The XpertHR Employment Intelligence guest blog post series continues today with a particularly thought-provoking entry from leading US HR blogger Paul Smith, author of the always-excellent (and highly recommended) Welcome to the Occupation blog.

Paul is a Human Resources Manager at a non-profit organisation in Philadelphia, PA. He also compiled the recent HR Carnival Jukebox HR blogging extravaganza, styled as "a cornucopia of HR-related blog posts, tailored in a fashion similar to a jukebox."

Paul Smith: If I could change one thing about HR...

Maya Angelou said: "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

Words to live by for sure. But they came to mind recently when I was asked "if there was one thing you could change about HR, what would it be?"

I know exactly what I would change if I could. But I have serious doubts that it's feasible or if it would be widely accepted enough to actually occur. So I just may need to change my attitude.

HR is expected to assume temporary roles.

We have to be educated in medical matters so as to understand what constitutes a disability or a serious medical condition and what doesn't, and have the whereto not to invade medical privacy. We have to understand the legal obligations behind each one. We have to have legal knowledge to prevent discrimination in employment decisions. We also need to understand how medical insurances are going to work. We need to understand the economies of benefits and of how compensation structures work. We also need to understand the dynamics of the human condition and be able to counsel employees and managers on how best to maneuver through each circumstance involving each type of personality.

Continue reading "Paul Smith: If I could change one thing about HR..." »

A round-up of links to news items on recent employment tribunal rulings, including: £63,000 for a teacher who was unfairly dismissed after disciplining a schoolgirl who simulated a sex act in class; £45,000 for a woman whose employer pretended that she was working part time while she was pregnant so that it didn't have to pay statutory maternity pay to her; and £1.2m for a former Cornwall hospital boss who was unfairly dismissed "as a whistleblower".

Continue reading "Employment tribunal decisions making the headlines: 21.08.10 to 03.09.10" »

XpertHR is inviting you to have your say on the following topic "If I could change one thing about HR...".

We're looking for guest blog posts (written, video or audio posts all welcome). If you would like to contribute your own guest post to this series, please e-mail me, or contact me via Twitter.

Alternatively, you can take part in the debate by posting comments on the blog posts comprising this series.

Read all the posts in this series:

• Kevin J Ball: If I could change one thing about HR...
• David Shepherd: If I could change one thing about HR...
• Bill Boorman: If I could change one thing about HR...
• Sukhvinder Pabial (aka @naturalgrump): If I could change one thing about HR...
• Glyn Lumley (The HR Maverick): If I could change one thing about HR...
• J Keith Dunbar: If I could change one thing about HR...
• Grant Mason: If I could change one thing about HR...
• Anonymous: If I could change one thing about HR...
• The HRD: If I could change one thing about HR...
• Paul Smith: If I could change one thing about HR...
  

The Government has published the first really important secondary legislation to the Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act 2010 (Disability) Regulations 2010 (on the UK legislation website) set out various conditions that are specifically excluded from constituting a disability under the Equality Act 2010.

Continue reading "Disability discrimination: pyromaniacs, kleptomaniacs, voyeurs and flashers excluded from Equality Act 2010" »

The national median voluntary resignation rate stood at 8.6% in 2009, according to 2010 benchmarking research on labour turnover from XpertHR.

Continue reading "Benchmarking labour turnover in 2010: Voluntary resignation rate is 8.6%" »

[I]t has been a tough 12 months, but we've navigated it well because we planned well.

This is CIPD CEO Jackie Orme's assessment of the fortunes of the CIPD over its most recent accounting year (1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010), published by People Management.

Continue reading "CIPD CEO Jackie Orme: "It's been a tough 12 months, but we've navigated it well"" »

Economic recovery is ongoing, but faltering growth, widespread job insecurity and concerted industrial action could be just around the corner, according to XpertHR Salary Surveys' September 2010 overview of the UK economic situation for HR professionals, pay setters and employment practitioners.

