News round-up

Citation

Writer, F. (2014), "News round-up", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 22 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/HRMID-07-2014-0090

News round-up

Article Type: News round-up From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 22, Issue 4

Balfour Beatty becomes Stonewall diversity champion

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, is among the first major construction companies to join Stonewall’s diversity champions program.

The program, run by the gay-equality charity, helps employers develop inclusive workplace cultures for their lesbian, gay and bisexual staff to ensure that all can perform to their full potential. Balfour Beatty joins organizations as diverse as the Royal Navy, National Grid, Network Rail and Ernst & Young, among more than 650 employer members of the scheme.

Paul Raby, Balfour Beatty’s chief human resources (HR) officer, commented: “By supporting and developing our lesbian, gay and bisexual staff through the diversity champions program we are sending a powerful message to our existing and potential employees. We are proud to join the program and look forward to developing our work around sexual orientation”.

Chris Edwards, Stonewall client group manager, said: “By publically demonstrating its commitment to sexual orientation equality, Balfour Beatty is sending a powerful signal to lesbian, gay and bisexual people across the UK that it is an inclusive and progressive employer”.

Balfour Beatty’s first network for lesbian, gay and bisexual employees is being established to help make the organization more inclusive.

Matthew Flood, general counsel of Balfour Beatty’s support-services division, is the group’s most senior openly gay employee. “When you are free to be yourself, you are much more authentic”, he explained. “So many lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals waste a lot of time and emotional effort keeping their sexuality secret from their colleagues that it affects their work. Failure to make the working environment an inclusive place means we do not get the most out of our employees. It is up to senior leaders to make people feel it is alright to be themselves.

“These are challenging times, and we need people around us who can see the world with different eyes and tackle problems in different ways, particularly in the infrastructure world where the lesbian, gay and bisexual community has traditionally been under-represented”.

Anxious employees less likely to be successful

Employers who support the well-being of their employees outside the workplace may reap benefits during working hours, according to research presented to the annual conference of the British Psychological Society’s division of occupational psychology.

Rob Bailey and Tatiana Gulko, from OPP Ltd., asked 1,212 people from the UK and the Republic of Ireland to complete a range of measures examining their personalities, work outcomes and lifestyle choices. The researchers found a close relationship between respondents’ levels of anxiety and other important factors.

People with low anxiety and who were emotionally stable were more likely to be ambitious, to say that they were happy, healthy and lucky and to say that they were satisfied with their relationship. They were also more likely to receive promotion and to take positions of leadership outside work.

People with high anxiety were more likely to report that they had taken time off through tiredness or boredom.

A second study of 49 people from across the world found that anxious people were more likely to be defensive and experience feelings of helplessness and powerlessness.

Rob Bailey said: “It is unrealistic for employers to expect employees to leave their emotions at home, especially employees who are not so emotionally stable. Workplace support is likely to help to improve people’s engagement with their jobs and to reduce staff turnover and absence.

“Employers prepared to offer interventions such as employee-assistance programs, which typically offer advice that extends to employee well-being outside the workplace, may find that they reap the benefits during work hours”.

Other research presented at the conference revealed that religious employees feel better and are more likely to report that their lives have meaning.

Roxane Gervais undertook her research with 34 full-time employees in the Caribbean, who were young, largely female and more likely to be single than married, using measures including job satisfaction, strength of religious feeling and well-being.

The study concluded that employees who are more actively religious are more likely to report low levels of anxiety, depression and fatigue and feeling that their lives have meaning.

Roxane Gervais said: “As the pace of work and life accelerates, people long for meaning. The younger generation in particular is looking for more than just a big pay cheque at the end of the month.

“My research shows that religiosity in the workplace may act as a resource, making people more resilient to cope with the many challenges of working life. Such personal beliefs could be very helpful not only for employees, but also for employers providing people with a buffer zone. We should hence encourage employers to accommodate, where possible, employees’ religious beliefs while at work, and not shy away from the issue”.

Many organizations take narrow approach to talent management

Research from the accountancy firm KPMG International reveals that many organizations take a narrow approach to talent management, which is steadily weakening their competitiveness and agility.

The top 10 risks identified by business people responding to a survey focus primarily on capacity and capability and are associated with building the skills an organization needs and maintaining the size of the workforce needed to deliver its business plan. However, the survey also revealed respondents’ apparent lack of concern and interest in connecting and engaging with their talent and enabling and encouraging collaboration.

Mark Spears, KPMG’s global head of people and change, said: “Organizations are being driven to implement short-term solutions, ignoring the need to configure their talent-management efforts in a broader, more sustainable way that aligns more closely with their organizations’ strategic needs”.

