believe it refers back to the time change (Gregorian that is, not Dr Who). This year it could have particular significance for UK HR professionals that will last long after the day itself.

The final chapter in the working time saga was signalled on 9 March. It was not headlines, just small print. On the last page of the minutes from the 2,930th European Council meeting concerning employment, social policy, health and consumer affairs was the following very short paragraph:

“The Council decided not to approve all of the European Parliament's amendments and consequently to convene the Conciliation Committee in accordance with article 251(3) of the EC Treaty.”

The years of hard work spent by member-state diplomats and politicians in crafting the text of a revised working time law was torn apart by the European Parliament just before Christmas. Unsurprisingly, MEPs behaved politically. Their rejection was all about the forthcoming parliamentary elections (4-7 June) and had little or nothing to do with the issue itself.

Since January the Czech presidency has been working quietly and diligently to broker a deal while the European Parliament has revelled in the media interest. May is the deadline: any deal would need to be formally voted in at the 3-7 May plenary meeting of the European Parliament. The central issue for debate (surprise, surprise) is the 48-hour opt-out and on-call time. We in the UK apply a general opt-out and are supported by several member states, including Germany, Poland, Estonia and Bulgaria. In addition 15 member states currently apply opt-outs to the 48-hour week for a variety of sectors.

The first conciliation meeting took place on 17 March with no agreement forthcoming.

As on so many issues there is a danger waiting in the wings. The European Commission is threatening legal action against many member states because of the way they legislate for on-call time following European Court of Justice rulings on Simet and Jaeger.

All of the above tells us several truths:

1. The individual opt-out on the 48-hour week negotiated by the UK government of John Major in 1994 was brilliant, no more or less.

2. The civil servants and diplomats in the UK representative group to the EU (UKRep) and the Brussels European Employee Relations Group (BEERG) who defend our interests in the employment arena are engaged in an unrelenting uphill battle. They are real stars who deserve to go far in their chosen careers.

3. Our MEPs should serve our national interest, regardless of party, and not become disengaged from the reality that we inhabit.

4. The “high-level” group of social economists commissioned by the International Labour Organization between 1951 and 1953 to examine the establishment of the European Community were right to conclude: “Employment and social policy was irrelevant to the functioning of a free market and was more likely to encourage protectionism, inhibiting innovation and productivity.”

5. I sincerely hope that our prime minister told José Manuel Barroso, the current European Commission president, that part of the price of a second term should be no legal action against other member states on the working time issue if negotiations break down.

And of course a final sixth truth. Our negotiators at the conciliation committee on the 1 April should remember that practical jokes may stop at midday in the UK, but last all day in countries such as France, Ireland and Denmark. Beware any mention of fish and hopefully this will be one April Fool’s Day that we can all forget about and not remember because of working time.

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Just back from a skiing holiday? It was fabulous snow in Europe this year, but just think a little about where you were staying. A minimum 10 hour day, split seven to eleven o’clock in the morning and four in the afternoon through to 10 at night is the norm. Working such hours every day for 22 weeks, with never more than one day off in seven, seems harsh but again is the norm. No huge overtime payments either. In fact, the hourly rate works out at little more than £1.50. All that is forgotten in the magic lure of the words ‘a free ski pass for the season’.

Being a ski chalet host certainly involves hard work. It is not just cooking meals, ordering produce, managing budgets and cleaning the chalet; the real hard work is meeting the expectations and whims of a dozen guests who expect you to deliver an excellent skiing holiday. Successful hosts gain a wide range of managerial and customer-focused skills that will be invaluable in their future careers, not forgetting the ability to cook a four-course dinner party for a dozen friends.

Unfortunately not all ski chalet companies play fair with their staff. Commitment bonds, paid by ‘seasonaires’, are rarely returned if someone leaves before the end of season, even if the return is for a good reason. Similarly, contractual bonuses generated on a weekly basis, of as much as 25 per cent of total pay, are also lost. There is almost no concern with the basics of personnel procedure and central office dictate is commonplace.

Hire and fire is the name of the game, with little thought to the consequences. Whilst such practise was acceptable in the past with gap year students, for whom switching to working in a bar at least meant that they were paid the French minimum wage, that will not be the case in the future. With milk round jobs becoming gold dust and agency work drying up, more graduates are turning or returning to ‘seasonaire’ work that used to be the preserve of the gap year student. Seeing such jobs as a stepping stone to careers in leisure, their expectations will be higher and their commitment will be greater. As a result, customers will benefit. Offering breakfasts starting at seven o’clock rather than at eight allows mums with young children enough time to have breakfast and get their offspring to nursery ski classes before their own begin. That is a chalet host who goes the extra mile to ensure their guests are satisfied and not someone breaching company rules.

In these times of austerity, however, tips, that for a long time have made up chalet hosts’ meagre wages, are declining and in some weeks are non-existent. There is almost no mention of tipping in the brochures of the large ski companies, which is strange given what an important component it is of chalet hosts overall pay. It would do no harm to have a “if you receive good service gratuities are always appreciated” as opposed to the “if you don’t tip 15 per cent expect to be keel hauled” notice that appears in many cruise brochures.

Of course, ‘the customer is always right’ mantra leads to completed satisfaction questionnaires being awaited with trepidation. Most of us like to think of ourselves as good and fair customers, but some people just don’t care. They revel in causing distress. Step forward the English couples who rented a ski chalet in Les Arcs this past Christmas. To not tip a penny over the Christmas week is mean. To not even bother to say thank you to the chalet host or good bye is just rude. But to refuse to let the host share the Christmas meal they had just cooked really does scrape the bottom of the barrel.

So the moral of this tale for ‘seasonaires’ is to beware and research who you work for very carefully, whilst for chalet customers it is “please and thank you” go a long way, but don’t make up for a good tip. Aside from their need to acquire a basic knowledge of French labour law, what do readers think of the HR professionals working for such ski chalet companies?

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