Continue reading "Economic outlook, September 2010: 'Choppy' recovery, strike action and 'nuclear options'?" »

FAQs providing information about the impact of the Government's announcement on the abolition of the default retirement age have been popular in the last month. In particular, employers have been looking at the expected timetable for the changes.

New questions on the Bribery Act 2010 and on using comments posted on employees' Facebook pages as evidence in disciplinary proceedings also feature in the list of top ten FAQs on XpertHR for August 2010.

Other popular FAQs deal with ending fixed-term contracts early, either for reasons of redundancy or poor performance.

Continue reading "Top 10 HR questions - August 2010" »

Replacing nine laws and more than 100 other measures, the Equality Act 2010 is set to bring about the greatest change to employment law this year and, with the bulk of the legislation being introduced in October, there’s no time like the present for employers to identify how the Act will impact their organisation.

Continue reading "XpertHR conference on the Equality Act 2010" »

We are currently collecting pay data for the XpertHR core business salary surveys. These cover employees in HR, sales and marketing, finance and general management/admin functions. To find out more about taking part, click here.

I have also posted a piece about what's happening to HR professionals' own pay based on our most recent data on our new XpertHR Pay Intelligence blog. This blog is still in development, but if you would like a sneak pre-launch preview, click here.

With the August Bank Holiday now behind us, our series of guest blog posts on the topic "If I could change on thing about HR..." continues today with a fascinating post from anonymous HR blogger and full-time HR director The HRD. The HRD is author of the excellent My Hell is Other People blog - one of the HR bloggers' blogs of choice, as revealed by our mini survey earlier this year, and maintains a strong Twitter presence. He describes himself as a "British HR Director caught in a Sartrian nightmare and trying to see the philosophical side of life." It is a particular honour therefore to have the HRD use his guest post to expand at length on these Sartrian themes.

If you would like to contribute your own guest post to this series, please e-mail me, or contact me via Twitter.

Over to you, the HRD:

The HRD: 'Existentialism is an HRism'

Existentialism addresses the purpose and existence of men. Having been in and observed the profession for the best part of two decades, it is my belief that HR is facing its own existential crisis. We can learn a lot from the existentialists about how HR can face up to this crisis, and take charge of its actions.

Continue reading "The HRD: If I could change one thing about HR..." »

A tribunal in Northern Ireland has awarded £45,000 to a woman whose employer pretended that she was working part time while she was pregnant so that it didn't have to pay statutory maternity pay to her.

Continue reading "Pregnancy discrimination: £45,000 award after employer pretended employee didn't qualify for statutory maternity pay" »

Our ongoing series of guest blog posts here on XpertHR Employment Intelligence brings together a diverse array of voices, each presenting their personal take on the following topic: "If I could change one thing about HR..."

Today we present the contribution of an anonymous UK HR Manager working in the public sector, who wants to see "HR finally get to grips with the idea of what it is really here for."

If you would like to contribute your own guest post to this series, please e-mail me, or contact me via Twitter.

Anonymous: If I could change one thing about HR...

It's unbelievable in the 21st Century, to me at least, that you can still find some people in HR who are confused about what our role is. I still hear people talking as if we were an offshoot of some nineteenth-century social welfare experiment. Let's change one thing about us at least - lets get clarity, focus and coherence of purpose.

Continue reading "Anonymous: If I could change one thing about HR..." »

The Government's consultation on draft guidance on the definition of disability highlights that under the Equality Act 2010 an individual will not have to demonstrate that, where an impairment adversely affects his or her ability to carry out a normal day-to-day activity, that activity involves one of a specified list of capacities, such as mobility, speech, or the ability to understand.

Continue reading "Equality Act 2010 and the definition of disability: consultation highlights removal of list of capacities" »

The XpertHR conference on managing absence, sickness and stress, in London on 22 September 2010, is a one-day event aimed at any HR professional tasked with reducing absence rates and bringing employees on sick-leave back into productive work.

Continue reading "Managing absence, sickness and stress: XpertHR resource pack" »