Industry News
SME's recruiting on "looks" - November 13th 2008
Nearly half (46%) of small (SMEs) firms confess hiring based on 'looks' rather than aptitude or qualifications. This claim comes from a survey by social networking site Gumtree. The same survey reveals - perhaps unsurprisingly - that nine out of 10 SMEs claim they are unable to recruit good candidates despite spending more than £4,000 to hire each member of new staff on average.The research found SMEs replace 25% of their workforces annually but struggle to recruit the right staff.
More than half (52%) claim their job advertisements have to be changed before they find the right candidate; 41% feel the need to use big words to make an advertised position sound better, and a quarter have trouble understanding their own job descriptions.
SMEs report problems with the interview process as well, with 33% spending a maximum of half an hour interviewing applicants and 46% confessing interviewees' looks are the biggest factor in their decision to recruit.
Downturn impacts employee wellbeing- October 2nd 2008
Three quarters of HR professionals say they are aware of "extreme working" within their organisation, with employees working through incapacity or illness. According to HSA's Healthy Working Report, 22% of staff have a colleague who works through illness and 15% feel they would come to work even if they had flu symptoms or diarrhoea.
Commenting on the findings, Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University Management School, said: "It is worrying that a substantial number of organisations throughout the UK are putting employees under pressure to come to work while they are still unwell. This is counterproductive because a sick employee isn't a productive employee and invariably he or she will make wrong decisions that someone else will have to rectify later on."
HR professionals have seen their workload increase more than any other profession, along with their happiness, a survey has found. -20/8/08
Nearly one in three (29%) has handed in their resignation due to rising workloads, although nearly as many are instead choosing to delegate more tasks to deal with the situation. Over half (56%) of HR professionals were less confident about their career than they were at the start of the year, the largest percentage of any type of employee polled. Yet nearly 94% of personnel managers say they're happy with their role, up from 76% just three months ago.
Equalities Bill criticised for positive discrimination - 26/6/08
A leading academic has criticised plans by equalities minister Harriet Harman as effectively giving recruiters the rubber stamp to positively discriminate.
Harman plans to tell Parliament this afternoon that, under a new Equalities Bill, bosses will be allowed to choose a women, a man or a person from an ethnic background if they think the workforce needs more of those people to balance the office environment.
But Sandra Fielden, senior lecturer at Manchester Business School's Equality and Diversity at Work team, predicts "there will be employer backlash against it".
She says: "A law like this has already proved to have failed in Australia. There is no consideration of how this is going to be monitored and operated in the real world. Do companies then have to say they've picked someone because they want more women? Or will they just end up finding some other excuse why they didn't hire someone. It just doesn't seem to be workable."
Speaking on this morning's Today programme, Harman said: "The law at the moment is not clear [about whether you can hire an equally skilled woman over a man to have a more balanced team]. We are clarifying and saying if you want to do it, you can, and it makes it much more open."
The Bill will also force companies to disclose salary structures in an effort to close the gender gap.
Employee misunderstanding costs £18.7 billion -19/6/08
Employees in the UK and US are costing business £18.7 billion a year because they do not fully understanding their jobs, according to a Cognisco survey.
Counting the Cost of Employee Misunderstanding - which Cognisco claims is the first report of its kind - defines misunderstanding as the misinterpretation of company policies, business processes and/or job function. This can be down to a lack of confidence, or through being misinformed.
Results show that just a third of organsations have taken steps to address the problem.
The report also found there are more hidden costs due to the knock-on effect on brand, reputation and customer satisfaction.
"This is the first time the cost of employee misunderstanding has been calculated," says Lisa Rowan, programme director HR and talent management services at market research firm IDC, who conducted the research on behalf of Cognisco. "Large enterprises are potentially losing millions each year to 'employee misunderstanding' yet very few organisations are taking action or are even aware a problem exists."
Majority of jobseekers shun recruitment agencies - 5/6/08
The majority of job seekers are put off signing up with recruitment agencies because of the industry's bad reputation.
This is according to a report by recruitment consultancy Unity Personnel, which found 60% of individuals would refrain from using agencies, while 26% perceive them negatively. Just 16% of the employers and employees surveyed had positive experiences to report.
Criticisms of the industry include providing an impersonal service and sending out CVs to employers without knowledge of the job specification.
"As an industry, we need to combat the negative impressions many people have and provide a superior service by working closely with both clients and candidates in order to determine their requirements," says Nick Tomkinson, commercial director at Unity Personnel.