1st Growth

A host of new jobs are to be created in the Midlands after it was announced that an accident repair firm will be relocating to the area. Additionally a new fleet of Midland Metro trams are also to be built in the region, with both firms aiming to recruit new employees in the process.

Kidderminster-based accident repair firm Solus is relocating to Wednesbury, creating 40 jobs in the process as they expand in addition to relocating. On top of this a further 10 positions will be created by the Spanish firm CAF, who will be building trams for the Metro system.

Finally another 50 jobs are to be created in the Coventry area as part of a £40 million deal to create 25 new trams for the line between Wolverhampton St George’s and Birmingham Snow Hill by the end of 2014.

Solus will be moving to the Midlands as they have apparently outgrown their current base of operations, thus necessitating the move and related recruitment drive.

Norman Lamb has been announced as the new employment relations minister after Ed Davey was moved to the energy and climate change ministry as a result of Chris Huhne’s recent resignation.

Lamb studied law at the University of Leicester and entered politics after working with the Norfolk solicitors Steele and Co’s in their employment division. He was also the author of ‘Remedies in the Employment Tribunal; Damages for Discrimination and Unfair Dismissal’.

The move has generally been met with approval from the recruitment industry, with Association of Recruitment Consultancies chairman, Adrian Marlowe, claiming that Lamb’s background should hopefully provide him with more familiarity with the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), stating that “ARC has been urging the government for some time to review the AWR.”

Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) director of policy, Tom Hadley, also welcomed the recruitment, stating that it is a good thing that “civil servants that we have been working with on a number of key issues for the sector are remaining in place, which will ensure continuity.”

Companies throughout the Warwickshire and Coventry area are endeavouring to create even more recruitment opportunities as part of the fifth annual National Apprenticeship Week.

Firms from the region are creating hundreds of jobs in an effort to fills the skills gap and combat rising rates of unemployment, with apprenticeships being made across a wide range of industries that include engineering, construction and positions in the health service.

National Apprenticeship Week, which was launched yesterday and runs until Friday, is co-ordinated by the National Apprenticeship Service. The event seems to increase in popularity every year as more and more companies aim to take on new recruits as part of the drive.

Jaguar Land Rover has announced its further support by aiming to bring in 133 apprentices this year, an increase on the 114 from last year.

Des Thurlby, human resources director at JLR, commented “Our apprentice intake has more than doubled in the last four years and I am delighted that this year we are committing to take on a record number of apprentices.”

The soft drinks producer Britvic is also jumping on the bandwagon, revealing plans to hire more recruits as part of a new apprenticeship program.

Sue Skinner, director of HR delivery at the firm, said “Engineering skills are essential to our business and we make sure that our apprentices learn that vital skills that work best for our organisation through a mix of on-the-job training and other development opportunities.

“Offering people from Warwickshire the chance to train through a Britvic apprenticeship scheme is a great investment for us, whether they are existing employees who want to learn more or new recruits just starting out on their career, we welcome applications from both. This kind of training is a key part of our strategy for the future and ensuring our apprentices achieve engineering excellence will help us continue to be a leader within this market.

“We firmly believe that apprentices are an important part of Britvic’s recruitment mix and are essential to supporting the growth of manufacturing in the UK.”

The recruitment company head that David Cameron hired as his own welfare-to-work consultant has come out in opposition against the recent benefits caps that he and his Tory colleagues forced through.

Emma Harrison, who was employed to spearhead the government’s efforts get people off benefits and into a job, claims that the £26,000 limit may end up punishing the wrong people.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live “We live in an amazing, civilised country so let’s not hurt the vulnerable. I’m worried about the number of families who will be affected by this.”

The coalition government has made repeated claims that people need no more than £26,000 per year to live, regardless of their circumstances, however Mrs Harrison claims that some families will require more support than this.

She added “I know families where they might have two or three very disabled ­children and their mother and father are full-time carers.

“Everyone might say that they’re living on benefits but that family is actually saving the state millions by keeping the children out of care.So I think that we need to be really careful about all of this.

“In all big policies there are going to be people who are going to be trapped, and I think we need to be really, really careful we don’t catch the wrong people in these big reforms.”

Recent statistics have shown that British employers have expanded their workforces and offered more permanent jobs to jobseekers for the first time in four months over the course of January, which has led some to speculate that the economy may actually be improving.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) spoke to a range of companies, from start up recruitment agencies through to larger agencies, and said that their monthly index of permanent staff placements rose to 51.2 last month, with any result over 50 indicating growth in the market. This is the first reading above the 50 mark since September.

REC chief executive Kevin Green commented ”There are glimmers of hope for the UK jobs market. The Report on Jobs also follows better than expected services data from the Purchasing Managers’ Index last Friday, which suggests that confidence is growing amongst consumers as well as businesses.”

Employment in the services sector was the fastest to rise, seeing its sharpest increase in almost four years. Previously the high rate of unemployment, austerity measures and below-inflation wage growth had all contributed to people being less likely to shop, however the situation seems to be improving slightly.

The Bank of England is still set to continue with one more round of quantitative easing despite the figures.

Last week saw the release of the Association of Graduate Recruiters Winter Survey – the forecast for graduate jobs in 2012 according to 214 big name recruiters.

The main points to note were that salaries are up from £25k to £26k (for the first time since 2008) although vacancies are down by 1.2%.

This recent forecast would suggest that 2011 was better than 2010 and that is undeniable. Over 200 clients used the Graduate Recruitment Bureau to find graduates for their schemes, direct entry roles and many other graduate jobs that go unadvertised.

So, how are things looking for 2012? Well, as long as confidence remains high amongst recruiters about their business and they continue to see the value of hiring exceptional talent to fuel their growth then things should remain very much “open for business”.

