Category: HR Information

New research has revealed the scale of the ethics problem facing UK organisations, with managers becoming 'robotically compliant' rule followers and neglecting the ethical dimension of human interaction.

This is the conclusion of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and personality test MoralDNA. Workplace culture is dominated by rules, bureaucracy and targets, meaning managers are 'switching off' their care for others, they claim.

The report, Managers and their MoralDNA, explores a range of crises that have affected both the public and private sectors, resulting in damage to public trust and employee engagement. High-profile City scandals such as mis-sold debt, PPI and rate-fixing form part of the study.

Some 74 per cent of managers are at risk of overlooking the impact of their decisions on others at work, the research finds. This is significantly higher than the figure for the general population.

A number of ethical character types are identified by the report: Philosophers, Judges, Angels, Teachers, Enforcers and Guardians. Each of these differs in the degree of influence asserted by heads, hearts or compliance with rules over their ethical approach.

A large amount of managers (74 per cent) tend to be Enforcers, Judges and Philosophers, with a smaller proportion (25 per cent) being Angels, Teachers and Guardians.

As a result, many more people in management roles (28 per cent more than the general population) may lack empathy and fail to consider the impact of their choices on the wellbeing and interests of customers, colleagues or shareholders.

Only 14 per cent of managers are Angels and Teachers, compared with 36 per cent of the general population. These personality types have a stronger ethic of care.

Ann Francke, chief executive of CMI, said: "Too many employers fall into the trap of relying on ever-more complicated layers of rules and regulations to say what their people can and can't do … We need to stop blindly following rules and start caring about the impact our actions."

The problem is compounded by the overrepresentation of Enforcers among managers – a type which is particularly prone to blind rule-following.

CMI is offering a toolkit and practical checklists to help people improve their ethical standards.

The 30% Club has released findings of its research which undermines ten common myths about how women progress to top positions in organisations.

According to the research, men and women have similar career aspirations, leadership behaviour and push and pull factors for career moves.

Small differences, however, can result in significantly different outcomes. A man starting his career in a FTSE 100 organisation is 4.5 times more likely to make it to the Executive Committee ('ExCo') than his female counterpart. 

The research was conducted in four streams by business psychology consultancy YSC and professional services firm KPMG.

It encompasses a representative cross-section of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies, accounting for over 680,000 employees.

Barriers to progression tend to be at the top level of organisations: senior women are two times less likely to be promoted and four times less likely to leave than their male peers.

Only a minority of women at senior level (seven per cent of ExCo positions) have the responsibility for the profit-generating area of the business.

Most women are in charge of HR and legal functions, while men tend to have responsibility for commercial activity.

YSC director Rachel Short said: "Removing the 'psychological' barriers for women is just as important as removing the 'structural' barriers if we are to fundamentally shift the dial in women's progression to the very top."

Men are as important as women when it comes to role-modelling behaviour that inspires women to progress – women alone, therefore, cannot drive the changes needed to achieve greater gender parity.

Organisations need to be more honest about gender diversity, the report says, with all leaders showing an interest in women advancing their careers and reaching the top.

Helena Morrissey, chief executive officer of Newton Investment Management and founder of the 30% Club, said: "What I take from this research is that we will only really take a quantum leap towards better gender balance at all levels when organisations treat this as a mainstream, not a 'diversity' issue."

Some of the most profound changes to the world of work are set to take place following the passage of the Children and Families Act, which was given royal assent in parliament last week.

The legislation gives workers a host of new rights, including the right for all staff to request flexible working, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reports. It could represent the biggest change in working practices since the 1963 Contracts of Employment Act.

Only workers with children under 17 (or those with disabled children) and those with caring responsibilities have hitherto been able automatically to ask their employer to work flexibly. When the new law comes into effect this April, however, any worker with six months' continuous service can now request to work flexibly after June 30th 2014.

Staff will be able to request to work from home, do job shares, work compressed weeks and take other forms of flexible working.

