Publications
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St. Albans & Northampton career opportunities
Two new exciting career opportunites became available today.
For more information please refer to our vacancies page available here
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Opportunities for change available now….
Currently, we have a number of career-defining opportunities awaiting excellent candidates who appreciate being able to balance work and home life.
If you are seeking:
- Greater responsibility and career progression
- Acknowledgement and recognition for your efforts
- Fast-moving culture
- Family friendly benefits such as Flexible Hours and Childcare Vouchers
- Excellent working environment
and the chance to work alongside similar minded people, please take a look at our vacancies page.
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Interview Bliss From An HR Manager’s Perspective – Part 3
- “Passion“ — This is the icing on the cake and very rare.
Candidates who can transfer their sense of passion without being overbearing or insincere attract attention immediately and can draw the interviewer into their world much more easily.
Can anyone think of any more “P“s for a perfect interview?
I’d be interested to hear from candidates’ experiences too in terms of what their best interview has been and why.
Wendy.
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Interview Bliss From An HR Manager’s Perspective – Part 2
- “Positivity” – at all times. Interviewers love discussing issues with people who are enthusiastic and positive during the interview. There is nothing worse from my perspective, than someone sitting in front of you constantly moaning about their current/old employers or about personal problems they are having with their partners/children etc. Obviously, it is sometimes necessary and appropriate for this information to be discussed, however, candidates need to recognise that they are trying to sell themselves and need to think hard about how they portray their personality. Employers are sympathetic in the main to the fact that everyone tends to have some degree of problems in their life but candidates who fail to keep this to a reasonable level risk putting the interviewer off.
- “Propriety” – It’s very hard in this day and age to be untruthful on job applications, however, it never ceases to surprise me how many candidates will put experience on their CVs and are unable to back it up with reality. A classic example that I keep coming across is individual’s use of Excel. When asked for examples, they might suggest they use “Pivot Tables” and “Macros”. Maybe rather cruelly and unexpectedly for the candidate, I am a MOUS Excel expert and therefore always make a point of asking them what these functions do. Imagine my delight when candidates actually can respond to further probing accurately and how embarrassing it is for those who are forced to admit they don’t know. Lying about experience is more difficult now, particularly because we use Verifile to do thorough background checks.
- “Personality” - it is so obvious when someone is trying to portray a personality that is not really theirs in an aim to provide what the candidate thinks I will want to see. Don’t be afraid to be yourself as this will make it easier for you to sell yourself. We use personality profiling to assess candidates’ profiles now and this has proven to be very useful in determining whether or not someone is portraying the person they are.
Part 3 soon – The icing on the cake
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Is Anti-Antidiscrimination becoming acceptable?
There’s been a lot in the media recently about a backlash to anti-discrimination legislation.
Of course, I can understand that it might seem that employees appear to be gaining ever-increasing rights which can make, if nothing else, the legislative burden on an employer somewhat onerous. Further, I can to a certain degree understand why some employees might feel left out in the rights stakes.
However, there have been a few prominent figures (interestingly usually women) espousing rather negative views about mothers in the workplace which personally, I find disturbing and retrogressive.
Those holding these views seem oblivious to the fact that their businesses operate within a society and in the field of life and therefore should expect to accommodate all of its seven characteristics (for those who don’t remember this from GCSE or O-Level Biology, these are Respiration, Irritability, Nutrition, Growth, Movement, Excretion and Reproduction). Organisations accommodate R to E so why should Reproduction be such a contentious issue?
Unlike male seahorses, human men cannot gestate and after all, without future generations, where will the business be then? The world has changed too – families often are reliant on a dual income and the days of a parent being able to stop work for several years is for many, simply not an option these days.
It will be interesting to see how things develop. Forthcoming changes to maternity/paternity rights (probably at the end of this year), should lead to more men taking time off to look after their families or sharing some of the provision with their partner so at least the heat might be taken off mothers a bit. Isn’t their role hard enough already?
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Embarrassing Situations 1 - The BO Dilemma
One of the more “personal” areas of HR that my job requires me to become involved with is dealing with very sensitive areas such as an individual’s hygiene or undesirable habits.
Thankfully, I’ve only had to deal with this a handful of times but it remains one of the areas I dread having to manage. My advice for how to deal with this scenario is as follows:
Never forget that someone may be suffering from a medical issue that has caused the problem and they may be unaware of this. Therefore, ensure you do not make the individual feel that lots of people have commented or are aware. It’s best to suggest that you want to help the individual sort out a delicate problem that you’ve noticed and that often people prefer that this be brought to their attention.
