People management Archives

June 2018

Declaring a Love Interest at Work

Last month we posted on LinkedIn this article from Personnel Today about HR’s role in relationships at work. It sparked some discussion so I decided to follow up with a blog on the subject of declaring a love interest at work.

That article posed such questions as:

When should you declare relationship formed in the work place?’ And …
… How might an employer achieve the right balance between respecting the privacy of the couple concerned and protecting business interests?

Depending on what your field of work is, such a situation might have greater potential for fall out than others. The Personnel Today article has a quote from Sarah Churchman, head of diversity and inclusion at PwC.

Sarah says: ‘If you work for PwC, you are never off duty. We drum it into all our trainees that they represent a well-known professional accountancy firm both at work and in their downtime – particularly so if they’re in a social situation and have had a few drinks.’

In the US there’s common usage of ‘love contracts’ or ‘consensual relationship agreements’. But they are intrusive on private lives. Besides which, under UK law, they offer limited protection in the event of a possible sexual harassment claim should the contents of the loving cup curdle. And anyway, as Sarah Churchman went on to point out in the Personnel Today article, it’s not possible to legislate against office romances and dalliances.

An outright ban is simply not workable. But, as she further pointed out, it’s important that you put in protocols for when relationships form. After all, there may be commercial considerations that make it necessary to move one half of the couple in question to another department.

Boundaries

As an employer then, you can sure that you can’t prevent your staff from forming romantic entanglements. Moreover, there’s a good chance some of them will.

As this 2017 Guardian article about office romance and work boundaries points out, dating apps or not, the workplace remains a hotbed of love and lust. From a frantic, alcohol fuelled fumble in the stationary store at the office party to the growth of true love, the workplace will see it all.

Our survey says

A couple of years ago, in the run up to Valentine’s Day, Approved Index surveyed office staff on office romance. The remit of the study was to take a closer look at love and romance in the workplace. Approved Index conducted it in conjunction with an online survey site. It surveyed 1,550 office workers asking them questions about workplace romance and the circumstances and events surrounding it.

The anonymous operation of the survey allowed for interesting and revealing responses on the sensitive topic of office dalliances, illicit affairs and falling in love.

It turned out that:

65% of office workers surveyed confessed to involvement in at least one workplace romance and
48% of those surveyed said they’d had two or more involvements

Which rather shows how often such affairs happen. The study also found that:

Half of office romances involve one person already in a long-term relationship or marriage.
30% of office romances lead to a long-term relationship.

There’s interesting questions and answers around the acceptability, to office workers, of relationships happening in their midst that you can read about here.

How do you, as HR Personnel, handle office romance?

All business owners want happy and fulfilled staff. After all, happy staff are productive staff. Office relationships though, as unavoidable as are, are not bound to be set fair. Line managers often end up caught in the crossfire of love gone wrong. The potential problems are many. As an article from People Management points out they include:

Power dynamics. If one half of a relationship is more senior than the other then it’s necessary to declare the relationship. It’s vital that all parties remain professional and avoid having favourites. Line managers may need to make sure the workplace maintains its integrity. This minimises any negative effect on productivity and team morale.

2. Colleagues in a relationship will want time off together. This will cause noticeable pressure on their team members. It matters then that you avoid instances of special treatment while giving what support you can to the people involved.

3. Break-ups. Ouch! It’s bound to happen. Even worse it may play out over an extended period. Such a scenario will cause emotional and professional distress to both the pair coming out of the relationship and to their workmates.

4. Harassment: Relationships are mutual but advances aren’t always. They can be one-sided. Such unwanted attention is a challenge for line managers. Different people will interpret different words and deeds in a different way. Hence, what something seen as an innocent comment or action by one person, could be perceived as harassment by someone else. See our blog about office banter for more on this area.

How can line managers handle such situations?

It’s clear the office romance has the potential to be explosive. So how do you, the line manager, stop the culture and integrity of the workplace blowing apart?

Businesses need to provide top-notch coaching and training for their managers. Managers should be up-to-speed on the company rules about relationships. They should be both reactive and proactive in sensitive situations.

Have informal conversations with staff. This is crucial. Even if the relationship is running along well, it’s important you prevent issues from coming up. And, if they do, get on top of the situation pronto. Create open dialogue from the outset. Make sure issues get dealt with fast and that those involved understand how their behaviour and their relationship is affecting colleagues.

Create an open and engaging culture. One that lets employees feel comfortable and safe. This is vital.

Workplace romance and relationships is a super-sensitive issue. Hence managers must equip themselves and be confident they can handle the wide-ranging issues involved. So for help when someone is declaring a love Interest at work:

If you’re business is not big enough to have your own HR department yet you need support, there’s no need to be broken-hearted. Let Go-Legal HR be you new love. Get in touch via our web form to see how I can help you

March 2018

2018 Human Resource Trends

All aspects of our lives have trends. Food, fashion, colours, cars. You name it. So of course, the human resources world is no exception. With there being HR trends of both policy and practice and the profession. This blog covers some 2018 Human Resource Trends.

