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I asked CIPD employee relations adviser Mike Emmott the million-dollar question in an interview last week – how will the long-running dispute between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) end? “Like all disputes it will be resolved, but management can’t afford to lower the flag on the modernisation agenda because that is the only way the business will survive in a very competitive environment,” he said.

Undoubtedly, Royal Mail’s days are numbered if there is no change in the situation, but there is also another incentive for brokering a deal before too long. With privatisation and new legislation to curb industrial action in “essential services” on the cards with a Tory government, the future of the postal service looks even rockier – and the union’s influence only set to diminish.

Don’t think that I’m without sympathy for the postal workers. Last week I met some CWU members on the picket line outside Mount Pleasant in London and, from speaking to them, gathered the situation has been so badly managed that ultimately they were given no choice but to strike. But some sort of acquiescence from the union now could be less painful than anything further down the road – and perhaps also add to its bargaining power over future, even bigger issues.

At the moment, some businesses and individuals could still be won back. I received a press release the other day from a firm congratulating itself for staying loyal to Royal Mail (while apologising to customers who had not received their deliveries). Think of the outcry every time a post office is threatened with closure. There’s something that makes people sympathise with our postal service, but patience is running out. Royal Mail must be made fit to compete and the union should quit while it’s ahead.
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Everything in the States really is mega-sized. I’d started to get used to the pint-sized cups of coffee and colossal conference centre, but I was almost dumbfounded by a session I attended called “Hot topics and new developments in HR: a public policy update”. Perhaps this was rather naive, given the current economic environment and the recent changes in the White House, but there are masses of legislative bills being considered right now that will have a direct effect on the work of HR professionals in the US. I have also acquired a new respect for any UK HR people who take on roles across the Atlantic. This is major legislative territory.

I had gone to the session with the intention of seeing the progress the new president had made with the various employment pledges he made during his campaign trail. While I soon realised it’s too early to properly assess this, there was a definite sense that much of what is being proposed on Capitol Hill is very unpopular among the American HR community.

The biggest employment issues right now for the federal government relate to healthcare, workplace flexibility, leave and industrial relations. Healthcare is the one dominating the US headlines currently, driven by major concerns, not only about the failure to cover vast numbers of poor people, but also over soaring costs. While both sides of the Senate House, business and the public agree on the need for reform and a new focus on wellness and prevention, the extent to which employers are going to have to pay for the changes, including erasing tax benefits for employer-provided schemes, is very contentious. While the NHS may not be perfect, it definitely takes the pressure off many employers in this area and I don’t envy those American HR managers who will have to navigate their way through whatever changes are eventually passed.

The proposals around workplace flexibility and leave benefits, which both Obama and McCain made much of during their campaign trails, are complex but the view from SHRM is that any new paid leave (for parental reasons or sickness, for example) should be through employer incentives rather than mandatory.

Perhaps the biggest changes for HR are contained in the industrial relations proposals, which, according to one of the SHRM experts presenting the session, would “change the way unions are organised in America forever”. I sensed this bill, which aims to boost rapidly declining union membership and would strengthen the workplace rights of unions, caused the greatest alarm among delegates.

Whatever the outcomes of these proposals, which are yet to be finalised, one thing is for sure: the Obama administration is not standing still and major changes to the US employment landscape are imminent.
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I’m lucky enough to be attending this year’s conference of the Society for HR Management (SHRM – the US equivalent of the CIPD) in New Orleans. The first thing I’ve learnt is that it’s not only the size of the food portions that are huge in America. In a conference centre that is over a mile long, HR professionals mill about carrying a programme the thickness of a Big Mac (well, almost). The Big Easy is full of HR people. And if the opening keynote is anything to go by, I’m in for a very interesting few days.

Preceded by a live brass band, business guru Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, opened with some controversial views on areas such as the Obama administration and the battles women face in the workplace - he said that it’s simply a business reality that the person who’s promoting will choose someone who is there and not someone taking time out, often to the detriment of women’s careers. But he was greeted with warmth by a (mainly female) crowd who knew his passion for HR. He repeated time after time that it was the most important function in any organisation and must not be afraid of pushing itself forward and making an impact. His mantra that “HR is important in the good times, but in the bad times it defines an organisation” is hopefully a message that is spreading across the Atlantic too.