Employment relations minister Jenny Willott said: "Current workplace arrangements have not kept pace with the times. The Children and Families Act will bring the way parents balance their working and home lives back into the 21st century."

"By enabling any employee to work flexibly, we want to remove any cultural assumption that flexible working is only for women, or just parents and carers."

Provision will also be made for other forms of work-life balance. As of April 2015, mothers, fathers and adopters will be able to share their parental leave between them, allowing them to share their parental leave between them or swap leave throughout their child's first year.

While Ms Willott believes the act will be good for business, it has encountered opposition from some groups, such as the Confederation of British Industry and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).

In 2012, the BCC said the changes could create tensions between parents and employers and raise "unrealistic expectations" about the degree of flexibility most businesses will be able to grant.

New research has highlighted the gender bias against women applying for jobs in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) sector.

According to the University of Chicago study, How Stereotypes Impair Women's Careers in Science, people of both sexes are twice as likely to select a male candidate for a STEM role  – even if the female candidate is better qualified. 

The employers were told they would be hiring for a role that required strong arithmetic skills but they were given no detailed information about the prospective employees, other than their names. 

Even when the results of the tests were revealed, the gender bias did not disappear.

It was found that the bias persisted when candidates were allowed to tell the employers how they thought they fared on the test. Men tended to exaggerate their abilities, whereas women tended to underestimate their skills.

The findings of the test suggest women in the real world face significant barriers to entry when applying for STEM jobs.

This week, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) published a report highlighting the need to engage female talent. 

It says there is a skills shortage in STEM subjects and has called for the introduction of "Davies-style" gender diversity targets to help reduce the imbalance.

In his independent review of women on company boards, Lord Davies proposed targets to promote diversity, suggesting UK firms listed on the FTSE 100 aim for a minimum of 25 per cent female board representation by 2015.

Katja Hall, CBI chief policy director, said: "The Davies Review has had an impact in the boardroom, now we need a similar focus on the classroom. 

"There is a shameful gender gap in science and technology so we need to transform society's ideas of the choices women have in their careers."

She added that people with the skills required to work in STEM roles tend to earn more on average than those who lack these abilities.

Progress on this front could, therefore, help to address the gap in gender pay equality recently highlighted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which found the UK lagging behind many other developed nations.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has launched a new challenge for organisations as part of its 'Valuing Your Talent' scheme.

It is calling on HR and learning and development professionals, as well as members of other professional bodies, to contribute their experiences of managing talent. Experiences are to be uploaded onto the CIPD's 'Valuing Your Talent Challenge' website, which is being run in collaboration with the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts (RSA).

Participants are to be offered a £10,000 cash prize as an incentive for contributing. They will also benefit from the results of the programme and from the debate and discussion it aims to provoke.

Launched last November, the Valuing Your Talent initiative aims to create a framework of principles which leaders from any sector can draw upon to use in their own organisations. According to CIPD, human capital valuation is too important to be categorised solely within HR.

Phase one of the programme seeks as many examples and observations as possible about what helps and hinders good human capital measurement. It runs until March 31st, whereafter the CIPD will launch the 'innovation phase', looking for ideas about new and better ideas for HR to value its talent.

Julian Thompson, director of enterprise at RSA, said: "Human capital management is too important, too complex and too sensitive to local context for any one group of specialists to develop or determine good approaches. Previous attempts have failed to catch on because models have been developed in isolation from each other and on a closed, proprietary basis."

He added that the initiative is the beginning of an "open innovation community" on how to improve the valuation of human capital.

Mr Thompson also encouraged the contribution of "outsiders", such as designers, developers, innovators, and analysts, in addition to HR personnel. 

CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese said a diverse range of opinion is required to form the basis of a common framework of definitions and reporting practices that can be used to understand workforce capabilities.

Managers need to improve their communication with staff in order to avoid an employee drain, a leading psychometrics expert has said.

According to some predictions, the economic recovery will lead to more people looking to move companies to secure better salaries and working conditions, HR Magazine reports.

