Equality Bill

There are certain areas of life that, although unlegislated, have developed their own strictly adhered-to codes of conduct.

Certain codes define national cultures. For example, reflecting on the observation that “an Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one” the social anthropologist Kate Fox found that not only was this true for the vast majority of the people she observed for her book “Watching the English”, she also found herself unconsciously adopting the same irrational behaviour. 

“When waiting alone for a bus or at a taxi stop I do not just lounge about anywhere roughly within striking distance of the stop, as people do in other countries – I stand directly under the sign, facing in the correct direction, exactly as though I was at the head of a queue.”

Me too.

Other codes, however, appear to be rather more personal. For example, what is the right way to file paperwork? I wish someone could tell me, because everywhere I’ve ever worked seems to have three mutually disdainful factions.

The first are the ‘meticulous hoarders’; individuals who carefully file away every single document that crosses their desks in an ever-expanding library of gently yellowing paper.

The second are the ‘diligent editors’; individuals who strive for a clear desktop, wafer-thin briefcases, and a bulging wastepaper bin.

And finally, there are the ‘conscientious abstainers’; individuals who appear to lack any formal systems, but who can unfailingly lay their hands on exactly what they are after.
These are the people who often have a sign on the office wall which informs their incredulous colleagues that “a cluttered desk is the sign of genius”.

All three factions argue that their approach is the right one. And all of them are correct – but only partially correct. To see why, look no further than the Equality Act.

Since the Race Relations Act was passed in 1968, equality legislation seems to have sat with the legal equivalents of the ‘conscientious abstainers’. The result was a sprawling mass of 116 Acts of Parliament, regulations, codes of practice, and guidance. Getting your head around that lot truly was a sign of genius.

Enter the ‘meticulous hoarders’ of the Equality and Human Rights Commission who have, with great success, pulled all of these disparate strands together to create a single Act of Parliament. A single Act which not only harmonises existing discrimination law, but in some respects extends it. For example, the ban on “discrimination by association” is extended to apply to all of the “protected characteristics” covered by the Act, thereby offering further protection to partners, parents and carers.

However, the very act of consolidation and extension has prompted the ‘diligent editors’ of Westminster to begin looking at how the inevitable bulges and wrinkles of the new Act can be challenged and eliminated to further simplify its implementation.

And guess what? None of the factions is entirely happy.

The ‘conscientious abstainers’ complain that a single Act is daunting for employers and that the separate, more-focused pieces of legislation were easier to manage.

The ‘diligent editors’, on the other hand, are concerned about the extensions to the law encompassed in the Act. In particular, they are sounding the warning bell about the implications of Equal Pay Transparency and “multiple discrimination” where, for example, someone who thinks they've been discriminated on the basis of three protected characteristics will be able to bring a claim based on a combination of two, plus separate claims based on all or any of the other five characteristics.

Meanwhile,  the ‘meticulous hoarders’ are pushing back on the other factions by arguing that we should neither go back in time to a less orderly approach, nor do anything that actually reduces the amount of protection people have from discrimination.

This is exactly as it should be. As Albert Einstein once observed, “everything should be as simple as possible – but no simpler”, and I believe that the three factions provide a healthy set of checks and balances to ensure that HR practitioners will ultimately have the best possible legislative framework to work with.

Indeed, for me, the sooner they can get to work on the rest of UK and European employment law the better. I’d only ask that they form an orderly queue while they wait.

Published in HR Magazine June 2010

Work Experience

My first experience of the workplace was at Ogden’s Empire Stores in Wigan.

My first job: peeling the prices off jars of jam, cleaning off any residues from the sticky labels with a damp cloth, and neatly applying a new – higher – price.

It was 1979 and inflation was running at around 25% creating enormous problems for my grandfather – the eponymous Mr Ogden – who had a number of shops in the Wigan and St. Helen’s area. “It’s a sorry state of affairs lad,” he’d confided in me, “but at least we won’t be rubbing our customers’ noses in it by selling ‘em jars covered in bits of old price label.”

In the years that followed I spent an increasing amount of time in my grandfather’s shops, learning about the disciplines required to run a successful retail business: attention to detail; customer service; team working and team leadership; financial management; and – probably the toughest of all – how to earn the confidence of staff, even though you’re the boss’ grandson!