In this January 2018 article for CIPHR.Com, key UK HR trends, Professor Chris Rowley from Kellogg College, Oxford gives his run down of five key areas that HR professionals should be alert to in the coming months.

He lists:

Brexit – the full article divides this into two aspects

a. Migrant workers

The question being around shortages and the implications to different sectors of that. Might this encourage management to bite the bullet and either offer better pay or invest in labour and training

b. Relocation of financial services jobs

Here Professor Rowley asks to what extent is some bank rhetoric concerning UK job losses reflected in reality.

2. Pay

a. Gender pay gaps

b. Levels

3. The gig economy and zero hours contracts

4. Technology

5. Productivity – Professor Rowley connects this to all his other factors stating it as the most important HR area. He points out the need for UK plc to make efforts in developing the Nirvana of high employment as well as high productivity and GDP per head in the manner of Germany.

So that’s a brief summary of Chris Rowley’s 2018 HR trends to watch for.

Attitudes towards Maternity

In March 2018, People Management published an article on the subject of HR challenging archaic attitudes towards maternity. As they point out, a recent EHRC survey demonstrated surprising views on working mothers, pregnant women and those on maternity leave. In the article Hannah King outlines what HR professionals can do. She states that:

Sex and pregnancy and maternity are two of nine ‘protected characteristics’ covered by the Equality Act 2010. Crucially, under the Act, it is unlawful for an employer:

To treat a woman unfavourably because of her pregnancy or because of an illness she has suffered as a result of her pregnancy.

Show disfavour to a woman because she is on maternity leave. Or because she either wants to take maternity leave or is seeking to do so.

Nor can you treat a job applicant or employee less favourably than others because of their sex.

Yet employers flout the law

Yet it seems some employers continue to flout the law. Recent research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) reports employers asking female applicants about their parental condition or plans to have children. When such questions as these are asked, and the applicant is not then offered the job, there is potential for a discrimination claim under the Equality Act.

The article’s advice to employers is to challenge the kinds of attitudes and beliefs the EHRC research unearthed.

Gagging clauses

Also published by People Management in MARCH 2018, is an article covering the banning of gagging clauses in sexual harassment cases. The EHRC reports on ‘truly shocking’ evidence of workplace misconduct and calls for legal duty on employers to prevent wrongdoing.

A key part of the EHRC’s recommendation is the introduction of legislation to make any future confidentiality clauses void.

‘In future’, said the report, ‘ such clauses should only be used at the employee’s request – aside from in exceptional circumstances.

Now to look at what Forbes has to say on the latest HR trends. They said that, 2017, saw the HR industry do a great deal of soul searching on the handling of culture and performance issues within companies.

Josh Millet, writing for Forbes, predicts that 2018 will see another noticeable internal shift – but this time with the focus on technology. On how you can use it to find and connect people, to engage people and even to replace people. And then what to do when that happens.

As Millet points out: ‘For years, technology has acted as a tool to help with day-to-day tasks, but the focus in 2018 will be technology as a way of life in the workplace. These are the five biggest trends I see coming to HR in the next year, and they all involve technology:

The top five 2018 Human Resource Trends involving technology

Passive candidates: The time was when this involved sifting through CVs on career’s websites. Social media has changed all that. It’s now easier than ever it was to make contact with candidates.

In similar style, you can splash through talent pools via searchable hashtags or sub-forums etc.

2. Remote workforces: Working virtually – from home, coffee shops or co-working spaces is a growing trend both here and in the United States. A notable drive here is VPN technology. The VPN system makes remote access, well accessible. With that comes the ability to recruit across the globe. There’s a good reason why so many start-ups get underway with remote teams.

From the corporate perspective widens and deepens the candidate pool. Offering remote working capabilities is a great recruitment and retention tool that gives some wellie to job satisfaction with its inherent improved work/life balance.

Blind hiring: How to avoid the 2017 workforce bias controversy that rocked the tech industry? Use a blind hiring process.

In standard screening and interviewing processes, it’s too easy for unconscious bias to seep in. But with a blind hiring process – one that strips out any info on a CV that might reveal demographic data – you can base the first wave of screening on nothing other than ability and achievement.

Gamification: this technique is working its way into all industry types.

The notion of turning engagement into the format of a competitive game is useful for a range of purposes from marketing to teaching.

Future-proofing employees: there’s a cold, hard truth that political pundits do their utmost to avoid. And that’s that jobs in manufacturing and manual labour won’t return to what they once were. Artificial Intelligence is taking over repetitive tasks. And predictive analytics is replacing certain levels of management and decision making. The reach of this extends far beyond manufacturing. This makes such people as travel agents and flight attendants vulnerable.

The Big Question

Taking all this into consideration, the big question, as the article says, is where is the human workforce in all this?

In 2018, it’s up to you, as a company, to look at your human resources and work out the best way to place them into future positions.

As Millet says, for the employer this means: Identifying staff willing to embrace different aspects of jobs that require a human element.

Much of this is readily available now and its presence is sure to grow. If you want to be smart then invest time and resources now to get ahead of the pack. Start preparing for the future today

We’re almost a third of the way into 2018. Have the technology-driven trends described here had some effect on your business? Let us know – we’d love to hear about it.

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