Saturday November 27, 2010 at 9:57am
A case involving constructive dismissal has been receiving attention, involving Ms Juliette Giscombe, who is from Streatham in south London and is the mother of comedian Richard Blackwood.
She issued the case against Hilton Park Lane hotel.
One of the problems of this case is that both parties are now engaged in mutual destruction as the case goes to Tribunal.
The Claimant(employee) has played the race card and claimed the hotel did not recruit black staff to work in front-of-house posit....
Friday November 26, 2010 at 2:06pm
According to the Guardian, public managers face "an almost unprecedented level of criticism not just of their organisations but of their own strategies to deal with the cuts. The government's commitment to transparency, and the publishing of its accounts last week, leaves public managers facing a wave of attacks over everything from the growing bill for employing temporary staff – a fairly straightforward result of any recruitment freeze – to the cost of work-related injur....
Wednesday November 24, 2010 at 2:49pm
According to Acas, it has stopped 8,988 workplace grievances becoming claims, saving employers a total of £46.7m.
Of the 12,394 early conciliation cases completed at Acas so far, just 3,406 have ended up as tribunal claims, the arbitration body said.
Employers using early conciliation can also save on "hidden costs" associated with tribunal claims, such as stress and time dealing with cases, Acas said.
On average managers spend nine days on paperwork once a claim reaches cou....
Wednesday November 24, 2010 at 11:23am
The CIPD have just produced some guidance on performance management where they give the following key recommendations on performance management:
- Communicate clear and measurable standards - Monitor performance - Give feedback for early correction - Investigate fully and create a performance improvement plan - Provide sufficient time to improve and escalate to a formal process if standards are not met - Dismiss the employee if they cannot meet the standard required and no further adjustments c....
Monday November 22, 2010 at 11:45am
The BBC reports that more than £612,000 has been paid out in salaries to 18 permanent staff who have been suspended from work in the civil service.
The information was given to the East Londonderry SDLP MLA John Dallat in response to a written question in the assembly. Mr Dallat said that on average, £34,015 has been spent on each suspended civil servant.
Unsurprisingly he says that money could be better spent.
Whilst I have not experienced such waste in my dealings with th....
Friday November 19, 2010 at 12:31pm
It is quite clear that the government would desperately like to cut the court costs with talk of increasing the length of service for employees being entitled to make an unfair dismissal claim, cutting the legal aid costs and increasing use of mediation in civil disputes.
This may help employers but we have been here before with the Gibbons Review which called for greater use of mediation in employment disputes largely being ignored.
An even more ....
Wednesday November 17, 2010 at 11:16am
I read that local authorities are warning the government that its own rules mean some councils will struggle to pay for the redundancies that spending cuts are forcing them to make. England’s town halls face about 100,000 job losses following the government’s announcement in last month’s comprehensive spending review that its revenue funding to English councils will be cut by 26 per cent in real terms over the next four years. The Local Government Association, estimates that th....
Monday November 15, 2010 at 8:22am
I read that civilian police workers at Essex Police have criticised the way they were told their redundancy payments are to be cut by half. The complaint is that instead of having the bad news broken in a letter, e-mail or a formal meeting with bosses at Essex Police, the force told its thousands of workers by posting an article on its internal website. This move has upset some(most?)of the force’s support staff. Speaking anonymously, a civilian worker told the Ess....
Wednesday November 10, 2010 at 8:38am
There was a good article in the Times yesterday by Rachel Sylvester(subscription) showing the tensions between ministers and civil servants.
On the one hand, Downing Street is frustrated by foot dragging by parts of Whitehall.
On the other hand,civil servants feel cut out of decsion making, offended by plain speaking such as from Eric Pickles and are fearful of losing jobs and/or perks.
Frankly these problems are inevitable.
The problem which both parties have is that they do not have a....
Tuesday November 9, 2010 at 1:04pm
A very good post over on the Guardian blog shows some of the employment problems of the public sector. "Is it too difficult to discipline staff in the public sector, as a BBC investigation claimed earlier this week? A former NHS chief executive interviewed on Radio 4's Sack 'Em programme reinforced a widely-held view that public servants are rarely fired: Gary Walker, a former hospital chief executive, told us that moving people sideways instead of sacking them is incredibly common. He clai....
Friday November 5, 2010 at 12:17pm
Daniel H. Pink, is the author of the bestselling A Whole New Mind and Free Agent Nation.
Both books were excellent.
His latest book, Drive explores what truly motivates us and how we can use that knowledge to work smarter and live better. Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. Pink says in, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,the secret to high performance and satis....
Thursday November 4, 2010 at 8:13am
A survey of public sector leaders to be published on Monday from Zurich Municipal illustrates the potential legal costs that may ensue from the huge cost-cutting exercise now under way across the whole public sector.
The issues are as shown in the Guardian as follows:If you spend less money on highways maintenance? Expect more complaints and demands for compensation from people tripping over oles in pavements.
If you need to reduce staffing numbers? Expect more unfair dismissal cla....
Wednesday November 3, 2010 at 9:36am
An excellent report on Channel 4 which highlights the problem of both sickness and redundancy costs within the public sector.
Here are some of the key extracts."Many of them point to genuine sickness problems – though why the bad weather in Aberdeen and North Wales should affect workers there disproportionately compared to the rest of us (who by the way also had to endure a pretty miserable winter last year) is unclear. It's a reason for some absence, for sure, but for such high numb....
Wednesday November 3, 2010 at 8:17am
According to Local Government News, eight Scottish councils have identified savings of up to £70m through sharing services including waste management and health and social care.
The Clyde Valley Community Planning Partnership (CVCPP) project would see the participating councils prioritise shared services in four areas. Business cases are being prepared to find savings of between 10-20% of existing expenditure, totalling up to £70m over the next five years. The eight councils &ndash....