October 21, 2019
To help ensure women get the right support when going through the menopause transition, necessary public policy measures need to be put in place and the subject should be discussed openly in organisations, according to the CIPD which has published a manifesto for menopause at work at an event at the Houses of Parliament. More →
October 2, 2019
A new survey new research from The Predictive Index found that psychological safety is a leading factor in employee dissatisfaction with management. While there are overt ways managers undermine their own employees’s feelings of safety with practices such as bad-mouthing people or displaying favouritism, the 2019 People Management Report (registration) also reveals the subtle ways managers sabotage their teams, ultimately causing employees to quit or disengage. More →
September 10, 2019
Managers should seriously consider giving their employees the reins for a day to test new research that indicates seven out of 10 employees worldwide (69 percent) say they can do their boss’s job better, despite nearly the same number of workers (71 percent) grading their boss’s competence a B or better.
The Global State of Managers research comes from The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated and Future Workplace, which examined how nearly 3,000 employees in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Mexico, the U.K., and the U.S. would grade their manager’s effectiveness across five factors: communication, competence, empowerment, professional development, and support.
According to the study, employees grade their managers high on competence but nearly fail them when it comes to work-life balance and job coaching. Overall, people feel managers are good at their jobs, with the majority of employees grading bosses an A or B for competence (71 percent) – the highest grade given – and work ethic (70 percent).
Bosses also received high marks (B or better) for their communication skills, people management skills, and ability to handle performance-related issues (all 67 percent). The older the employee, however, the more critical they are of their boss: Baby Boomers1 and Gen Xers grade managers more harshly with a C, D, or F for overall people management skills (37 percent and 38 percent, respectively). Worldwide, the employee-manager connection remains critically important: 70 percent of employees say their relationship with their manager is an extremely or very important factor when deciding to remain at their current job, with 22 percent agreeing it’s somewhat important. Millennial (79 percent) and Gen Z (73 percent) employees feel strongest about the importance of the manager relationship for retention compared with Gen X (66 percent) and Baby Boomer (62 percent) counterparts.
Other findings
Differences by sector and nationality
Despite rating their managers No. 1 in all categories, 95 percent of Indian employees still say they could do their boss’s job better all of the time (47 percent) or some of the time (48 percent). This sentiment is followed by 87 percent of Mexican workers and 71 percent of French workers. Canada (61 percent) and U.S. (59 percent) workers feel the least confident that they could do their boss’s job better – yet it’s still more than half of all employees.
Managers in the technology industry are on top overall, scoring highest marks (A or B) in people management (81 percent), communication (75 percent), and modeling work-life balance (70 percent). Professional services managers (e.g. accountants, engineers, lawyers) rank second-best, with 70 percent of employees grading them a B or better for people management and communication. Employees in the technology (77 percent) and finance (70 percent) sectors say they have a strong or very strong relationship with their boss, followed by manufacturing (62 percent); education (61 percent); retail (61 percent); and professional services (61 percent).
There is room for managers to model better work-life balance in frontline industries – i.e. those who must be present to do their jobs – with 53 percent of employees in federal government, 42 percent in healthcare, and 42 percent in retail giving their boss a C or worse.
Regarding pure competence, managers are graded worst – C or lower – by public safety (44 percent); federal government (39 percent); transportation/distribution/logistics (35 percent); and healthcare (34 percent) employees. More than one in three employees give poor marks of a C or worse for their manager’s work ethic in federal government (37 percent); healthcare (34 percent); transportation/distribution/logistics (34 percent); and manufacturing (33 percent).
Image by Pixabay
August 2, 2019
Employment insecurity affects many people but, overall, work in the UK is as secure as it was 20 years ago, with limited evidence of growing casualisation, new research from the CIPD claims. The report Megatrends: Is work really becoming more insecure? finds that at 20 percent, the share of non-permanent employment in the UK – which includes the self-employed and temporary workers (including temporary zero hours contract workers) – has not increased since 1998.
July 31, 2019
Following the recent government consultation on improving the rights of variable hours workers, the CIPD has published new employer guidance to help ensure that ‘atypical working arrangements’ benefit both the organisation and individuals. The guidance, Atypical Working: A guide to successfully implementing atypical work in your organisation, defines atypical working as practices which include the self-employed, temporary workers, agency staff and people on zero hours contracts.
July 30, 2019
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has launched London’s Good Work Standard, pledging to make London ‘the best place to live and work’. The standard has been developed in partnership with CIPD, claims to bring together good employment practice with resources and guidance written by CIPD experts and tested with London based CIPD members, the framework sets out to support employers of all sizes across the city improve their people management practices and create good work for all.
