HR News October 2011

Welcome to the October issue of HR News. A month when two new employment regulations come into force. The default retirement age is scrapped and the new Agency Regulations Act comes into play. We take a look at the positive side of retaining older staff and the benefits they may well bring to a business. We also look at sickness and absence and the key reasons behind an upsurge in taking the odd day off. Lastly we look at the 'fear factor' which is raising its head in most organisations.

Default Retirement Age - Are there benefits?

The whole look of the UK's workforce will change dramatically as a result of the Government calling time on the Default Retirement Age. From 1st October, employers will not be able to compulsory retire employees. As a result, workers will get older and companies will have to review their recruitment policies to ensure they continue to stay within the law.

The Governments reasons behind this new law are partly to do with the healthier and longer lives of workers. Their experience, especially in these difficult economic times, could be of a great benefit to an organisation. Older workers can add resilience to a business' workforce offering a vital blend of hard-soft skills that allow them to react in a more productive manner to economic crises.

The retirement age group tends to be very competent and reliable, inherently understands employer expectations and usually do not require much additional training, although any training that is required may need to be delivered in a more flexible way. In some ways this group actually beats their younger counterparts in areas such as soft skills including; attitude, work ethic, teamwork ability, problem solving and commitment by using the total sum of their life skills and work experiences - all of which are highly valued by employers.

The legislation on 1st October will mark the completion of the phasing out of the retirement age, which began in April when employers were no longer able to issue notifications for compulsory retirement using the DRA procedure. Employers are now being urged to consider a more flexible approach to recruitment and utilise the valuable skills base.

Older employees less likely to 'pull a sickie' than younger collegues

A recent survey revealed that 43% of UK employees admit to having called in sick to work when they were not actually sick. This should not come as much of  surprise, but what is interesting is that the majority of these are in the 14-24 age group.

The survey, which was conducted by Kronos looked at what employees are doing with this extra leisure time, how the rest of the workforce is affected when employees call in sick and what employers can do to better manage the problem.  In the UK, 25% of respondents had taken a sick day when feeling stressed. Again, the figures were highest for the 16 - 24 age group. Other reasons for taking a day off sick included having to look after a sick child, having too heavy a workload and running out of paid leave.

So how did they spend their unofficial day off? The top two activities were staying at home and watching TV or staying in bed! When asked what their employers could do to prevent them from calling in sick when they were not really unwell, the top response was to offer employees the opportunity to work flexible hours, or to be offered unpaid leave if they were feeling like they really needed a day off.

Around 50% of those surveyed said they were negatively affected when colleagues called in sick with the top reason being that they have to take on the workload of the missing employee.

When asked if employers use an automated system to keep track of absences, 45% responded yes, 31% responded no and 19% didn't know. Maybe an automated system would decrease the level of absenteeism?

The survey itself provides a fascinating insight into absenteeism in the UK. Employers everywhere can learn from this survey - about the problem of absenteeism and the possible fixes - from providing more flexible working arrangements to enabling employees to work from home.

Use Teamspirit Human Resources Software to track and monitor staff absenteeism, authorise time off, plan and track time and attendance.

Financial stress can lead to problems at work

Financial anxiety is taking its toll on the British workforce as almost one in 10 adults admits worrying about money has caused them to take a sick day.

Just 18% of adults in Great Britain are 'very confident' they have the knowledge required to create and maintain a sound financial plan for themselves and their dependants.

Larger families seem to be taking the brunt of financial worries, with almost one in five of adults with three or more children in the household, taking time off from work over money worries. Money management guidance is something that employees said would help them, and would make them feel more effective and engaged at work.

Employees are currently telling organisations that they both need and want help with managing their money in a world where inflation-busting pay rises, regular promotions and fixed retirement ages are a thing of the past.

World economy causing fear in the workplace

Virtually every company since the world economy slowed down seems to be living in fear. Employees live in fear of losing their jobs. Managers fear losing their jobs as well as having to make people redundant. For HR times have never been busier and the same fear has enveloped many HR departments as well, could their jobs be on the line too?

Employees watch the news, all they may see is, job losses, cuts, businesses closing down. Even if a company hasn't been making cuts or made any plans to make people redundant, employees will still be nervous and productivity may drop as a result of this. The best way to deal with this effectively is to formulate a strategy of assurance within the workplace.

One effective way to do this is to regularly review your employees' performance and tell them when they are doing well! Now more then ever it is important to provide employees with personal objectives and goals as part of the performance review process. Pay rises may well be a thing of the past, which will make reviews even more important to maintain employee motivation.

Teamspirit HR Software assists you with appraisal management and allows you to create strategic management reports.

Additionally, making the number of training courses and days more available to employees and managers can go a long way to maintaining and increasing motivation levels amongst staff members. The training days and courses need not cost the company any more money than is already put aside in the HR budget either. As an HR professional it will probably be necessary to undertake additional in-house training yourself rather than outsourcing it to external providers.

View and update employee's training needs online with Teamspirit Human Resources Software

Whilst we take great care to ensure accuracy in the compilation of our Newsletters, Bond do not in any circumstances accept responsibility for any errors, omissions or advice given in this publication.