I’ll be keeping an eye on HR trends that might be making their way to the UK, so watch this space.

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How times have changed – and for once I’m not just talking about the economic situation. Just last year social networking sites were seen as the cause of all evil by employers and, often, HR practitioners. Lazy staff would sit browsing all day long, chatting to their friends (who also apparently had nothing to do) and updating their status (“at work and bored”). There was also the moral conundrum as to whether or not to “look up” potential recruits, who seemed to have no qualms about what incriminating pictures were there for anyone to see.

Now things are different on both sides. As jobs are squeezed it’s unlikely anyone thinks they will have time to sit idling on the net, and anyone in the unfortunate position to be looking for a new position would be well advised to keep their “net-rep” in check.

But employers are also now welcoming these tools. Several speakers at this year’s CIPD HRD conference admitted that banning sites such as Facebook and Twitter at work would deter future generations of talent, “who use them like an extension of their arm”, from joining their organisations. Other speakers said they had begun to embed them into their training and development practices. The idea of “reverse mentoring” (where Gen Y helps its older and more senior colleagues get to grips with the likes of Twitter) was particularly innovative. Of course the idea of using free platforms to share learning and knowledge is particularly welcome in the current economic climate, but regardless of that it seems to make a lot of sense. It’s flexible, real-time and cost efficient, especially when you consider that, according to one of the speakers, only 10 per cent of formal training is transferred to the workplace.

Retracting bans on these various sites will not be easy but perhaps Twitter is a good start. The site has been designed not to take up much of anyone’s time but can be used by organisations in a number of innovative ways in the learning and development arena – networking, sharing ideas and knowledge and links to articles to name but a few.

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There was finally some better news on the jobs front last week: holiday camp company Pontin’s is set to create 2,000 new posts. They join others – such as Subway and Asda – that are doing relatively well out of all this doom and gloom as people trade down on purchases. Pontin’s are hoping to capitalise on the fact that, with less money around and a bad Euro exchange rate, more people will choose to holiday at home this year. I wish them well, but I for one will not be holidaying in the UK.

Aside from the bad weather and the fact that Pontin’s isn’t really my thing, I had a pretty nasty, wallet-busting experience this weekend. I had decided to take my boyfriend to York for his birthday. I did my research and booked our trains and accommodation well in advance. I was even revelling in the fact that we could get to York for £6.65 each and that the ‘boutique’ hotel we stayed in was offering a special January discount that would otherwise have made it unaffordable.

And we had a lovely time. Until that was, we decided to come back earlier than planned because of the snow. As I was halfway through an article in one of the weekend travel supplements about “bargain Britain”, the ticket inspector came round. It turned out our tickets were not valid on this particular train provider even though I had booked them through their website. It was a genuine mistake on our part and it was not as though the ticket inspector was going to fine us. But after 10 minutes or so of him trying to work out our best option, it transpired that we would need to buy new tickets – at a cost of £111.50 each (our young person railcards were of course not valid on his machine).

Our other option – for £50 less - would have been to get off the train at the next stop, wait over an hour for another train, and then change again at a later point. In order not to completely obliterate the merits of a relaxing weekend away, we chose the former. It proved a very expensive journey home. It is also worth noting that the train was by no means full and even the ticket inspector felt bad for taking our money. And to top it all off – in true British style – the train arrived back in London late (and it hadn’t yet started to snow).

My point here is that, thanks to an utterly ridiculous transport network, perhaps holidaying in the UK isn’t so cheap after all. We could certainly have had a perfectly luxurious weekend in France or Italy for less than this particular trip north.

