A client of ours who runs a small business expressed his concerns to us over these changes.  He did not want to have to set up a formal apprenticeship scheme because his business is too small and he could ill afford the loss of management time that he felt running such a scheme might take.  And whilst we can see advantages in having a better prepared workforce, there remains the question of dealing with those young people who at 16 are already turned off formal education – BBC report. We think there are questions over what the young people who do not gain a training place will do at school:

• are additional resources to be given to schools to cope with extra students?
• how will they be supported with educational maintenance allowances having been abandoned for the most disadvantaged groups?
• could the additional pressure on resources cause disruption to the academic work of those who have chosen to stay on?
• will there be sufficient opportunities available for further training?

Under the terms of the September Guarantee the onus is on Local Authorities to ensure that there are sufficient and appropriate
opportunities available – a difficult challenge in these cash strapped times for them – Department of Education ‘offers’.

We do not think it is unwillingness on the part of SME’s generally to train school leavers, rather there is confusion as to:

• what is expected
• what support will be available – both financial and practical
• the status of apprentices and their rights in times of continuing uncertainty.

Increasing the school leaving age next year will raise some difficult issues especially for smaller employers.

Elspeth Watt

Elspeth is a seasoned human resources consultant with experience working at a senior level for many household names including FIAT, Continental Oil, Eurotunnel and the NHS Health Education Authority. Today Elspeth’s unique blend of HR insight and pragmatic support mean she is much in demand as an HR consultant.

View Elspeth’s full profile.

1. Prepare a job description and person specification, even if it is only for one job, this will enable you to clarify your thoughts and the needs of the business and above all help you recognise the qualities you are looking for in an employee.
2. Advertising on line is becoming the cheapest and most effective way of attracting candidates, but don’t forget Job Centre Plus and using a good local recruitment agency – be clear from the outset what their charges are going to be.
3. Make a short-list of candidates who meet your needs and develop an appropriate number of interview questions – ask all candidates the same questions so you can compare.  Be careful only to ask questions that are non- discriminatory.  Keep copies of your interview notes in case of any later challenge.
4. Check that the successful candidate has a legal right to work in the UK, ask all of them to produce passport or birth certificate. The N.I number is a useful check.
5. If you are taking on your first paid employee you will need to establish a payroll scheme with HMRC. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/employees/start-leave/new-employee.htm.  Talk to your Accountant who may be able to manage this for you and take a further worry away.
6. Employer Liability Insurance is a legal requirement – talk to your Insurance Broker who can arrange this at a comparatively small premium.
7. Health and Safety implications need to be considered.  The Health & Safety Executive provides a wealth of useful  information on safe working practices and obligations and is not nearly as daunting as is often portrayed in the press. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/HealthAndSafetyAtWork/DG_4016686
8. Employing people can be complex, but the recently announced ‘Cutting Red Tape Challenge’ by the Government may make life a little simpler for the smaller business, but keep in touch with employment law development via www.acas.co.uk or talk to  us as we can help with the essential contracts and policies and procedures.
9. At Calibre we have developed a number of free factsheets to help our clients to recruit, manage and develop their staff. http://www.calibrehr.com/category/factsheets/
10. Finally, Business Link has a wealth of information on its website that will prove really helpful. http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?lang=en&r.l1=1073858808&r.l2=1083106843&r.l3=1083106693&r.s=tl&topicId=1086156452

Elspeth Watt

Elspeth is a seasoned human resources consultant with experience working at a senior level for many household names including FIAT, Continental Oil, Eurotunnel and the NHS Health Education Authority. Today Elspeth’s unique blend of HR insight and pragmatic support mean she is much in demand as an HR consultant.

View Elspeth’s full profile.

With all departments under increasing pressure to prove ‘best value’ for all expenditure, the need for L&D professionals to demonstrate value from training programmes looks set to continue. However, there is much variation in how – and whether – organisations are evaluating training programmes effectively.

Many of our clients use a structured approach to L&D evaluation with internal systems for pre, during and post training evaluation. And such investment can pay real dividends.

But where do you start?

The most common training evaluation question we hear from clients looking at developing a robust training evaluation process is: “What should I evaluate?” And it is a very valid starting point, because it is easy to get bogged down with the course detail and forget to determine the WHO, WHY and WHAT of training evaluation.

But unless you start in the right place, you won’t be able to measure what matters. So build a training evaluation process by first asking:

• Who cares about evaluation and who are we evaluating for?
• Why are we evaluating – do we want to measure effectiveness, efficiency or both?
• What learning are we evaluating and what are the costs and benefits of that learning?

When it comes to answering these questions, start with the needs of your stakeholders. Make sure you include all relevant stakeholders in your thinking. And remember to consider the practicalities of what it is they want to know. For example, how do they want this reported and how will they use it?

