“Strategy” is often over-complicated, misused and misunderstood. It doesn’t have to be this way. Nearly everyone can understand and describe strategy, it’s just about removing the management speak and relating it to your personal perspective. Our White Paper, “Demystifying Strategy” gives a different take on strategy, to help get to grips with what it really means. Read or down load here: Demystifying Strategy PDF
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Unconscious bias: are you being fair?
While most people do their best to treat people equally and try to avoid making judgements or assumptions about others based upon the way they look or dress, their age, their sex or their educational achievements, humans are programmed to do just this. Making these subtle assessments about people is, in part, how we negotiate our way around our world, and how we make choices and interact with others.
Given that we are all prone to unconscious bias, it is unsurprising that the concept of unconscious bias in the workplace – and the possibility of it leading to a sticky legal case on the grounds of discrimination – is an issue that keeps many employers awake at night.
Section 13(1) of the Equality Act 2010 states that direct discrimination occurs where, because of a protected characteristic, somebody is treated less favourably than others. The Act prohibits discrimination, harassment and victimisation in relation to nine protected characteristics: age, sex, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation.
The Equality Act sets out an employer’s legal duty to avoid discriminating against a potential employee, whether at the interview or selection stage or while they are an employee.
There are many things employers can do to mitigate the risks of action against them on the grounds of bias and the risk of any of their employees’ careers being stymied by any bias.
Bear in mind too that if an employer unintentionally overlooks the skills of one or some applicants or staff members because of their sex, age, race, or even mode of dress, body art or postcode, they are potentially undermining their own business by ignoring their talents. So it is in everyone’s interest that unconscious bias is tackled head-on.
Tips for employers Full article by Shan Evans on CIPDIR35 could be extended into private sector ‘as early as spring 2018’
Expansion would be complete disaster for contractors, businesses and Brexit, warn recruiters
The IR35 tax rules that have caused huge disruption for HR teams in the public sector could be extended into the private sector “as early as spring 2018,” recruiters are warning.
Amendments to the IR35 tax system for the public sector came into effect this April. Since then, public sector contractors have had their tax status determined by the organisations hiring them. Those deemed to fall inside the IR35 regime are treated as employees for tax purposes and have their tax and national insurance contributions deducted at source, resulting in significant pay cuts for many.
Full article from CIPD
Contact us
Stephen Cooley
tel: 07123 1234
email: stephen.cooley@proventureconsulting.co.uk
Mark Tobin
tel: 07123 1234
email: mark.tobin@proventureconsulting.co.uk
Corporate giants championing “returnships”
A lot can happen in a decade. Flip phones, once the must-have gadget, aren’t cool anymore and everyone’s glued to these smartphones things – at home, on the train and in the workplace. Oh, and if you need anything, you can order a taxi, or lunch just by clicking on app. So, what do you mean you don’t know how to use Twitter?
It can be a lot to take in – especially when you’ve had a break from the workplace. With digital transformation and the recession both taking place when Adriana Ennab left the banking industry, on her first day back to work after a 16-year-break at 52, she wanted to leave.
However, three years later and Ennab, now Director of Public Policy at Credit Suisse, is glad she stuck her returnship out – and she’s just one of the growing number of women returning to work following an extended career break.
“People said to me: ‘You are crazy. Banking has changed so much. You don’t know enough.’ But I love being in this world again,’ she says.
Three in five professional women, who have taken a care-related career break, will move into a lower skilled or lower paid role than their previous job – reducing their earnings by up to a third, according to research from PwC. In fact, the true cost of the challenges returning to the workplace has, sets the UK back an estimated £1.7billion-a-year in lost economic output.
Despite this, only a small percentage of companies offer returnships – placements that range from six weeks to six months, where returners come in at a paid, high level position following a minimum of two years out of work.
However, many of the larger banks, construction companies such as Skanska and Balfour Beatty, and telecoms giants Vodafone and O2, are championing returnships. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results are good.
According to Credit Suisse, around 12 to 15 women are accepted onto each ten-week programme and between 50 to 80% are retained at the end – The Daily Mail reports.
The Government has even pledged £5 million for returnships, with Prime Minister Theresa May recently stating: “More often than not, it is women who give up their careers to devote themselves to motherhood, only to find the route back into employment closed off — the doors shut to them. This isn’t right, it isn’t fair, and it doesn’t make economic sense.”
According to the investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, who analysed figures from the Office for National Statistics, the number of women working past the age of 70 has doubled in four years.
Lisa Unwin, Founder of She’s Back, a recruitment and support organisation for women returning to work, still thinks work needs to be done. “There is a lot of trumpeting of returnship programmes,” she says, “but numbers are still small and focused on mid- to senior-level roles.
She concluded: “My frustration with companies that love to bang on about them is that for every five women they take back on a returnship programme, they are probably losing 50 because they are refusing their requests for flexible working.”