I hadn’t heard of “redundancy promotions” until recently but it seems some holiday firms have put these in place to try and tempt us abroad (you book your holiday now but get your money back if you lose your job). It seems pretty sensible to me as the benefits of a holiday and some sun shouldn’t be underestimated, not only on your work but your general well-being, and surely with all the economic gloom there’s never been more need for some serious R&R.
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Having recently interviewed an HR manager who said that by making a choice to work part-time she knew she would never make it to the top of the tree career-wise, I felt a bit despondent. I’m definitely one of those Generation Y 20-somethings who wants it all (successful career, husband, children, nice house and garden etc), so I was really pleased to hear about new mum Natasha Kaplinsky’s decision to return to Channel Five on a part-time basis. As far as I’m concerned she’s done pretty well so far (she has a salary of over £1 million at least) and is hopefully capable of climbing the career ladder even further.

But, reading between the lines, there is a complete contradiction between what some members of the national press are saying: they’re happy that this means she will take a pay cut and be at home to put her son to bed, but there’s also an undertone that she is all of a sudden both lazy and less of a professional – as the Daily Mail’s headline ‘part- time Kaplinsky’ would suggest. Give her a break and let her get on with being a career mum I say. We certainly need a few more role models.

Interestingly there’s a new dynamic to the issues of gender inequality and part-time working that is currently being realised in this recession. The CIPD’s John Philpott will give you more of a technical analysis but surely the fact that more men are being forced to work part-time to avoid redundancy can only bring about change in the long-term, or at the very least a partial shift in attitudes. As the author and work-life balance champion (aka ‘superwoman’) Shirley Conran said to me in an interview earlier this week: “Once that situation is in place it will be very difficult to take it away from people.” Comments [0]
Here’s a lesson on how not to hold on to your top talent: the BBC Ross/Brand fiasco.

After a week of bad headlines and public condemnation, both Russell Brand and Lesley Douglas, controller of Radio 2, have resigned and the future of Jonathan Ross looks doubtful as he serves out his three-month unpaid suspension.

While not to everyone’s taste, in my mind these are two of the best comedians around at the moment, and if the situation had been better managed or the correct procedures been there to prevent the broadcast going out in the first place, they would still be on the BBC’s airwaves. You only have to look at their viewing figures and the fact that they can command such high salaries to realise their worth.

But who can blame Brand for quitting? If my employer publicly shamed what I do and gave me no support whatsoever I’d be pretty annoyed too. This is definitely the BBC’s loss as I’m sure Brand will continue a flourishing career elsewhere.

For Ross things are a bit more complicated. His age and salary tie him to the Beeb a bit more, but having been warned by director general Mark Thompson that this is his last chance, I wouldn’t blame him if he also got fed up. I’m sure he’ll be looking to the other broadcasters as soon as his £18 million three-year contract is up. As for his current suspension – this feels like a schoolboy punishment at the expense of the BBC’s audience. I love Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and certainly won’t be watching Speed tonight (its replacement, and not even a halfway decent horror film for Halloween, have they really lost touch this much with what people want to watch?). To me, given that Sachs has accepted their apologies, this action was completely unnecessary. The BBC’s mantra of ‘creating content that the audience loves’ has totally gone to pot.

So where does the buck stop? With whoever allowed this piece of rubbish to go out on air. What on earth were they thinking? Comedians will naturally push the boundaries and in this case someone needed to intervene.

Lesley Douglas showed great integrity in her resignation and wish that junior staff should not be blamed. But she played no part in the decision to broadcast the phone calls and therefore should have stayed. Credited with turning around and modernising sleepy Radio 2, she is a huge loss of talent for the BBC and, ultimately, its audience.

In addition to investigating the details of what went wrong on the night, surely the BBC needs to ask some deeper questions about their communications strategy as the slow response, mixed messages and long silence after the event only served to compound the situation. For one of the world’s largest media organisations to fuel bad press in this way is particularly shameful.

Ironically the person most likely to benefit from this whole debacle is the least talented of all: Andrew Sachs’ granddaughter. I suspect the bookies are already taking bets on the likelihood of Georgina Baillie being on the next Celebrity Big Brother. And the worst part is that this will only go on to further erase people’s memories of Sachs’ wonderfully funny portrayal of Manuel on Fawlty Towers.


