Publications
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Information & Consultation Legislation Extends from April 2007
If you have between 100 and 149 staff and you haven’t got your organisation’s procedures and arrangements in place for consulting with your employees, you should start thinking about this now. You may find that you’ve already got good enough mechanisms in place but you should review or introduce a policy and formal procedures. From April 2007, it is possible that your own staff may make a request to negotiate an Information & Consultation Agreement so it’s best to be prepared.
The aim of the legislation is essentially to ensure that employees are kept informed and consulted about important issues which in theory should lead to staff that feel valued.
We at Mercer & Hole, put all our arrangements in place prior to the introduction of the original Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations, even though it did not cover us at that point in time. It has stood us in good stead because the legislation allows for pre-existing arrangements to continue if certain criteria are met.
For further information, you should refer to the DTI website.
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The Secretarial Role: Anachronism or A Necessity?
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that at the very least, the role of the secretary is changing. In fact, in some industries, the role has almost disappeared. The effects of technology designed to increase self-sufficiency (Outlook, Lotus Notes, document management systems etc) and more widespread keyboard/computer skills are largely to blame and this trend is now starting to be seen within professional services, which has traditionally been heavily reliant upon the services of secretarial staff.
In terms of HR, the biggest challenge facing the profession is ideally to redeploy rather than make redundant. There are some valuable skills amongst this community, yet it seems that many resist or remain in denial about the changing working world and its relevance to their role. However, it is encouraging to see that others are being proactive, taking control of their own careers, demonstrating a more commercial outlook, volunteering change, diversifying, learning new skills and creating a new career path. A recent example of this is one of our secretarial team volunteering to become involved in our accounts department and new Practice Management software.
I’d be interested to hear others’ experiences and perspectives on this. -
Hampshire PA Hunt Update
I thought I’d done all the hard work in finding a suitable candidate but it seems the work is just beginning. Well, at least, for our Facilities and IT people rather than me!
Our new PA has signed up and there is a mass of activity afoot, trying to ensure that her home office is set up with everything she needs. Broadband has been installed as well as extra phone lines and next week all the files and furniture will be delivered. The poor woman must feel like she’s been invaded but she seems to be happy enough.
The flexible hours system will be put to the test with this role and I’m keen to see how it works out. Holiday calculations etc seem to have been made easier by us agreeing a minimum number of hours over the year although we’ll have to see how we determine exactly what constitutes a day’s holiday which I guess might be the average number of hours worked per day.
I’ll be going down to visit our new recruit to do an induction in the next couple of weeks and may be I’ll be able to persuade her to write a blog too about the role and her experiences.
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Telephone Interviewing
Day two of our telephone interviews and things seem to be going well.
My colleague Sarah and I are conducting first interviews by phone to see if we can screen candidates more effectively at this stage by using a defined questioning and marking system which leaves little opportunity, if any at all, for subjectivity to creep in. In theory, anyone should be able to conduct these interviews and objectively mark the candidates. It also should save lots of fee earner chargeable time (these interviews were previously done in person by a Manager) and will save the candidates having to make two trips to our offices.
So far, the same old issues are arising (as per my blog about the perfect interview). Candidates are failing to research properly the firm, role and the qualifications they will be taking which is very frustrating. However, the system itself seems to be working because contrary to my fears that we might get lots of candidates with the same marks, a range of scores has been generated.
We’ve made minor modifications to the scoring process as we’ve gone along (which has been retrospectively applied to all candidates) with the aim of ensuring it is completely fair to everyone.
Will keep you updated of our progress. We will sit down to decide on 9 March which candidates will come through to the assessment day stage.
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S’no’w Holiday!
S’no’w Holiday!
February 8 and the office experiences one of those more challenging days. The snow has caused havoc across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire making it difficult for a lot of staff to come in.
Days like this are fascinating from a geeky HR Manager’s perspective. They highlight quite nicely conflicts between employment/contract and health & safety legislation.
On the one hand, employees are legally obliged to get into work but on the other, would we as employers be held liable should expecting them to come in put their health & safety at risk? Equally we don’t have to pay employees who don’t make it in but that seems rather harsh.
In recent years, it’s become noticeable that the trend for extreme periods of weather is increasing and I felt it was time we had a policy on this issue. In the past, we’ve always written off the time as “Allowable Absence” but the commercial reality of the potential financial impact of this could be significant if the trend continues.
Further there are human considerations to make. There has been a perception amongst staff that those who haven’t come in benefit from a day off whereas those who do, get a sandwich from the local greasy spoon and the opportunity to leave early which can leave a bad taste in the mouth (not the sandwich – our local café is excellent).
In an effort to redress the balance, I’ve devised a policy which hopefully maintains the balance between health & safety considerations and rewarding those who do make the effort to come in.
To summarise it, in future, our employees who don’t come in must expect to take the time out as holiday or unpaid and those who do will be able to use an element of Allowable Absence if they come in late or leave early (sandwiches will still be provided!). There is also an element of discretion for exceptional circumstances only. However, options like home-working (if agreed by a partner or manager), making up the time and using alternative forms of transport are also offered as alternatives. Those who do work from home incidentally, are expected to charge a full day or to charge half to holiday or unpaid and half to work codes as appropriate.