Some 47 per cent of employees in the construction and engineering sectors say they want to move in 2014. 

In addition, research for HR consulting firm Towers Watson recently revealed a connection between economic recovery and talented employees leaving for better opportunities.

Martin Reed, Chief Executive Officer and chairman of psychometric people management tool provider Thomas International, said the onus is upon managers to take employee engagement seriously. 

"Managers are often weak when it comes to engaging with their staff; they tend to get distracted by other things," he said.

"Both employees and managers are reluctant to have difficult conversations about issues in the workplace. Frequent and effective one-to-ones, as well as frank and open conversations about problems in the workplace are crucial."

Recently, Personnel Today said managers need to have the right kind of conversations with employees in order to boost engagement.

Several studies have found employee engagement can have a significant impact on absenteeism and staff retention.

Five conversations were recommended to promote engagement, based upon establishing a trusting relationship, agreeing mutual expectations, using the art of appreciative enquiry, challenging unhelpful behaviour and building for the future.

It said HR managers have a vital role in helping such conversations take place by establishing an "engagement strategy".

Mr Reed said retention could be a particularly pressing problem for young managers who lack the experience to deal with challenges arising from staff looking for new prospects.

He added that organisations will be faced with the added challenge of managing work pressures during the recovery. Employees will have frequently been required to perform additional duties during the recession and managers will need to ensure their staff feel valued for the job they are currently doing.

The UK still has a long way to go to reduce the gender pay gap, according to a new report.

PwC's Women in Work Index puts the UK in 18th position out of 27 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in terms of narrowing the gender wage gap and increasing female labour participation.

The index relies on five key indicators of female empowerment: the gender wage gap, female labour force participation rate, the gap between female and male labour force participation rates, female unemployment rate, and the proportion of female employees who are in full-time employment.

Efforts to reduce the gender pay gap and increase female workforce participation mean the UK's absolute performance in 2012 moved ahead one place on 2011.

Other OECD countries have made progress, however, which accounts for the UK's poor performance. In 2000, the UK was fourteenth in the rankings. 

PwC's index is dominated by the Nordic countries, with Norway at the top, followed by Denmark and Sweden.

Ireland and the Netherlands have made particularly good progress in the latest rankings, each moving up by five places. This is largely a result of narrower gender wage gaps.

While the UK performs above the OECD average on female participation in the labour force and female unemployment levels, its performance was hampered by the low proportion of women in full-time employment – it is 25th out of 27 countries on this measure.

Despite the UK's success in narrowing the gender pay gap – it fell to 18 per cent from 26 per cent in 2012 – it remains above the OECD average of 16 per cent.

Gaenor Bagley, head of people and executive board member at PwC, said: "The low level of females in full-time employment is holding back both the UK's economic recovery and women's career progression.

"Despite the perception that flexible working helps women, our index and wider research suggests that it could instead be holding them back in many cases."

Ms Bagley attributed the Nordic countries' success to the fact that all individuals are considered to have the right to an improved work-life balance and the "cultural challenge" needs to be solved in the UK to enable women to realise their potential.

Virtual staff and four-generation workforces will be among the challenges confronting HR staff in the future workplace, according to a new report commissioned by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).

The Future of Work extrapolates from current trends and technologies to paint a picture of the workplace of the future. While the report's compilers are keen to stress they cannot predict the future (forecasts of 20 years ago said we would now be enjoying reduced working hours and more leisure time), they say their research could affect the way we act today.

According to UKCES, multi-generation working is set to become common as people delay retirement into their 70s and 80s. It terms these "four-generation" or "4G" workforces.

While some of the predicted trends will undoubtedly be welcome – the role of women within the workplace is forecast to strengthen – others are less desirable. Highly-skilled, highly-paid professionals will enjoy a better work/life balance but others will experience increasing job and income insecurity.

Technology looks set to continue to transform many workplaces and many routine tasks will be performed by "smart algorithms", while "virtual work presences" will become the norm. Businesses seeking to increase their flexibility will reduce the size of their core workforces, relying instead on networks of project-based workers.

