Dear Subscriber,

Lifting the lid

Rather than telling you how to recruit, which I’m sure you will all have a pretty good idea of anyway, I want to try and attempt to ‘lift the lid’ on the world of recruitment for you, hopefully equipping you to weed out those consultancies and agencies that are genuine, from those that are simply a ‘bums on seats’ service.

An ill equipped purchaser makes poor decisions, decisions that cost money, and let’s face it, business’ cannot afford to make these mistakes today. Equally, candidates cannot afford to make the wrong move.

Trade Secret No 3: Email Subject: “Please find attached immediately available HR Manager”... I didn’t request this!

You may all be familiar with the saying – If I send enough out, some will stick! A basic, misguided marketing concept. The fact is, they are hoping that at least 1 in every 1000 sent have a requirement. It's that 1 in every 1000 that makes your life a misery! Again, I speak to hundreds of businesses that are sick of receiving these. How to stop them? Simple, select ‘Unsubscribe’ or reply stop. Delete is also a good one!

Please don’t be fooled into inviting this chancer into your organisation, remember this CV and email has been sent to 1000+ business’.
This is also a good point to note if you’re a candidate – don’t allow your details to be used for such marketing purposes. I had a friend that once allowed his CV to go out as a mailing – he thought this was great, what a wonderful service the agency provides – till it landed on his bosses desk...and still had his name attached!

Exclusive Human Resources are driven by a determination to provide the best service in the market to our clients and candidates alike and will always, as a matter of policy, protect your personal, sensitive data. Please help us stop the 'uninvited CV' culture and say no to your details going out en masse.

Should you have any questions relating to “Why...” then please email me direct.

Next month: What should I expect from my recruitment partner?

Mark Ions - Managing Director (0191 438 7989) 

Each month we run a series entitled 'HR Doctor' where we invite our HR Consultant, Fiona Ward to answer a series of HR related questions.

I am currently organising the annual Christmas party but am concerned about excessive drinking with all the consequences that could follow. How do I ensure everyone still enjoys the party without ending up with a potential employment headache? Can we either ban drinking or issue guidelines/limits at the party this year?

Banning alcohol could mean more of a lead balloon effect than party popper, excuse the pun. Christmas parties are an opportunity to say thank you to your staff for all their hard work and commitment over the previous year. A more sensible approach would be to take some proactive steps such as those outlined below:

1. Set a limit for the number of free drinks that are available and ask people to stop drinking if they appear to be a little worse for wear.
2. Ensure that soft drinks are as freely available as alcoholic drinks.
3. Remember, the party is an extension of the workplace, so the laws concerning discrimination and harassment still apply. Make sure staff are reminded of your company's bullying and harassment policies beforehand, along with guidelines about acceptable behaviour. This means anyone wanting a fellow employee to join them under the mistletoe or making inappropriate comments about a fellow colleague is also a big no no. If something does happen make sure you are not seen to be condoning such behaviour, as it will become difficult to take action against any employees who do step out of line.
4. Think about how people are going to get home - you have a duty of care to your staff so do not let them drive home when they are obviously well into their ninth Bacardi Breezer.

It is also worth pointing out that you and any other management should be setting an example. Ensure senior managers do not keep drinking until it is only the bar keeping them up!

Finally remember to this is an opportunity for everyone to come together and enjoy themselves, with the right approach it will be a memorable night for everyone for the right reasons.

Fiona is an MCIPD HR practitioner with over 15 years experience. She has worked in a number of sectors including automotive, chemicals, public sector and corporate head office environment. Although she has a strong HR generalist background at both officer and manager level, she has undertaken specialist projects in redundancy and change management programmes, HR systems and data, and employee relations. Finally she is a career coach with outplacement provision experience.