See also Tim Smedley's blog, 'BBC's self-flagellation must end'Comments [0]
I was disappointed by today’s announcement that Ruth Kelly is to leave the Cabinet. Not because I think she’s a fantastic minister (there are very few of those about at the moment), but I was sad to hear her reasons behind the decision. Stepping back to spend more time with her family sends out a message that it is not possible to combine motherhood with a senior government position. While I applaud her for lasting this long (combining taking care of four children under the age of 11 and such a high-profile position is no mean feat), her resignation says much about female career progression and the gender pay gap associated with it. If the government can’t put its own house in order and allow women the flexibility required to combine a top job and a family, what hope do other employers have? Undoubtedly, business needs more female role models and, unfortunately, women MPs have just lost a major one. For this reason, I can only hope that her family was the real reason behind her exit, and not any rift with the leadership or policy direction as some commentators have indicated. It would be a cruel blow to women’s rights otherwise.Comments [0]

Given the CIPD has been holding its annual conference and exhibition in Harrogate for 60 years, the fact that this is my third time here is hardly a triumph. But for me, and I’m sure many others, the place has become almost synonymous with HR and all that comes with attending a CIPD conference.

While I have seen some great speakers and witnessed industry-leading debate in the conference halls, the event extends well beyond these walls. I’m sure Carrington’s nightclub, the many Indian restaurants and the Holiday Inn bar will leave long-lasting memories among much of the HR profession (and with a few journalists too!).

And of course there’s Betty’s. Whose trip to Harrogate is complete without a trip to the world-renowned tea rooms? Even if delegates don’t have time for the full works at breakfast or tea time (and judging by the queues they usually do), few suitcases are complete without some tasty treats to take home.

But it’s now time to say goodbye to Harrogate and all that comes with this lovely Yorkshire town, and hello to Manchester in 2009. A new venue will undoubtedly bring excitement and fresh discoveries, but watch out Manchester – HR is on its way en masse!

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The importance of good leadership has come into the political spotlight more than ever over recent months. In times of uncertainty we look to our leaders for encouragement and guidance, but instead we have been presented with tales of infighting and plots to takeover. The polls even indicate that bringing back Tony Blair is the only way to increase Labour’s popularity and I’m sure the attractiveness of David Miliband is partly down to his similarities in style to the former PM. But is this a case of the public simply harking back to the good times (economically, at least, let’s not forgot about the divisive nature of the war in Iraq and the near meltdown of the party towards the end of Blair’s tenure) or is there a genuine recognition that right now we need a strong leader more than ever before?

My insight into the leadership styles of both Blair and Brown is somewhat limited, but recent events reminded me of something Alistair Campbell said at this year’s CIPD HRD conference. The former director of communications and strategy for Blair called his old boss one of the most impressive leaders of modern times. He said he was a natural communicator who trusted his staff to get on with their jobs. Compare this to the anecdotes about Brown being a control freak, as well as his lacklustre way of communicating. It therefore comes as little surprise that the nation –– and his own team – lack confidence in their PM in difficult times. David Cameron, like Blair, comes across as a natural communicator and the pair definitely have a charismatic edge that Brown lacks. (You can vote in our latest online poll about this very subject!) It will therefore be interesting to watch the outcome of the party conferences which take place later this month. The People Management news desk will be attending them so look out for articles in the magazine and online.

Leadership is also currently a massive issue on the other side of the Atlantic, as Americans prepare to decide on their next president. What I find most interesting is the importance both parties have placed on their choice of vice president. Was John Prescott or Harriet Harman ever the deciding factor in our elections? Sarah Palin on the other hand might well be. Is this because, as many of the commentators have so kindly put it – she is just one 72-year old’s heartbeat away from becoming president – or is it because she’s a woman and the American’s are ready for change?

A vote for Democrat Obama clearly spells change too – but is this all simply change for change’s sake? I urge the Americans to look beyond race and gender to their genuine leadership qualities. There’s no denying the next few years are going to be tough on an economic level and we don’t know what other new challenges the future holds. The role of the leader to support, guide and inspire their people has therefore never been more important.

After almost eight years with George Bush in charge, I genuinely feel the American people deserve change for the better. But I hope that their first black president or female vice president is voted in for the right reasons.Comments [0]