July 30, 2019
Emotional intelligence or emotional quotient (EQ) is an increasingly popular buzz phrase in business and understanding its impact in the workplace is becoming crucial to employers in getting the most out of their staff. A new survey from Lee Hecht Harrison Penna claims the importance placed by people managers both on finding EQ in staff, and demonstrating it themselves. The study claims the changing mind-set of managers, who see EQ as key to the career development and professional success of their employees. More →
June 12, 2019
Over-work, stress and poor work-life balance are undermining attempts to improve the quality of working lives in the UK, new research from the CIPD claims. Over 5,000 people were surveyed for the UK Working Lives Survey, an annual assessment of job quality across seven different categories including pay and benefits, contracts and employment terms, and voice and representation. More →
May 13, 2019
Employers are having to be more flexible to fill vacancies as buoyant demand for staff is creating recruitment challenges. Two in five (41 percent) employers say it has become more difficult to fill vacancies in the past year, while three in five (61 percent) employers said that at least some of their vacancies were proving hard to fill. However, according to the latest Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD and the Adecco Group despite the tightening labour market, this confidence has yet to translate into significant salary increases for all but new starters and those with key skills.
As recruitment and retention challenges grow, employers are changing their recruitment practices and drawing on a wider talent pool to fill vacancies, while putting more focus on training up existing staff.
Gerwyn Davies, senior labour market adviser for the CIPD said: “The majority of UK workers are long overdue a meaningful pay rise. However, many workers will remain disappointed with their pay packets until there are significant and sustained improvements to productivity. Organisations need to give much greater consideration to the obstacles that are preventing their people from performing better at work.
“A greater focus on training, development and better people management is needed to lift the UK out of its current productivity crisis. One upside is that many employers are already investing in developing their existing workforce to plug skills gaps. Strengthening workplace training and recruiting in a more inclusive, flexible way will ultimately deliver higher performing and fairer workplaces.”
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“A greater focus on training, development and better people management is needed to lift the UK out of its current productivity crisis.” [/perfectpullquote]
Recruitment outlook – jobs growth set to continue
Britain’s jobs boom is set to continue in the short term. The report’s net employment balance – a measure of the difference between the proportion of employers who expect to increase staff levels and those who expect to decrease staff levels – has increased from +20 to +22. Employment growth will continue to be driven by the private sector which has increased from +22 to +25 in the last quarter. The report shows that confidence is highest in business services (+39), construction (+36), healthcare (+31) and ICT (31 percent).
Skills shortages – employers are having to be more flexible to find candidates
Skills shortages are particularly being seen in professional occupations (e.g. scientists, engineers) where 50 percent of employers report that applicants don’t have the required level of skills needed. In response to skills challenges employers are having to rethink their recruitment practices and draw from a wider talent pool. The Labour Market Outlook found that:
In line with recent ONS data*, the report also found that employers were making greater efforts to hire those aged over 55 (8 percent) and those from disadvantaged groups (6 percent).
Despite rising recruitment and retention pressures, median basic pay expectations in the 12 months to March 2020 remain at 2 percent. However, pay expectations have fallen back in the private sector from 2.5 percent to 2 percent and have risen in the public sector from 1 percent to 1.5 percent.
In addition to hiring challenges, a third of employers (33 percent) said that it has become harder to retain staff in the last 12 months, particularly in the public sector (42 percent). In response, over half (54 percent) of organisations have increased salaries in some capacity and one in four organisations (25 percent) have increased salaries for key staff only.
February 27, 2019
We know, and have for a long time, that the workplace is in a state of near constant flux and so we often fall into the trap of assuming that there is some sort of evolution towards an idealised version of it. That is why we see so many people routinely willing to suspend their critical facilities to make extravagant and even absurd predictions about the office of the future or even the death of the office. This is perniciously faulty thinking. However we can frame a number of workplace related ideas in terms of evolutionary theory, so long as we accept one of the central precepts about evolution. Namely that there is no end game, just types progressing and sometimes dying out along the distinct branches of a complex ecosystem. As a nerdy sort of guy of a certain age, I’ve tended to frame my thoughts on all of this with reference to an idea from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by the great Douglas Adams.
January 4, 2019
Just three days into the New Year, today (Friday 4 January), the UK’s top bosses will have made more than a typical full-time worker will earn in the entire year, according to calculations from independent think tank the High Pay Centre and the CIPD. The average (median) full-time worker in the UK earns a gross annual salary of £29,574, while the average FTSE 100 CEO, on an average (median) pay packet of £3.9 million, only needs to work until 1pm on Friday 4 January 2019 to earn the same amount. The £3.9 million figure was calculated by the CIPD and the High Pay Centre in their 2018 analysis of top pay and it marks an 11% increase on the £3.5 million figure reported in their 2017 analysis. The pay increase means that FTSE 100 CEOs, working an average 12-hour day, will only need to work for 29 hours in 2019 to earn the average worker’s annual salary, two hours fewer than in 2018.
July 11, 2019
Diversifying hiring practices to bridge the skills gap
by Jennifer Warawa • Comment, Workplace