No doubt your stakeholders will be concerned about outcomes. Anyone who cares about training in your organisation will want to know what the results have been – they are much less concerned about the learning process. They will want to know how they as individuals, teams, departments or other groups, will benefit from the learning.

If you are familiar with the old, but still incredibly valuable, Kirkpatrick training evaluation model, this is Level 4 evaluation, and it usually requires quantifiable ways to measure the impact of the training on the organisation, such as sales figures, workplace injuries, productivity etc.

Focusing on results, means your evaluation system will have the end goal in mind. You then need to work backwards to define desired behaviours (Kirkpatrick Level 3) from the training – i.e. what is the individual doing differently in their job as a result of the training. You then need to evaluate the knowledge and understanding acquired as a result of the training (Kirkpatrick Level 2). This is about validation and seeks to measure what new knowledge or skills have been acquired. Evaluation tools might include written or performance tests before and after training.

And finally we get to the trainee’s perception of the training influenced by basic quality control measures of satisfaction, attendance and completion (Kirkpatrick Level 1). Questionnaires can assess reactions and attitudes and gather opinions about training methods, instructors, the environment and other aspects of the training process.

Liz Barnes

Liz is a qualified trainer who specialises in the commercial aspects of management training. With extensive experience in both the private and public sector, she has also complemented her facilitation role with consultancy and lecturing in management and marketing.

Brief: Three’s objective for 2012 is to make management development training a priority. Our brief was to design a robust and sustainable programme to train the new promotions and new recruits in the core skills necessary to become successful and capable managers.

Approach: Director at Calibre HR & Training Steve Walker took on an interim role within Three’s existing Learning & Development (L&D) team. Here, Steve acted as project manager and principle designer.

He carried out a training needs analysis involving a detailed consultation with business stakeholders, together with an extensive review of existing workshops. His objective: to identify the best proposal to satisfy the requirements of the business.

Three agreed to a mandatory, cross-functional approach with each manager assigned to the same group throughout the programme.

Steve then designed training and piloted six linked management skills training modules. The first three modules will be completed within the first three months of the programme:

1. Managing People

2. Managing Performance

3. Employee Relations

The remaining three modules are scheduled to run at seven to eight week intervals, to facilitate the building of manager’s skills as they grow and develop into their new roles:

4. Management Styles

5. Customer and Brand

6. Communicating and Influencing

For additional support an ELearning platform was recommended and initial material produced. Train-the-trainer sessions were also carried out. As a result we have successfully handed over the project to Three’s in house L&D team, who will now manage its delivery.

Outcome: The first programme commenced in January 2012. Fifteen programmes have been scheduled for the year. A further five have been scheduled for the first quarter of 2013, covering 280 attendees over that period.

We are delighted by the positive feedback received.

Steve Walker

Steve is a highly experienced and respected learning and development consultant and management development trainer. He has a proven track record in designing, delivering and managing training interventions. Having held senior training roles in a number of large retailers including Sainsbury and Homebase, Steve today supports learning and development teams from a range of private, public and third-sector organisations.

View Steve’s full profile.

The government has indicated that it wishes to cut the ‘red tape’ associated with employment with a view to boosting the economy and assisting business in very difficult and challenging times. Perhaps the most significant development will be that the qualifying period for unfair dismissals will rise from one to two years service. This will only apply to employees who start after the 6th April 2012 and will not be backdated as originally envisaged.

Further changes planned to come into effect during 2012, the most notable will be the start of auto-enrolment of all employees who may not currently in a workplace pension into a qualifying pension. This will start with the biggest employers in October 2012 and will cascade to smaller organisations over the coming years.

A longer term issue for those that employ school-leavers will occur in 2013 when the school leaving age is raised to 17 and to 18 in 2015.

There are a number of key dates for changes to statutory payments made under legislation.

February 2012

• Statutory Redundancy payments increased from £400 to £430 providing a maximum statutory redundancy payment of £12,900 after twenty years service.
• £430 per week will also be used for calculating a basic award for an unfair dismissal award at an Employment Tribunal.
• The maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal is also increased to £72,300, however there is no maximum figure applicable where aspects of discrimination or a protected disclosure are involved.

April 2012

• The standard rate for statutory maternity, adoption and paternity pay increases to £135 per week.
• Statutory sick pay will increase to £85.85 per week
• Guaranteed payments for workless days increase to £23.50

What we think this will mean

The main changes in relation to increases in payments will be relatively straightforward to implement, but of course will mean than employers will need to budget more carefully in respect of redundancy calculations, and to ensure that the new rates for statutory sick pay, maternity, paternity and adoption pay are implemented after 6th April. Making sure than any employees who have commenced leave are paid the new amounts at the correct time.