These are lessons I’ve drawn upon every day of my working life and I appreciate how lucky I am to have learned them from a real master. And it’s this realisation that has made me passionate about the importance of high quality work experience opportunities for young people.

Across the UK around 95% of young people, around half a million a year, undertake work experience placements while they are still in full-time education. And, since 2004, it has been a legal requirement for all students in England to experience work-related learning – which includes both “enterprise education” and work experience – between the ages of 14 and 16.

Given my experience at Ogden’s Empire Stores, you’ll not be surprised that the quality of the work experience places we offer at McDonald’s has always been high on my list of priorities. And, although the business has been delivering a formally-structured, fully-documented programme for over 15 years, I felt that the time had come for a step-change in what we are offering our work experience students.

Why? Well at a time when youth unemployment is at record levels, I think that every employer – regardless of whether they are currently growing or reducing the size of their workforce – should be investing in the employability of our next generation of talent. Equipping them with the skills they will need when they enter the workplace.

Now to some that may sound somewhat idealistic. After all, times are tough, and the vast majority of work experience students will not end up working for the organisation where they do their placement.

But, as Henry Ford said, “an idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous”. A statement he made to emphasise the underlying pragmatism of his famous $5 dollar-a-day offer to workers who would accept the rigours of working on his innovative new production lines. A pragmatism which was rooted in the fact that if you were going to create a mass-market product, you also needed to create a mass-market to buy it.

And, for me, an investment in work experience is an investment in the future prosperity of our next generation of customers. An investment that’s good for them – and good for the future of our business too.

Which is why, last month, I was thrilled to be able to launch McDonald’s new work experience programme. A programme which can lead to a Level-2 BTEC Certificate in Work Skills (the equivalent of a GCSE Grade B) awarded by EdExcel.

This is the first time a major employer has embedded the requirements of a nationally recognised qualification into its business as usual work experience programme, and I believe that it has the potential to raise the expectations of employers, educators, and students alike.

 Employers will be expected to deliver work experience placements of even higher standards. Teachers will be expected to prepare and support work experience students, following-up on their placement with assignments which will embed their learning. And students will be expected to take work experience seriously, as an important part of their preparation for the world of work.

Expectations which I believe will help every organisation understand the value of work experience, and invest in it in the level-headed expectation of seeing a long-term return on that investment.

Granddad Ogden would have approved.

Published in HR Magazine April 2010

Share the Love

It’s Valentine’s Day this month and my thoughts have turned to love. Because I believe that love – or at least the way we express our love for others at this time of year – can be a model for great business practice.

Now, some of you will doubtless be thinking I’m referring to those businesses which benefit directly from our annual ‘love-fest’ – card shops, jewellers, florists, and chocolatiers – which is no surprise since last year a survey by Visa Commercial found a surge in consumer spending of up to 400% in these outlets in the run-up to February 14^th.

But what I’d like to look at here is the bigger picture … the underlying psychology of giving anonymous gifts on Valentine’s Day.

Because, when Shakespeare said “love sought is good, but given unsought is better”, he was expressing to a fundamental human truth. A truth anthropologists and sociologists refer to as Generalised Reciprocity – sharing goods, labour or love without expecting anything in return. Indeed, what makes this sharing process ‘reciprocal’ is simply the sense of satisfaction the giver feels, and the general feeling of goodwill that it creates in the wider social group.

In today’s industrialised societies, Generalised Reciprocity is a relative rarity found mainly between parents and children and between long-term partners. In other cultures, however, it can span entire societies, and in her novel Pay It Forward (which became a film of the same title in 2000), Catherine Ryan Hyde speculated on what would happen in a modern, western community if someone did three people a favour – something the recipients couldn’t do for themselves – and then told them NOT to ‘pay it back’, but to ‘pay it forward’ to three others who would, in turn, pay it forward to three more.

It’s a compelling concept, but one which one of the leading characters in the film describes as “overly utopian”. However, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I would like to ask a simple question: is it?

Consider, for example, the relationships HR practitioners have with their suppliers which, for me, split broadly into three types.