CV-Library is introducing underground advertising for the first time, supporting thousands of London job-seekers with their New Year job hunt.

For two weeks, from Monday 23rd January to Sunday 5th February 2012 adverts will be visible on every tube of every line on the London Underground.

The addition of these tube panels supports their highly targeted offline marketing campaign which includes local radio and the launch of their TV adverts. They will reach over 500,000 commuters and are present in at least 1,000 carriages. CV-Library aims to educate and engage with professional candidates, while promoting their online job search.

Lee Biggins, Managing Director: “These are really exciting projects and a huge step forward for CV-Library; and we’re already seeing some great results! We want to continue to cement trust with the brand for both recruiters and candidates but more importantly re-engage with the 4 million registered users who already use CV-Library.”

Find out more here: http://www.cv-library.co.uk/underground-advertising.html

A new report reveals that workplace stress is at a four-year high with 35% of UK employees said to be experiencing an unreasonable level of stress at work.

A four-year study of 60,000 workers in six countries by the Kenexa High Performance Institute, shows that the UK’s stress level has risen by 10 percentage points since 2008, making it the highest out of the countries surveyed: the UK, the United States, Germany, China, Brazil and India.

A free report on the study – called Stress: What’s the Impact for Organisations? – outlines the prevalence of stress, its physical and psychological consequences, who is at risk and what leaders and HR practitioners can do to reduce stress levels.

The main causes of employee stress, identified in the report, are work-life conflict; poor leadership and management behaviour; lack of job security; lack of team cohesiveness; lack of cooperation and dissatisfaction with the level of pay.

According to the report, the highest level of stress is found in workers in the healthcare sector. However the public sector, financial services and retail sectors have seen the largest increases in stress since 2008. Employees in high-tech manufacturing report the least stress.

When it comes to job roles, frontline service and production workers have the most stress; upper and middle managers have the least. Men and women experience roughly equal levels of stress, though employees aged 55-64 report the highest levels of stress.

Stress: What’s the Impact for Organisations? can be downloaded free from:

www.khpi.com/Current-R-D/WorkTrends/Stress

Individuals generally spend most of their waking hours at work. As such, relationships with work colleagues and managers are of crucial importance both for the happiness of the workforce and because an unhappy workplace will rarely be productive or profitable.

In a recent case (Ezsias v North Glamorgan NHS Trust) a senior consultant was dismissed because his relationships with staff in his department had “irretrievably broken down”. The consultant’s personality meant that he was very blunt and antagonising to his team. Staff signed a petition recording that they would resign from work if the consultant was to return to work. The Employer decided that because the employee’s actions were due to a personality trait the reason for his dismissal was not misconduct but was for the potentially fair reason, known as some other substantial reason (SOSR). This meant that the employer did not have to follow its contractual disciplinary procedure making it easier to dismiss the employee. The Tribunal agreed.

In circumstances where an employer has an issue with an employee’s relationship with their colleagues, it is important to analyse whether the breakdown is irretrievable and what has led to the breakdown of the relationship. If there has been misconduct on behalf of one or more of the employees, such as bullying and harassment, then it would be appropriate to deal with the matter as a misconduct issue. However, following the Ezsias case, if an employee’s personality results in the breakdown of the relationship then SOSR should be considered as the appropriate mechanism for dealing with the issue.

In Ezsias the employer commissioned a report from an independent psychologist on whether the working relationships were retrievable and commissioned a senior HR professional to undertake an investigation into the cause of the breakdown in the relationships. This case is not therefore authority that where there is a breakdown in relationships an employer can simply dismiss an employee for SOSR without the need to follow misconduct procedures.

• An employer should always be mindful as to why the relationship has broken down.
• An investigation should always be conducted to ensure that employees are not ganging up against another employee.
• An employers’ policies should be ready to deal with potential breakdowns in working relationships.
• Employers should ensure that all relevant policies, including disciplinary and grievance, bullying and harassment and social media (given the increased potential for relationships to grow and fall via social networking) are robust and protect the employers’ position whilst allowing an employee to raise concerns and have them dealt with fairly.

Like any breakdown in relationships getting to the bottom of what has caused it is never easy – but unlike a divorce between two people, fault in an employment context, will always be relevant. The need to investigate often makes the situation more difficult to deal with and as with all relationship breakdowns having someone skilled to assist in the process will often make it a much easier journey for all concerned.

If you would like assistance with updating or implementing policies and procedures or you need assistance dealing with issues that have arisen with employees please contact Simon Whitehead at EOS Law LLP.

0161 300 1065
simon.whitehead@eoslaw.co.uk
www.eoslaw.co.uk

Since Christmas the shops have been full of marketing and promotion about Valentine’s Day, and as an event it has continued to grow massively over the past few years. I do find it quite funny that marketers think I need to be told to buy my wife gifts and tell her that our relationship is important one day a year.

Like personal relationships, business relationships have to be worked on. They need to be nurtured and will not happen overnight. I will resist the temptation of using a “One Night Stand” analogy.

I spoke to a 1st Growth customer a few weeks ago about a client of theirs that was not paying the invoices that 1st Growth had raised on behalf of our customer. The client was really outside of the agreed payment terms and I had to tell our customer that we needed to pass this debt over to a professional debt collection company. Our customer was very much against this as they felt that the debt collection company may damage the relationship between them and the client.

I had to explain that there was not a relationship between them and the client as the client was not paying. “Surely if the client values your relationship he will know that your business is a lot smaller than his and you need the money on time to honour your commitments?”

Relationships can only work if both sides put the effort in and all relationship have to be worked on continuously to make them succeed.

Look at the relationships that are important to your business and make sure you are spending the right time on the right relationships. Don’t wait for a marketing person to remind you to do it once a year…