The report also predicts the rise of a phenomenon it terms "micropreneurism" as a result of demand for increasingly personalised and bespoke goods and services. New ICT developments which provide greater access to markets, innovation and cost savings, will facilitate this trend.

Large companies will open up their business models, focussing on what they can learn from one another, while running open Research and Development programmes, giving individuals and small businesses the opportunity to innovate.

Four possible scenarios are presented for the future direction of the UK economy: forced flexibility, the great divide, skills activism and innovation adaptation. 

Each of these gives prominence to different patterns created as a result of technological change and increasing automation.

Toby Peyton-Jones, director of HR for Siemens in the UK and north-west Europe, and a commissioner at UKCES, said the report invites us to think about the implications of the trends it predicts. 

A recent study has shown a correlation between economic recovery and higher levels of employees leaving firms to look for new opportunities. A report by HR consulting form Towers Watson has revealed that when the economies improve, people increasingly start looking for better prospects.
 
The organisation's Industry Compensation Survey Report has unearthed a direct connection between high GDP growth and higher levels of attrition among talented employees, while no correlation was found between higher wage increases and staff retention, HR Magazine reports.
 
This could mean that more jobs become available as the economy improves further, with the top talent leaving for pastures new and creating openings for others, but the researchers are urging employers to look beyond staff pay as means of retaining their best workers.
 
Carole Hathaway, director of Towers Watson's Rewards practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that people will often move jobs in countries where the economy is healthy, as there are likely to be new roles available and greater confidence in employment security. In places where the economy is challenged, employees will often stay put to for peace of mind.
 
Retaining the best staff is a multifaceted issue that extends beyond pay alone, she added, saying that "company culture, good communication, responsive leadership, opportunities for career development and a clear understanding of mission and values" can all contribute to employee retention, along with wages.
 
Research conducted by Oxford Economics on behalf of insurer Unum has recently highlighted that the cost of replacing top talent in some sectors can cost as much as £30,000 per worker. The study looked at how much is spent replacing an employee who earns more than £25,000 a year, as well as impacts on productivity.
 
In large firms, staff were found to take 28 weeks to reach optimum productivity levels when replacing a former employee, at a cost of £25,181 to the company. Some of the total figure comprises lost wages while the rest was made up of lost capital income.

The EEF has criticised the government for restricting employers' access to skilled non-European Economic Area (EEA) graduates.

Evidence has been submitted by the manufacturers' organisation to the House of Lords' Science and Technology Committee inquiry into international STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) students, arguing the government is "acting unreasonably" by imposing restrictions.

EEF criticises the government for abolishing the Tier one post-study work route, which allowed non-EEA graduates who had studied in the UK to seek employment for a period of two years upon completing their studies. 

According to the organisation, this means it is increasingly difficult to attract recruits from outside Europe and many candidates are forced to leave the country when they finish their studies.

Recruiting international graduates is time-consuming and burdensome, the EEF claims, and this is hampering employers' attempts to recruit such talent.

It says that while one in ten companies specifically plan to recruit a non-EEA student in the next three years, over half of manufacturers surveyed disagreed that recruiting such a candidate is easy.

Some 53 per cent found the process of recruiting a non-EEA candidate very time-consuming and four in ten companies experienced problems in securing a sponsorship licence when recruiting a non-EEA student.

Despite these difficulties, 22 per cent of companies claimed they would definitely hire a non-EEA student again.

The EEF recommends restoring the Tier one post-study work route and simplifying the process of recruiting non-EEA graduates in order to give employers access to a wider pool of talent.

Tim Thomas, head of employment and skills policy at EEF, said: "Government should promote the value of international graduates, just as employers do. It should restore the Tier one post-study work route or introduce a route which allows international STEM graduates to stay in the UK after their studies to occupy hard-to-fill roles in industries such as manufacturing." 

He added that government should try to remove the barriers faced by employers looking to hire international graduates and improve organisations' access to much-needed skills.