Article on HR Grapevine
Contact us
Stephen Cooley
tel: 07123 1234
email: stephen.cooley@proventureconsulting.co.uk
Mark Tobin
tel: 07123 1234
email: mark.tobin@proventureconsulting.co.uk
How to Get it Wrong
There are a number of ways that you can score negative points before your first meeting. Here are some examples of CVs and other documents that didn’t shine:
- Documents that are written in capital letters.
- Documents that cannot be printed (check before you send it)
- Documents that do not have the applicant’s name and page number on each page.
- Documents that haven’t been spell-checked.
- We are mostly looking for evidence of success. If you don’t tell us that a particular programme, procedural or cultural change was a success and how they helped the company, then we will have to take a guess, and we might guess incorrectly.
- Try not to use the words “Responsible for” so much. It’s good to know what your responsibilities are, but only up to a point, after that we want to know how your actions helped the company.
- If you have figures, or a before and after, put them in.
- Try not to leave gaps, if you get an interview, you will almost certainly be asked about them.
- This isn’t the place for being self deprecating or engaging in humour. “Well I was quite good at this role” will not gain you points, but then neither will “I want to take over the world”!
- Falling foul of the points above might not stop you from getting an interview, but they are likely to colour the interviewer’s perception of you.
Getting the best from coaching
You can’t turn around these days without hearing about coaching. But while coaching can be really useful in addressing specific issues, its present high profile and many vocal supporters can give the impression that it’s a magic bullet. It’s not for everyone, and is being over-sold and over-hyped.
So let’s look a little closer at what coaching can deliver, and where it works most effectively. The core of a good organisation is a mix of personalities, policies, structure, vision and strategy, leading to consistent delivery with a clear focus and long-term vision. Get these right first, and then use a coach to hone, sharpen and refine the individual and the team.
Organisations, roles and demands change. Do you still have the right people in the right role? Are their skills and strengths aligned with their responsibilities? Once you have answered these questions, consider coaching. Let people play to their strengths – if you don’t know what they are, assess them, get some 360˚ feedback, talk to them – then use the coach to sharpen their skills and help them really fly.
With a determined empire-builder who’s undermining colleagues, whose very presence disrupts, and who is unwilling to adapt their behaviour, coaching may not be the answer. First, have a straight talk about your expectations, the need to work together, the vision for the business and the damage being done. They have a responsibility to rise above petty battles and focus on the organisation. If your director can’t see this, then they should move on.
Are they in the right role? Have they got the ability and skills to succeed? Do you want to keep them, or give them another chance? If the answer is yes, a coach might help. If no, you have a different problem. Don’t use a coach to duck a tough decision.
Coaches should clarify issues, help people to see solutions for themselves, to understand their role, or to develop new skills or behaviours. They can help pull a top team together, focussing their energies in the right areas, understanding each others’ strengths and styles, moulding the differences into a cohesive whole. But for an over-promoted manager, destructive organisational psychopath, dysfunctional team or critical misalignment between vision and capacity, your issues need a more fundamental solution.
Good coaches market themselves, so don’t be dazzled by the sell. Be clear about what you want, why, and how you want to improve. Set outcome measures that test and stretch your coach, and expect improvement. Finally, coaching is not counselling, so watch out for dependency – a mark of bad coaches. Feeling better about yourself is immaterial, unless you’re also performing better.
Secrets and Lies
In response to increasing demand from job seekers, Proventure has taken a “no holds barred” approach to job seekers, career management and the practices of some agencies.
Proventure has supported more than 600 people to make key career decisions since July 2010; and is providing ongoing support to more than 350 people. Taking an approach that reveals the secrets that recruiters don’t want exposed, blowing away the myths and sometimes exposing the lies told by recruiters, agencies and some candidates during recruitment, Proventure has given people the edge needed to succeed.
With a highly structured, often challenging approach that focuses on the individual, Proventure cover the psychology of recruitment and then outline straightforward and grounded advice about the whole recruitment process; including understanding and manipulating agencies and how to find jobs, network, create compelling applications, make a positive impact at interview and then secure the role.
Supporting candidates have said:
“One of the most valuable and well managed training courses I have ever participated on! Thank you.”
“Excellent 3 days – had no expectations but never thought it would be this useful and this good. Excellent all round. Excellent trainers built brilliant rapport.”
Steve Cooley, Managing Director, said: There are tough times in the market. We give people the hints and tips they need to get in front of employers, to get jobs and then negotiate the best packages. We want talent to flourish.”
Separating gossip from fact
I was recently challenged by a chief executive: ‘what’s going on Steve? How on earth did XX get appointed as a chief executive? We all know they were poor, never delivered, weren’t corporate and caused problems. What do we pay you lot for?’ Separating-gossip-from-facts