The human touch

Recent CIPD surveys have indicated the signs of a recovery in recruitment activity, with more companies planning to hire staff than to cut workers. This is to be welcomed.

The recession and, with it, redundancies continue to leave big holes in companies, often in the difficult-to-fill category, and this can hinder recovery and further growth.

This may be a good time for companies to reflect on who they have and how to keep them before pushing the button on external recruitment. Although recruitment is often about filling gaps in the workforce at critical points in the business cycle, it is often only planned for that recruitment campaign and not as part of a long-term strategy.

What is needed is a strategy for a recessionary climate that involves making talent management within the company a priority. This will involve not only thinking about what the business wants to achieve, but most importantly how to make this happen- the classic workforce planning exercise.

Mapping out the skills and capabilities that are needed to win business will be an absolute priority. This naturally leads onto working out whether you have the right personnel with the right skills in the right place.

Tracking down the talent in your business, unearthing what people can do and unleashing their creative, often hidden, talents can be just a matter of talking to, engaging with and motivating people.

Most companies have this in their kitbag – appraisals, internal know-how, maybe even training and development initiatives such as coaching and mentoring. If line managers are motivated to understand and support skills development, these tools can be put to work to increase internal bench strength.

This is talent management of the many, unlike the traditional view of talent management as an activity reserved for individuals with specialist skills or knowledge, or for high fliers.

The payback of using a talent management approach to recruitment issues can include a more engaged workforce, with improved succession planning and lower recruitment costs. Encouraging people to multi-skill and to coach and mentor others helps knowledge and skills circulate around the business. It can also help create a more diverse culture and facilitate a learning organisation.

EEF has a long history of helping companies develop and strengthen their internal resources – everything from training managers in specific skills to fostering team capabilities. Making the most of what you have and holding onto it will be the battleground for the future – this is the time to come prepared.

During a recent meeting with Vince Cable, we made it clear that manufacturers were seriously concerned about the Government’s plans to phase out the default retirement age. Over the coming weeks, I will ensure that Ministers are made fully aware of members’ concerns and this has already begun with discussions that I have recently had with both Ed Davey and Steve Webb, the BIS and DWP Ministers responsible for this policy. 

There are a number of reasons why the Government’s plans to scrap the Default Retirement Age (DRA), so quickly, are a bad idea...

We continue to ensure that manufacturers' voices are heard in the debate over the default retirement age.

During his major speech on pensions reform at Broadway House last week, Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, made it very clear that he wanted the default retirement age of 65 to be phased out as soon as possible.

The Government’s plans for phasing out the default retirement age are being drawn up jointly by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Department for Work and Pensions. During a recent meeting with Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business, we made it clear that manufacturers were seriously concerned about the Government’s plans to phase out the default retirement age.

We also urged Dr Cable to ensure that employers were given plenty of time and support to help them address the practical implications of any change.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, announced the creation of a Childhood and Families Task Force last week.  It will look at, amongst other things, how to encourage shared parenting from the earliest stages of pregnancy.  This includes a system of flexible parental leave to give fathers more time with their young children.

No further details have been given, and we remain bemused by the Government’s failure to acknowledge the existence of the Additional Paternity Leave Regulations 2010.  These became law just before the election and allow mothers to transfer a large part of their maternity leave to fathers when they return to work (members can see our mini-guide )

Unless the Coalition repeals or amends these  Regulations, they  will apply to parents of babies born from 3 April 2011.  If you do the maths, this means that they will apply to women who become pregnant in the next month or so.   

Nick Clegg’s announcement is confusing. If there is to be a review of paternity leave rights, we would want  the implementation of the Regulations to be delayed.   We do not want to see legislation coming into force only to be quickly changed. 

What other laws might the Government introduce to encourage more shared parenting of young children?  Well, fathers are also already entitled to take parental leave in the same way as mothers and have the same rights as mothers to request flexible working.  And in the current economic climate, we would be surprised to see any increase either in statutory maternity and paternity pay, or a move towards paid parental leave. 

Our guess is that the hype about shared parenting for young children will result in tweaks to the Additional Paternity Leave Regulations and a new right entitling fathers-to-be to accompany their pregnant partner to ante natal appointments.

We will keep you posted.

The new Government, according to Minister for Equalities, Lynne Featherstone, is committed to a bold and ambitious approach to tackling gender inequality, including promoting equal pay.  

According to the Office for National Statistics, the median full-time gender pay gap for full-time employees last year was 12.2 per cent. But what are the real reasons behind unequal pay?

If the reason for the gender pay gap was sex discrimination on the part of employers, you would expect employers to discriminate consistently. They don’t. In fact, 16 and 17 year-old females actually earn an average 12.6 per cent more than males of that age group and the gap reaches its peak for those in their forties before declining again.  This could suggest employers just discriminate against women with children. Surely it is much more about the choices available to and made by women? More...

That’s all that Her Majesty said about employment law in the Queen’s Speech.  At least we can be relieved that this is all that she said.  And we can take some comfort that the Number 10 website says that the government wants to take time to consult fully with business and families, to identify the best way to extend flexible working.

The Government argues that flexible working is good for business: it enables employers to draw on a wider pool of skills and talents in the workforce, improve recruitment and retention rates, and increase staff morale and productivity.  The member survey we conducted last year (Scanning the Horizon, EEF/CPH Consulting Survey 2009) suggests however that 30 per cent of our members are yet to be convinced it brings any benefits at all. More...

Welcome to our new HR and Employment Law blog. Written by our own employment lawyers and HR experts, our blog will keep you up to date with the hot topics in HR and employment law, let you know what we talk to government about and give our opinion on legislative changes. 

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