The changes to the qualifying period for employment protection will require that separate records are kept to ensure that those who started prior to April 6th are maintained on a separate list to those that started after 6th April.

Employers both large and small should start to budget for the employer pension contributions that they will need to make when auto-enrolment starts, eventually they will need to ensure that a 3% employer contribution is made in addition to the employees contribution and tax relief providing a further 1%. www.direct.gov.uk can provide more details.

Elspeth Watt

Elspeth is a seasoned human resources consultant with experience working at a senior level for many household names including FIAT, Continental Oil, Eurotunnel and the NHS Health Education Authority. Today Elspeth’s unique blend of HR insight and pragmatic support mean she is much in demand as an HR consultant.

View Elspeth’s full profile.

Successful SMEs aren’t afraid to recruit

Taking people on can be a gamble. But SMEs that go all the way take the risk and recruit when they need to. But neither are they afraid of opting for more flexible staffing options to keep overheads within the business’s means. Numbers are flexed up when the organisation has a flow of orders, and come down again when demand dips.

Successful SMES tackle under-performers head-on

No small business can carry underperformers, but it is surprising how many try to. It’s even more alarming how many tackle the problem too late making a hash of it. Winning businesses know when they have a performance issue on their hands, take professional advice and make tough decisions – including moving persistent poor performers out. Conversely, large organisations hang onto their poor performers. It’s not intentional, they either get lost in the business or HR won’t get tough for fear of damaging the company’s reputation or upsetting the board.

Successful SMEs keep it real

Sharp SMEs are just much better at talking. It’s partly a proximity thing, just leaning over or walking a few steps to talk to somebody face to face can get issues resolved quickly. But it’s more than that. SMEs with good communication channels stop people playing email ping-pong – for political or poor time management reasons – or devising cc lists of ever increasing lengths just to cover themselves. Such antics draw things out and issues take longer to resolve – sometimes they never are.

Successful SMEs hone in on critical skills

SMEs in it for the long term spend on skills. But they spend wisely ensuring the training they buy offers the best value for money, is clearly targeted and focuses on the area of need. Customised bite-size or modular training is increasingly popular for this reason.

Successful SMEs make more of their people’s skills

High performing SMEs have managers who are good at spotting and using their colleagues’ skills – particularly those skills they’ve paid for them to acquire. The same goes for recognising talent. And less restrictive business structures mean managers can create opportunities for bright and ambitious individuals to move up into new roles and responsibilities – ultimately driving the business forward.

According to the research by University of Nottingham’s Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre (see article www.hrmguide.co.uk), small businesses employing less than 100 workers account for 65 per cent of new British jobs in an average year.

Steve Walker

Steve is a highly experienced and respected learning and development consultant and management development trainer. He has a proven track record in designing, delivering and managing training interventions. Having held senior training roles in a number of large retailers including Sainsbury and Homebase, Steve today supports learning and development teams from a range of private, public and third-sector organisations.

View Steve’s full profile.

Mistake 1: Turning a blind eye

The most common mistake we see in performance management is organisations ignoring issues until they eventually become much bigger problems (and ones that could have been avoided). It is always wise to deal with minor performance issues on a regular and informal basis, rather than let them mount up.

Mistake 2: Acting in haste

On the flip side, managers can jump too quickly to the formal route without dealing with issues effectively at the informal stage. Formal procedures should only be implemented when a performance problem escalates or persists.

Mistake 3: Not setting staff development objectives

Often a business is not clear in what it wants from its approach to performance management. Staff cannot be expected to perform to their best without clear and realistic objectives. It is difficult enough to separate employees attitudes from their ability to do the job and deliver on targets. Staff will be exasperated if unclear about what is expected of them and how they will be measured.

Mistake 4: Not measuring performance effectively

Businesses may know what they want to achieve. However, any performance management system will fail without meaningful measures built in. For example, if a goal is to reduce recourse to the formal disciplinary process, you need before and after statistics. Measures need to be relevant to the objectives. For example, if you want to measure speed or quality outputs, this is a different measure to that of staff behaviour, or the way an individual does the job, interacts with others or absence rates.

Mistake 5: Not helping employees achieve targets

Once the need to improve has been agreed, employees should be set improvement targets together with timescales in which they must be achieved. Managers can often go wrong in failing to help employees achieve these targets. Managers should provide additional support, supervision and training as necessary. Your aim is to help individuals reach the required standard of performance.

If you think you might make a similar mistake or if you would like advice on building a robust performance management system, please do get in touch. Find out more about the best ways to manage performance with our Performance Management Factsheet.

Elspeth Watt

Elspeth is a seasoned human resources consultant with experience working at a senior level for many household names including FIAT, Continental Oil, Eurotunnel and the NHS Health Education Authority. Today Elspeth’s unique blend of HR insight and pragmatic support mean she is much in demand as an HR consultant.