First, there’s the Commoditised relationship, a straightforward transaction with no emotional content. Success is a smooth process – and a low price.

Second, there’s the Conditional relationship where the interaction is defined and measured. Success is meeting the terms of the Service Level Agreement and delivering on-time and on-budget.

Third, there’s the Unconditional relationship.

A relationship where the HR practitioner and the supplier are working in partnership to deliver for the organisation.

A relationship which is fluid, allowing for other departments and suppliers to play their part.

A relationship founded on honesty, trust and shared values.

A relationship where client and supplier alike work hard to engage in a level of Generalised Reciprocity that enriches everything it touches.

Now, I would wager that everyone reading this column can think of at least one example of a client-supplier relationship that falls into each of these categories. And the fact that we can all think of examples of Unconditional relationships proves that the ‘pay it forward’ concept isn’t “overly utopian” – it’s simply an expression of what happens when we decide to invest in our relationships. Because what we also know is that these are exactly the relationships which deliver the greatest value.

However, as we begin to emerge from the depths of the recession it’s clear that for many of us – HR practitioners and suppliers alike – one of the things we have lost focus on over the past couple of years is our investment in these long-term, sustainable, unconditional relationships. The very relationships we all need to turn around our economic prospects.

So, with Valentine’s Day fast approaching, please allow me to share a thought with you.

After you’ve helped boost the turnover of the card shops, jewellers, florists, and chocolatiers along your local high street, spend a few moments considering how you might be able to make life a little bit easier for one of your key customers or suppliers – then pick up the phone and tell them. Because that one act of unconditional goodwill will repay you many, many times over.

Published in HR Magazine February 2010

Christmas Eating Out

Many people won’t be sorry to see the back of 2009. And this, if the analysts are to be believed, could prove to be the third and final ingredient required to trigger a UK-wide festive spending spree.

The first ingredient is great deals in the stores – and this year the prices of many products are at an all-time low. As Jonathan de Mello, Director of Retail at analysts Experian has observed “big-ticket items have come down massively, but next year I think they will go back up again. So now is the time to buy.”

The second is the confidence to spend – and with Nationwide’s consumer confidence index at its highest levels since early 2008 the building society’s Head of Economic and Market Analysis, Mark Saddleton, commented that “expectations for the future economic situation are buoyant reflecting widespread reports from various industry commentators suggesting that the worst of the recession is over.”

And as for that final ingredient – well we all know that the British like nothing better at the end of a rotten year than sticking two-fingers up at the tough times they’ve been through, and having a jolly good Christmas blow-out!

Which for people in McDonald’s and the wider “informal eating out” sector all adds up to one thing – December’s going to be a busy month! Now, that’s clearly great news for the coffee shops, quick service restaurants, sandwich bars and pubs that make up the informal eating out sector. But research has shown that’s great news for the wider economy too.

Earlier this year McDonald’s sponsored a major independent study by retail specialists Allegra Strategies – Eating Out in the UK – which surveyed the attitudes and behaviours of over 2,350 consumers, and conducted interviews with 130 senior executives at chain restaurants and independent operators across the UK to capture feedback on the strategic challenges facing the sector.

In short, it was thorough! Indeed, at first glance it might look a little over the top for a survey into the places where we grab a bite to eat at lunchtime, or enjoy a pie and a pint with friends in the evening. However, because so many of us now do these things, the informal eating out sector is now a significant industry in its own right.

But it’s an industry most people rarely even think about because – by definition – when we do things “informally” we don’t give them a great deal of thought or lend them a great deal of importance. Which makes some of Allegra’s findings all the more remarkable …

Last year, consumers ate one in every eight meals out of the home. That’s 7.7 billion meals – a fact which means that the UK informal eating out market is currently estimated to be worth £40.3 billion. Add to that the fact that the sector now employs one in twenty of the UK workforce and it’s clear that we’re looking at an industry that demands a rather more “formal” assessment – which is exactly what Allegra did. They looked at the Gross Value Added (GVA) for the sector.

Introduced by the Office for National Statistics in 2005, GVA measures the contribution to the economy of UK industries And what Allegra found was that informal eating out is now one of the top-ten contributors to national GVA, contributing around the same amount to the economy as the computer services sector.