To discuss any HR Consultancy requirements with Fiona or the Exclusive Human Resources team please call 0191 438 7989

Written exclusively for 'HR News & Views':

DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION

By now you will all be aware of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 which is our way of implementing the EC Equal Treatment Framework Directive. However there has been a development in its application worthy of some comment. That is the recent decision of the European Court of Justice in Coleman –v- Attridge Law. See, even lawyers can get it wrong (in fact they are more likely to than most!). Mrs Coleman had been employed by Attridge Law since January 2001. She is not disabled but is the principal carer for her son who is disabled within the meaning of the DDA 1995. She accepted voluntary redundancy in 2005. She subsequently brought an unfair constructive dismissal claim and further claimed under the DDA alleging harassment and less favourable treatment. These included:

• Being called lazy when she sought to take time off to care for her son;
• Being accused of attempting to manipulate her working conditions;
• That she was refused flexibility in her working hours;
• That her formal grievance complaining of her treatment had not been dealt with properly;
• That abusive and insulting comments had been made about her and her son

Mrs Coleman argued that she had suffered discrimination not because she was disabled but by association with her son’s disability. The Employment Tribunal held that the DDA did not cover such discrimination as the ‘discrimination’ and ‘harassment and discrimination in employment’ definitions in the DDA are designed to protect those who are disabled from discrimination. Nevertheless the Tribunal thought that the Directive suggested that Mrs Coleman’s treatment should be covered. It therefore referred to the ECJ the question:

“Whether the Directive only protects persons who are themselves disabled; If not, whether it protects employees who, although not themselves disabled, are treated less favourably or harassed on the ground of their association with a person who is disabled; and, where an employer treats an employee less favourably or harasses him or her on the ground that he or she cares for a disabled son, whether that treatment is direct discrimination or harassment respectively in breach of the Directive”.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly, a number of member states made submissions before the ECJ to the effect that the Directive can only apply to disabled people and could not be interpreted as applying to people who are not disabled.

The ECJ started out by saying that the objective of the Directive was to combat discrimination on certain specified grounds. The effectiveness of the Directive would be undermined, and its protection greatly reduced, if a Claimant in Mrs Coleman’s situation could not claim direct discrimination. In simple terms it said:

“The fact remains that it is the disability which…….is the ground for the less favourable treatment”.

Given also that Article 2 (3) of the Directive states that harassment is a form of discrimination, protection from harassment must also not be limited to those who were themselves disabled. The ECJ therefore held that associated discrimination was directly protected by the Directive. It is not the type of person who is protected, but the ground of discrimination. To this end, as long as one causatively can show that it is the disability that is the cause of the discrimination it matters not who has the disability.

The case has not yet run its course. It will now return to the Tribunal for the Tribunal to determine whether in fact our DDA (which applies here rather than the Directive) can be read so as to give effect to the Directive. If it can (and it probably will) the Tribunal will then have to decide whether, on the facts of the case, Mrs Coleman was actually discriminated against and harassed by her former employer on the basis of her son’s disability.

So, employers will need to be careful not directly to discriminate or to harass somebody who by reason of their association with another person who has a disability. By implication discrimination by association should also cover sexual orientation, age and religion or belief all of which are also covered by the Equal Treatment Framework Directive as well as disability. That has a far reaching implication for employers and one which the Tribunal in Coleman may be very wary of introducing.

Since writing this article for a seminar Mark and I did, we now have the Appeal Tribunal’s decision in Saini v All Saints Haque Centre and others (24/10/08). In this case the EAT held that harassment on the grounds of religion or belief where the beliefs are those of a third party is unlawful. So now we know where we are going on this point!

Is there then a duty on employers to make reasonable adjustments, such as changes to hours or place of work, or offering additional assistance, to meet the needs of employees who care for disabled people? The ECJ said not, suggesting

“Such measures are designed specifically to facilitate and promote the integration of disabled people into the working environment and, for that reason, can only relate to disabled people”.

Hhmm. It is difficult to reconcile some of the ECJ’s arguments. If it is necessary for an employee carer to be at home in order to meet some particular need of a disabled dependent, how can an employer refuse to adapt the employee’s hours for that purpose without discriminating against the employee? Given that it is the disability that gives rise for the specific care requirement, not to allow that time off would defeat the very basis upon which the ECJ reached its decision.

For now it is ‘watch this space’ on the reasonable adjustment argument.