View Elspeth’s full profile.

During the course of our work we meet a significant number of small employers at exhibitions and networking events. We became aware that many were not sure what people policies they should have in place. Comments in the press about possible government proposals to exempt micro-businesses from some of the burden of employment legislation have left many smaller companies confused and unsure of what they should have in place to meet their legal requirements.

How We Helped: We have provided HR support for a number of smaller businesses, including developing written contracts of employment and basic policies and procedures to cover disciplinary and grievance matters.

Whilst a contract of employment can be implied by the individual working for the organisation, with no written terms it is far safer to have the main employment conditions agreed in writing and signed by both parties. This is to avoid misunderstanding if and when the employment relationship runs into problems.

In fact the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires written statements of the main terms of employment are given with thirteen weeks of someone starting work.

In the last few months we have helped businesses as diverse as craftsmen joiners, electrical wholesalers and glazing specialists to construct user-friendly templates. These templates ensure businesses are legally compliant and that they develop straightforward policies to ensure grievance and disciplinary issues are covered clearly, to avoid misunderstanding.

Our Approach: Whilst it is possible to download templates from various websites, they are not always user-friendly, and can sometimes cause more confusion. Our approach is to

provide HR support for business owners by jointly developing documents appropriate to their needs: clearly written, legally compliant and relevant to their business. Above all the documentation must work for the business and its staff.

Outcome: Businesses we have worked with feel confident and reassured that they are legally compliant. We believe transferring skills and expertise to a business enables it to effectively manage its people.

Employment law changes on a regular basis. Organisations regardless of size need to comply, so that they can recruit, retain and engage with their staff for the benefit of their businesses.

There are many small businesses in the UK that are thriving against considerable odds in these very difficult times. It is our ambition to ensure they are supported with facilities only a much larger organisation could normally envisage.

Elspeth Watt

Elspeth is a seasoned human resources consultant with experience working at a senior level for many household names including FIAT, Continental Oil, Eurotunnel and the NHS Health Education Authority. Today Elspeth’s unique blend of HR insight and pragmatic support mean she is much in demand as an HR consultant.

View Elspeth’s full profile.

As we provide HR training sessions on the topic of ‘Equality and Diversity, we found ourselves asking the question:

Are quotas the way forward for fairer representation of women?

There has been a slight increase in the representation of women on the boards of FTSE 100 companies. They now average 14.2 per cent, up from 12.2 per cent a year ago. This is still significantly less than the 25 per cent suggested by Lord Davies in his report. And far short of 40 per cent, achieved by Norway.

Could this be a way forward to ensure not just greater representation of women on the boards, but also into senior role in companies?

For me this highlights the fact that despite equality laws being in place in this country for over 40 years, we still have a long way to go before they become everyday practice.

Most additional board appointments have been non-executive directors. There is quite a way to go before the pool of well-qualified senior women managers make it to the boardroom.

Following the publication of the Davies Report, Non-Executive Director of Standard Life Sheelagh Whittaker told the Today Programme she was a big supporter of quotas: ‘I believe we will only have true equality when we have as many competent women in positions of power as men.’ Good food for thought here.

What is true of boardroom appointments is equally true for senior management roles.
Examples include:

• Tesco PLC. With 29 per cent of women in senior positions across the company, but only three as main board directors.
• Only 33 FTSE 100 companies have set targets for the percentage of women they aim to have on their boards. Only ten of these have set targets of higher than a 10 per cent increase.
• Lloyds Banking Group and Roll Royce aim to increase their female representation from 2 to 23 per cent.
• Of the FTSE 250 companies only 17 have announced board targets so far.

This month David Cameron attended a Nordic-Baltic summit in Stockholm. He wanted to learn how countries such as Norway and Iceland have successfully introduced quotas to increase the number of women into boardrooms.

A policy paper presented to the summit estimated if female entrepreneurship reached the same levels here as in the US, ‘there would be 600,000 extra women owned businesses, contributing an extra £42 billion to the economy’.

This is certainly a topic for discussion with a view to helping to get the economy moving again.

We have recently completed a couple of HR training courses on the topic of equality and diversity for a London client. But equality and diversity training is not a one hit wonder. It requires regular refreshment for messages to get through and to make a serious impact on organisational culture. That is why we conduct annual refreshers.

See a recent equality and diversity training case study.

Steve Walker

Steve is a highly experienced and respected learning and development consultant and management development trainer. He has a proven track record in designing, delivering and managing training interventions. Having held senior training roles in a number of large retailers including Sainsbury and Homebase, Steve today supports learning and development teams from a range of private, public and third-sector organisations.

View Steve’s full profile.