If you’d like to see my policy, subscribe to my blogs today and I’ll send you a copy. I’d be interested to see yours too as I couldn’t find any on the internet for comparison.
Wendy
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This Week and Rubbish Bags at Dawn
I’m in the process of moving and one of my neighbours decided to plonk two bags of someone else’s rubbish which had been discarded on the green in my front garden. He had assumed it was ours due to the amounts we’ve been throwing out recently as part of our clearout after fifteen years! (why do we accumulate so much?). Obviously, we are considerate neighbours and do leave it in the requisite place at the requisite time. Rather miffed to put it mildly, I challenged him and asked if he might be able to explain this clandestine enigma. He admitted it. I think my look said it all but he did “graciously” agree to move it for me to which I took great exception. However, he duly did, tail between legs (with no apology offered) – he won’t do that again I suspect. The wonders of living and working with people I guess. That’s one of the things that makes HR in particular so rewarding – people always surprise you no matter how well you think you know them.
Anyhow, I digress (she says à la Ronnie Corbett). Luckily, this did not set the tone for the week as there’s a lot going on and it’s exciting. Michelle Golden of Golden Marketing came over from the states to talk to us all about the wonders of blogging. I was amazed to discover that there are experts in this field who know and understand the professional services industry inside-out. It’s all been quite a revelation to me.
I like to think of myself as a bit of a “geek” really. I’m into geocaching (don’t ask – you’ll probably be better off looking at (http://www.geocaching.com), have MOUS certificates and love complicated PDA technology and thought I was ahead of the game. I’ve experimented with a blog before but didn’t realise the full potential of this medium. Having now attended the presentation I am so enthused now that I have started blogging in earnest. It’s great fun and a wonderful way of sharing opinions and making contacts.
Looking at my diary, I will train a colleague to prepare some rather detailed Chargeable Hours Reports that I devised some years ago now. This will save me lots of time and hopefully provide her with something new, challenging and interesting to do. She was a secretary who recognised that this career path is in demise and has actively sought new areas of work and interest.
I’m also quite busy on the health & safety front. We’ve got a meeting in a couple of weeks and new issues such as the forthcoming smoking ban (http://www.smokefreeengland.co.uk) need consideration. I’ve issued some guidance on identifying suspect mail in light of recent letter bomb.
If anyone can recommend an excellent Absence Management system, please give me a call. I’ve been looking for a module or system that will allow multiple managers to be responsible for and authorise people’s holiday. So many of the systems out there seem stuck with the one-to-one ratio with limited flexibility. The system also needs to provide an overview of everyone’s movements for ease of reference. I’ve identified one or two but would appreciate hearing about your experiences.
The firm will recruit some new trainees this year and in November 2006, I delegated the responsibility for running this to my HR Officer, Sarah. I have proposed that for the first time, we conduct first interviews by telephone which previously were done in person by fee earners. HR will take this on and save chargeable time by devising a comprehensive and scoreable list of questions to segregate candidates for progression or rejection. Sarah’s working hard on this and it’ll be interesting to see how this works. The benefits could be invaluable in terms of time saving and convenience. Obviously there are downsides like not being able to read body language but in any case, we’ll review and amend for next year as necessary. I’ll let you know how this works out.
Friday’s going to be an extremely busy day for me. I will be in London during the morning conducting three interviews for a much needed Trustees role and I’m then back to St Albans for the afternoon to do an exit interview and discuss the interview questions for the Trainee Recruitment process with fee earning colleagues and my team.
Hopefully on top of all this, I will find someone to rent or purchase my house! I’m moving in a couple of weeks or so and have spent a lot of time renovating the house almost to the point I wondered why we are moving. Judging by the rubbish bags at dawn incident, it definitely will be worth it in the end.
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The Hampshire PA Hunt
I am so excited at the moment about a brand new role I am recruiting for. Apart from anything else, it’s unusual that I get to visit an old haunt of mine, the beautiful county of Hampshire and the role itself is part of the groundbreaking movement that’s taking force in terms of flexible working.
What’s really so wonderful about this role, I guess you’re probably thinking. Well, for me it’s the type of role that demonstrate’s the willingness and flexibility of an organisation and its culture to respond to social change and to adopt best practice. Most of all I am finding the process fun. For the last week or so, I’ve been helping our eminent Tax expert and lecturer, Robert Jamieson determine the best way to find his right-hand person who will organise his commitments and writing. Robert is an author and is well-known in the field of Tax because he trains those at the top of the profession today.
The role itself offers completely flexible hours (July and August off! – I’m so jealous) and the opportunity to work from home which will suit many people and the successful applicant will probably become typical of the country’s future workforce. There is a very strong desire out there amongst candidates for this kind of role. Anticipating a large response, I allowed only five days for application and have been thrilled to receive approximately thirty high quality candidates, which reinforces that perhaps this is indeed the way of the future.