It should go without saying that this conversation needs to be kept confidential and conducted privately.
Agree a plan for resolution of the problem which may include the most basic of items such as regular washing of clothes, daily showering etc or even a vist to the doctor.Obviously some managers shy away from dealing with problems of this nature as they find it awkward. However, a quick and timely chat can save a lot of embarrassment in the long run.
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Suspect Post
The news recently has been somewhat alarming for me having responsibility for health & safety within the firm. You are probably aware that there has been a series of letter bombings (thankfully with minimal injuries) in various areas across the country. What’s worrying for me is that one of the organisations hit was Vantis, another professional services firm. Although at present it’s unclear what is the motivation for these attacks, I’ve issued guidance to those in the firm who are responsible for dealing with the post.
I’ve found some very useful guidance on the Hertfordshire Police website which I’ve issued to those concerned. There is also quite a useful poster out there too which comes from the US, giving a picture of what suspect post might look like.
I’ve reinforced to my colleagues that the risk of anything such as this affecting our organisation is very remote and that there’s no harm in being just a bit more vigilant than usual. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has taken similar measures or what other approaches have been adopted.
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Interview Bliss From An HR Manager’s Perspective – Part 1
Have you ever wondered what it feels like from an HR Manager’s perspective to interview a fantastic candidate? This is a subject I love to talk about because leaving the interview room with a buzz is so rewarding and unfortunately all too rare these days.
The following list exemplifies in my experience, the “P” elements I experience during an interview that make me happy!
- “Punctuality” arrival and ensuring that should disaster strike, I’m informed in advance of potential lateness (one candidate turned up an hour late after having been drenched by a lorry with no explanation, call etc which did not go down at all well). With all the forms of communication available to us today, there is not often a justification for unexpected or unexplained lateness.
- “Politeness” - this very much includes punctuality but candidates who take the time to show an interest in you as an interviewer, shake hands and wait to ask to be seated makes such a fabulous impression and it doesn’t cost anything.
- “Preparation” - candidates that demonstrate they have taken the time to learn about the firm. There was an excellent example of this on The Apprentice last year. It was amazing that after twelve weeks of working towards their goal of working for Alan Sugar, very few of the candidates had actually taken the time to find out what his organisation did. Interviewers generally are enthusiastic about their firm and therefore expect candidates to show an interest too, otherwise, why would they want to work there? Further, candidates who use innovative and spontaneous questions, rather than those clichéd ones posted on agency websites stand out and makes the interview more stimulating for those conducting it.
Subscribe to my blog today and stay tuned for Part 2 soon
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Childcare Vouchers
I was so excited earlier this year because I managed to introduce the provision of Childcare Vouchers to our employees. The response has been excellent and it has actively helped us retain some key members of staff.
In case you’re not aware, Childcare Vouchers in the U.K allow employees to not be liable for NI and Tax on up to £243 of their earnings per month as long as it is spent on registered childcare services. This can extend to items such as after school clubs etc. There is also talk of this arrangement being extended in future to the care of the elderly but I think the government has some work to do on this before anything comes into place.
Information can be found about this on the Inland Revenue’s website http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childcare/ or on our service provider (Accor Services) at- http://www.childcarevouchers.co.uk
There are lots of providers out there – why not have a look and see if this is something you can offer to your staff. The administration involved in running the system is minimal for us and our staff really appreciate the benefit.
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Flexible working rights extended!
As you may have noticed, the arena of Employment Law is becoming increasingly populated with legislation aimed at making life easier for us all as employees and human beings.
In this light, the Flexible Working legislation will extend its reach to encompass those employees with a minium of 26 weeks’ continuous service and who care for an adult aged 18 or above who is their spouse, partner/civil partner, relative or an individual who lives at the same address.
Just for the purposes of clarification, this right was only open to those who had parental responsibility for a child under the age of six (or 18 for a disabled child). Of course, companies are not obliged to grant requests by employees to work flexibly but are under a duty to give proper consideration to the request.In my opinion, the extension of this right to individuals caring for an adult is likely to have more of an impact on businesses than the legislation’s introduction a few years ago because we are living in an increasingly ageing population. If your organisation has not up until now, seriously entertained the concept of flexible working, I would suggest now would be the ideal time to start working towards cultural change. All the indicators out there suggest that the working world is moving towards fluid and less conventional modes of operating – see my blog re the Hampshire PA Hunt for example which explores a role for which the hours will be completely flexible.
You might be interested to read about a success story in the field of Flexible Working. Farrelly Facilities and Engineering have won awards for revolutionising the way they work – have a look at their website for more information http://www.farrellyfacilities.com/main.html
