Whether you are an employer, employee or doctor, now is a good time to get familiar with the layout of the new fit note, which replaces the traditional sick note from 6 April 2010. A new entry on the statement of fitness for work [subscription required] in the XpertHR policies and documents section brings together the Government's sample version, official guidance for employers and doctors, and an overview of the law relating to the new fit note.

Continue reading "Sickness absence: get familiar with the new fit note" »

The headline unemployment rate has fallen back to 7.8% (PDF format, 324.2K) (external website), according to latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is its first fall in more than 18 months.

Continue reading "UK unemployment rate falls to 7.8% over three months to January 2010" »

An interesting story in the Independent this week highlights the negative reporting in the British media of health and safety issues. The article, by the Chief Executive of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health Rob Strange, singles out Richard Littlejohn and the Daily Mail as purveyors of myths and misrepresentations about health and safety law (possibly the source for parts of David Cameron's speech (on the BBC website) on the subject last December).

Continue reading "Reporting on health and safety - myths and misrepresentations" »

The recent court martial (on the Daily Telegraph website) of the commander of a British nuclear submarine who crashed his vessel into a large rock provides a useful reminder that there are occasions when a single mistake can justify dismissal.

Continue reading "Single mistake (like crashing a nuclear submarine) can justify dismissal" »

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has caused a bit of a stir with its draft Employment Statutory Code of Practice on the Equality Bill (external link), specifically in relation to discrimination on the ground of religion or belief.

Continue reading "Draft EHRC Code of Practice: Don't Panic!" »

With less than ten days to go until the 2010 Budget, Chancellor Alistair Darling confirmed to Sky News on Sunday that there would be no comprehensive spending review until after the 2010 general election (external website).

Continue reading "Budget 2010: Little room for manoeuvre" »

The willingness of UK workers to accept severe pay restraint - in many cases involving pay freezes - has helped many employers minimise job cuts and weather the worst of the 2008/2009 recession. However, with tentative economic recovery now underway and inflation soaring, it remains to be seen if UK workers and trade unions will tolerate a second successive year of pay restraint.

Continue reading "Pay awards in 2010: Will UK workers continue to accept pay restraint?" »

There's a new outlook video first published today on the main XpertHR site, where Jo Stubbs and I discuss recent developments in the law on statutory minimum annual leave and sickness absence. Here it is.

You can see all previous videos in the outlook series on the video home page.

With less than a month to go until the introduction of the right for employees to request time off to undertake for study or training, time is running out to get your procedure in place and to communicate it to your workforce.

Continue reading "Right to request time off for study or training: is your policy in place yet?" »

Here are a couple of interesting links regarding workplace learning. A post at Interactyx looks at recent research by Bersin and Associates which shows the UK lagging behind the US in the use of elearning technologies.

But reliance on instructor-led classroom training by UK employers, as revealed by the survey, comes as no surprise - it is tried and tested. And many UK employers will have stories to tell of the mixed success of elearning programmes.

However, the cost of training is becoming more of an issue which makes the use of social media technologies in learning a lot more interesting.

For example, if you can deliver training in an engaging, shared way in a safe environment why pay to have employees attend off site training? And if you have a highly dispersed workforce then the cost of offsite training rises rapidly.

Elearning is not new but it is changing and these changes present new opportunities to engage employees in many different - and less formal - ways.

I thought this was a useful summary of how elearning has changed - taken from the Social Learning Handbook.

E-Learning 1.0 was all about delivering  content, primarily in the form of online courses, produced by experts - teachers or subject matter experts.  E-Learning 2.0  or Social Learning is all about individuals (co-)creating content in a variety of formats and sharing information and knowledge using tools like blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and social networks both within an educational or training context to support a new  collaborative approach to learning as well as to support their own personal and group learning and working activities.

And here are a couple more resources:

The new BBC learning design toolkit looks very interesting and is free for employers to dip in to. It outlines the BBC's approach to training based on deep employee research.

This list of the top 100 tools for learning - made up of contributions from 278 learning professionals around the world - lifts the lid on how many different types of tools are now being used in the delivery of learning. Here is the presentation:

XperHR is carrying out a survey of how employers train line managers. Whether you are using social learning or not, please let us know your thoughts - you will receive a free copy of the results.

Despite the public sector pay freezes announced yesterday (see the coverage in the Guardian, Telegraph and Financial Times, plus the reactions from the First Division Association and the British Medical Association, all on external websites) many public sector employees will still be getting a pay rise in 2010.

Continue reading "2010 public sector pay freeze not as simple as it sounds" »

Regional pay can help employers to meet differing recruitment and retention needs in local labour markets. There are, however, significant issues that employers need to resolve when implementing successful regional pay arrangements: how much, where and why.

Taking part in this IRS survey will provide you with the very latest information on regional pay arrangements.

This survey is a named practice survey to allow participants to benchmark their policies against those of other organisations. It closes on 26 March 2010. Please contact Adam Geldman on 01780 481 195 if you have any questions regarding this research.

Continue reading "Research request: regional pay" »

As well as announcing the date of the 2010 Budget, the Prime Minister also made some announcements on public sector pay this morning.

In his speech on the economy, he confirmed that there would be no pay rises for senior civil servants, the senior military, the judiciary, senior NHS managers, consultants, GPs or dentists from April 2010.

All these groups have their pay rates recommended by public sector review bodies, which published reports today setting out their proposals. Reports on pay in the prison service and armed forces have also been published.

You can find a statement confirming which proposals the government has accepted or rejected on the Number 10 website.

As the Prime Minister had already pre-announced that these groups were going to have their pay frozen (see our round-up of public sector pay on XpertHR - subscription required), it was quite brave of the senior salaries review body to recommend that senior NHS managers earning less than £80,000 should get a 2.25% pay rise, which the government rejected. 

The Prime Minister also confirmed that government ministers would not be seeing ministerial pay rise in 2010-11 nor would they be taking up the 1.5% pay increase for all MPs from April 2010 that was announced last week.

IRS research into line manager responsibilities suggests that although line managers take lead or shared responsibility for people management in 90% of organisations, their training in areas such as absence management, appraisals and recruitment is often inadequate

Take part in our poll and it will link you to the latest IRS survey which will investigate the latest trends in the development of people management skills and identifying best practice in this area.

Continue reading "Training and Development of Line Managers" »

Gordon Brown has confirmed the date on which Chancellor Alistair Darling will deliver the Budget 2010 as Wednesday 24 March 2010 (external website). This has fuelled media speculation that the 2010 general election will follow a little over six weeks later, on Thursday 6 May 2010.

Continue reading "Budget 2010 date confirmed as Wednesday 24 March 2010" »