Furthermore, the report also highlighted that the informal eating out sector will play an important role in revitalisation of the high street, enhancing the overall shopping and leisure experience for consumers – and employing up to 70,000 more people over the next 5 years.

So, is this the season to be jolly?

I think it might be. Because, if the analysts have got it right, the anticipated festive spending spree in our shops and restaurants will be just what the economy needs to kick-start the recovery we’re all hoping for.

A recovery which for HR professionals will finally see the end of the daily deluge of depressing emails trying to sell us the services of doom – and herald in a future where we can begin to focus once again on the positive contribution HR can make to our organisations. In other words, the reason most of us got into HR in the first place.

Have a very happy Christmas.

Published in HR Magazine December 2009

Why being in the "HR Crowd" can be good for you

I know I’m not alone in having had difficulty with this month’s CIPD Annual Conference because, whenever it’s come up in conversation, the problem of what to call it has scuppered practically everyone I’ve spoken to. Indeed, I recently overheard someone saying that “Harrogate’s going to be in Manchester this year” which doubtless baffled the non-HR people who were in earshot.

With hindsight the reason the profession referred to its flagship annual event simply as “Harrogate” is clear – there was nothing much else to work with. “The CIPD Annual Conference” is a bit of a mouthful, “CIPDAC” (sip-dack?) doesn’t sound particularly inspiring, and the shorter “CAC” is positively unhelpful!

What’s certain, however, is that a common short hand for the event will eventually evolve – because whenever large crowds of like-minded individuals come together, these events assume a particular significance for participants.

Now I doubt that many would argue about the significance of the CIPD conference. However, referring to a gathering of HR professionals as a “crowd” may strike some readers as being slightly strange – and maybe even mildly offensive, because for most of the 20th Century social psychologists have focused on the negative aspects of crowd behaviour.

For example, when I was at university I remember being taught about a study undertaken into hooliganism at ice hockey games in Canada. The researchers here found that mirrors hung from the roof of the arena in such a way that spectators could see themselves helped to increase their sense of individual identity and prevented a decent into mob rule. In essence the crowd was being broken up – albeit psychologically rather than physically. And in the 20th century the only good crowd was a dispersed crowd.

In the past, however, it was more common to study and celebrate the positive aspects of the crowd. My favourite was an experiment conducted by the Victorian anthropologist, geographer, meteorologist, explorer, inventor, and statistician Sir Francis Galton (think Stephen Fry, but even brainier!) at the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition.

One of the attractions at the exhibition was a competition to estimate the “dressed” weight of an ox, the individuals getting the closest winning a prize. 787 attempts were made and – once the unfortunate ox had been despatched, butchered and weighed – the organisers handed over their paperwork to Galton.

And what Galton discovered was remarkable. The ox weighed in at 1,207lbs and the average value for the 787 estimates was 1,198 pounds. That’s just 9lbs out which, as Galton observed in a paper which was published in Nature “the vox populi is correct to within 1% [0.7%] of the real value. This result is, I think, more creditable to the trustworthiness of a democratic judgement than might have been expected.”

So a century or so ago it was recognised that crowds of like-minded people can be smart. And, more recently, it has been recognised that belonging to one of these groups can actually be good for your overall wellbeing. Indeed, at the science crowd’s annual UK gathering – the British Science Festival – in September, researchers from the University of Exeter presented a study which demonstrates a clear link between group membership and physical and mental health.

And that’s because, as Professor Alex Haslam explained: “We are social animals who live – and have evolved to live – in social groups. Membership of groups gives us a sense of social identity and for this reason groups are central to mental functioning, health and wellbeing.”

All of which explains why, in what has been a challenging year for many in our profession, the this year’s conference is something we should all be looking forward to – whether we are able to attend in person or not. Because looking at the programme I think it’s clear that as well as being a place where delegates can enjoy the beneficial personal, social and professional outcomes of networking with their peers, it’s also a forum in which, under the direction of an outstanding CEO, smart decisions about the future of our profession will be collectively reached.

In short, whatever we choose to call it, this year’s conference looks like it’s going to be an important event in the history of the HR crowd. See you there.

Published in HR Magazine: October 2009