Jonathon Stokes is Head of Dispute Resolution at local firm, Gordon Brown Associates. He can be contacted on 0191 230 8103, or visit the web site www.gordon-brown.co.uk

Firstly, many thanks to all of you that have contacted us to request a full PDF copy of our monthly salary surveys. We will be producing a final copy of 2008 in time for the beginning of December so in order to receive this, please call 0191 438 7989 or email us directly.

Onto this month and our focus shifts to HR Administrators.

I’m sure we all remember that first rung on the HR ladder with misty eyes and fond thoughts but it is true to say that recruitment at this level can be as important than at even the most senior end. Certainly, the right HR Administrator can be moulded in your own organisations’ practices and ethos and can provide a huge benefit for many years to come. It is important that Administrators are not undervalued because of this very reason as a short term investment can bring tangible, long term benefits.

It is worthwhile noting that at this level, salary is likely to be influenced heavily by the incentive of paid study for the CIPD qualification.
From the latest survey carried out on the group throughout the region, the following salary information was drawn :

Range: £10,500 to £20,000
Average: £15,122
Benefits can include: Bonus, pension, paid study leave

Next month, we will look at the area of Training and the salaries in each of it’s sub-divisions.

Gareth Harrison CIPD - Senior Consultant (0191 438 7989)
 

Pre Budget Report:

In the midst of the current economic crisis, or ‘credit crunch’ as it has been christened, Alistair Darling, with the helping hand of Gordon Brown, seemed determined to give employees back some of their own money before he made his pre-budget announcement on Monday, 24th November. The reality however is somewhat different.

The well-publicised reduction in VAT from 1st December will, we suspect, make little or no difference to high street prices. What it may provide is a medium term boost is by allowing retailers to slightly boost their margin on sales, thereby safeguarding jobs in the sector.

There is a long term sting in the tail for national insurance bills. From April 2011 employees and employers NI will increase by 0.5% (employees from 11% to 11.5%), but this is tempered by the fact that the NI starting point will increase to meet the Income tax start point (at present you start paying NI at £5435 per annum as opposed to the £6035 for income tax). The same changes will also apply to self-employed Class 4 NIC.

There are minor amendments to income tax bands starting in April 2009 which makes the £600 increase to the basic rate band permanent and adds an extra £130. There are some minor amendments to child benefits (now starting in January, not April) and working tax credits from next year. A new 45% band is introduced in April 2011 for earnings of over £150,000, so keep those pay deals down!

Dave Gibson is an Accountant and Business Advisor for Blu Sky LLP Chartered Accountants. BLU SKY LLP are Chartered Accountants focused on providing small businesses and self-employed people in the North East of England with personal, high quality accountancy & taxation services.

BLU SKY commits to providing all clients with a timely, proactive and value driven service that involves regular contact and consultation.

www.bluskytax.co.uk

The North East of England branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have linked up with the Evening Chronicle again to promote their annual Awards.

We are proud to be an evening sponsor for the Awards again this year, and would like to make it another record level of entries for 2009. For more information or to enter please visit www.chroniclelive.co.uk/cipdawards. The closing date for entries is Friday 23rd January 2009

Recruitment entrepreneurs team up for success:

Two of the region's recruitment entrepreneurs have networking organisation The Bridge Club to thank for a partnership that is set to expand both their businesses. Click here to read more.

Yorkshire office opening:

On January 5th 2009 Exclusive Human Resources opens its doors for the first time to the Yorkshire region. Based out of the UK's greenest office at Thorpe Park, Leeds, the 'Exclusive' team brings its unique blend of innovative HR recruitment & HR consultancy to the professionals of Yorkshire. If you have any HR requirments for your company or indeed, you have any friends looking to change jobs in this region, please email us.

New website...about to be launched

During December, Exclusive Human Resources will be launching its new website, watch this space for more information!

CIPD North East of England Event - Sponsored by Exclusive Human Resources

Employment Law Update
Click here for more information

Date: 27th January 2009
Speakers: Simon Loy & Shirley Wright
Venue: Vermont Hotel, Newcastle
Cost: Free