Respondents ranked the risk of their “business leader’s inability to engage with, motivate and nurture business-critical talent” as a top-10 critical risk, yet placed it in the top-10 risks that were being least managed.

“Talent managers must isolate and address a much broader array of talent risks”, Mark Spears continued. “They need to take into account a critical need to connect their people to each other and to leadership, to forecast and manage costs and to move away from an approach to compliance that sees line managers simply ticking the box on performance reviews – or failing to conduct them at all”.

Only one-third of respondents felt their business-unit leaders were incentivized to share talent across organizations for the benefit of the business and the talent.

Only 40 percent of respondents said they spend two or more days a year with their senior-leadership teams formally reviewing talent, and more than 20 percent stated that they lacked a formal talent-review process altogether. More than 58 percent said their leaders take no action – or lose momentum – once talent reviews have concluded.

Only 53 percent of organizations with fewer than 3,000 employees felt their leadership took an active role in the coaching process. This compares with 70 percent of respondents working at organizations with more than 10,000 employees.

Managers failed to include “a lack of workforce diversity” within their foremost-perceived risks relating to how well they were managing their organizations’ people. When it came to the talent risks, managers are actually working to reduce and mitigate; diversity again failed to appear – and appeared again in the list of challenges managers were least likely to be working to remedy”.

Mark Spears said: “Until talent managers trade the war for talent’s one-size-fits-all mentality in favor of a more finely tuned and comprehensively planned approach, they will remain stuck in an endless struggle to pursue and retain a high-performing few, all the while ignoring the needs of the many and the whole”.

HR needs stronger partnership with finance

Some 94 percent of HR directors and senior managers believe that the HR and finance teams should work together more closely to help raise company performance and profits. Almost 90 percent believe that finance directors could do more to approve and drive the implementation of HR technologies.

Almost 30 percent of respondents to a survey by Talentia Software felt that HR was given less prominence in the boardroom, with only 24 percent believing that more money was committed to it during the downturn. Some 70 percent of HR specialists revealed, however, that finance and other senior executives supported HR function even if extra investment in it was not being made.

Almost 60 percent of respondents said that their organizations had found it more challenging to recruit the right talent into their business compared with three years ago – yet only 17 percent believed that their organizations were more likely to look at the 50-plus years’ age bracket for future recruitment to expand HR capabilities.

“The feedback clearly demonstrates the importance of cross-departmental collaboration in order for businesses to achieve their collective goals”, said Julie Windsor, Talentia Software UK managing director. “As the economy shows signs of recovery the results gathered from this survey illustrate the challenges that many businesses have faced in attracting and retaining key staff in recent years.

“With today’s organizations demanding more of their HR specialists than ever, it is essential for businesses to have appropriate solutions in place to enable them to identify and increase the key skills needed to achieve strategic goals. Recruiting the right people into the right positions in the right time frame is critical to this”.

Stress affects almost 5 million UK workers

One in six UK employees – almost 5 million workers – has called in sick because of stress in the past year, costing employers more than £460 million in wasted wages each day.

Young people are more likely to feel the pressure, with almost one-quarter of 18-24-year-olds having called in sick because of stress in the past year.

The study, carried out on behalf of insurance and pension provider Friends Life, reveals that 18-24-year-olds have a greater fear of redundancy than they do of a life-changing injury. Worries around job security are a concern for this age group, at 52 percent. Other concerns among 18-24-year-olds are money (35 percent) and work (22 percent). Money concerns have gone down by 2 percent in this age group and those about work by 1 percent in the past 12 months.

The figures also expose a gender gap in the drivers for stress, with 31 percent of males saying work causes them the most stress, followed by money, at 28 percent. The pattern was the opposite for women, more stated that money was the main cause of their stress (34 percent) than work (23 percent).

David Williams, director of group protection at Friends Life, commented: “Despite green shoots of recovery in the economy, it is clear that many workers continue to live under a serious burden of stress, particularly those under the age of 25. UK economic output is improving but this is not having as positive an effect on UK workers’ stress levels as we would have hoped.

“It is important that employers spot the signs of stress early to ensure that appropriate action can be taken to help employees feeling under pressure. This can improve employee well-being, engagement and productivity”.

Kevin Young, of e-learning firm Skillsoft, said: “Our own poll of 500 chief executives showed that 73 percent cite personal issues, including stress, as the main reason for changing jobs. Surely HR directors should see tackling stress in their organization as a priority. Otherwise staff turnover will always be high.

“Companies can use training to help staff to remain happy and motivated in their work. By ensuring that each employee has a tailored training program and an opportunity to voice any concerns, employers can feel confident that they are giving staff every opportunity to succeed, despite other personal pressures they may be under”.

Employees quit organizations where career development is poor

Lack of career development is the No. 1 reason for staff leaving organizations, with 63 percent of talent-management specialists acknowledging that this is a direct factor.

Salary expectations not being met was ranked as the No. 2 reason (51 percent), followed by lack of learning and development opportunities (20 percent).

The growing trend in HR teams looking to do more for less was also revealed in the survey. Respondents noted that their three most-important strategic priorities are to improve efficiency (72 percent), improve business processes (65 percent) and reduce costs (63 percent).

The report also exposes that this streamlining of processes is affecting the development of future leaders, with over one-quarter reporting that their organization’s ability to develop these individuals is less than effective.

Organizations are investing in developing talent at the top (42 percent) and at graduate levels (43 percent), but the middle layer is being squeezed, with much less of a focus and investment on development for middle management and people with high potential.

Pip Clarke, principal consultant at talent-management specialist a&dc, which carried out the survey, said: “As the global business arena shows increasingly positive signs, organizations are looking to build internal teams to support business growth, but this will simply be a waste of investment if talent retention is low. Many companies are losing talent unnecessarily because of budget restrictions and the focus on efficiency. This is a particularly risky approach in an increasingly competitive talent market”.

One-third of senior executives dismiss merits of gender diversity

Although 71 percent of top executives believe that gender diversity in the boardroom is always a good thing, 29 percent doubt its value altogether.

The research also shows that three-quarters of top executives believe that more appointments of women to senior executive roles can be achieved without quotas, whereas less than one-quarter believe that quotas should be introduced.

The survey also looked at possible alternatives to quotas for achieving gender diversity in the boardroom. More than one-quarter of respondents cite mentoring and guidance for high-potential female executives earlier in their careers as a potential option. Just over one-quarter of respondents mention continued discussion and visibility on the issue as being a key driver to changing views and behaviors and over one-fifth advocate the availability of flexible working arrangements.

James O’Brien, managing director of Executives Online, which carried out the research, said: “These figures show that there is clearly still a significant number of senior executives who do not support the theory that gender diversity in the boardroom is good for business. This comes at a time when the number of females in top-executive roles is still low, having dropped from 6.7 percent to 5.8 percent internationally”.

He continued: “The majority of those opposed to quotas express concerns that important positions may be awarded to women despite there being better qualified male candidates. They believe that candidates should always be appointed on merit alone. Others express concern that women may feel undermined because of inferences that they were awarded their position to fulfil a quota”.

Over one-third of respondents believe that a major benefit of gender diversity in the boardroom is broader visionary thinking, whereas nearly one-fifth think that diversity delivers better governance. Other benefits cited are more innovation (17 percent) and better risk management (14 percent).

However, nearly one-third of those polled believe there are potential downsides to gender diversity in the boardroom, including conflict (11 percent), indecision (9 percent), blockages (8 percent) and lack of direction (7 percent).

Recruiters should resist the urge to hire people just like them

Those responsible for recruitment in the legal profession should resist the urge to recruit only in their own image, says the Law Society.

Recruiting from the old-school-tie network or a limited range of universities makes it hard for many talented people to enter or progress in the legal sector.

While the diversity of legal talent is increasing every year, this is not reflected in those who become partners or leaders of law firms. Women, who make up half the solicitors’ profession, represent less than one-third of partners. Meanwhile, nearly 12 percent of solicitors are from an ethnic-minority background, but make up only 6 percent of partners.

Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said: “There is a natural tendency to recruit in our own image but this attitude builds barriers to many talented people gaining entry or progressing in the legal sector. In order for a firm to keep up with the competitive market, it needs to demonstrate an inclusive workplace and robust diversity and equality policies.

“Law firms that have good diversity and inclusion practices will have a competitive advantage in the long-term over those that do not”.

With the demographics of the UK changing rapidly, diversity is essential for law firms wanting to attract the best people and meet clients’ needs. In addition, corporate clients are increasingly looking to ensure their panel law firms match their values and commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Desmond Hudson added: “We know, from direct experience as well as through extensive research, that if a firm has a good reputation for equality and fairness, it is more likely to attract good-caliber candidates from diverse backgrounds when recruiting. With the ever-expanding international market it makes sense for law firms to have a wide understanding of language, cultural and religious influences.

“The Law Society has a dedicated equality and inclusion team who are on hand to help our members with any questions they have about progress in this area”.