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The civil service union PCS is planning industrial action this month, in protest against cuts to its members’ redundancy terms. This is an unusual reason for strike action, but it reflects the rather dodgy nature of the changes that are being planned. Civil service workers, who are facing severe budget cuts and hence significant redundancies, are being told that in addition to their jobs being at risk, they will also receive a worse redundancy settlement than they are currently entitled to. (more…)

Bullying is this week’s hot work-related news topic. Who did it, who didn’t do it, and what was said by who to whom. But bullying at work is not just some political football to be thrown onto the field during phantom election campaigns; it is the one of most serious workplace issues we confront as a society, up there with stress as the main reasons why people absent themselves from work. (more…)

For most of us, all we know about public figures comes from what we hear and read in the media. There is no way of knowing if our opinion is correct. Which is why it will have come as a surprise to many of us to hear of the jailing of Commander Ali Dizaei who had been held up as a role model for ethnic policemen. (more…)

The news that staff at the AA will be conducting a strike ballot will come as a surprise. After all, the AA is thought of as one of the great philanthropic organisations; a helpful, friendly team of people always willing to solve whatever technical problem our vehicles may throw at us, irrespective of any personal inconvenience. Of course the AA is no longer really like that, but that is how we perceive it, and perceptions are important. (more…)

A business is a business is a business. That seems to be the thinking behind the appointments of Archie Norman as Chairman of ITV and Adam Crozier as Chief Executive. Archie Norman has previously headed up Asda and Energis, and enjoyed a spell as Tory MP and shadow minister. Adam Crozier has run Royal Mail, the Football Association and Saatchi & Saatchi. Two very successful businessmen with impressive track records. Neither has any experience of TV. But does this matter? After all, a business is a business is a business. It seems not to matter what it does, what matters is how it is run. (more…)

So Cadbury have finally agreed to be sold to Kraft and another British company falls into foreign hands. At least that is how many of the media are presenting the story. And of course, as facts go, it is true. Car manufacturers, utility companies, football teams, banks and now chocolate makers, the list goes on, all under new, non-British ownership. But is it as black a day for Britain and our economy as some commentators suggest? (more…)

In the 1960s one of the great debates in the press and at the workplace was the ‘brain drain’. This was the exodus of British talent, particularly from the academic, scientific and technical sectors, usually to the United States. The fear was that country was being drained of its most skilled people which threatened its status as a major innovative, industrial power. The brain drain was real, and it was fuelled by high taxation and lack of opportunity in the UK. (more…)

We are in the middle of an office move, having been in the same premises for five years. Although a lot has happened in that time, it was not until we started sorting through all the papers and records that we began to realise how much has changed, and how much we have changed, both as a company and as individuals. (more…)

The bad weather has crystallised some interesting attitudes amongst companies and their staff. Travelling home yesterday I overhead two people praising their company for encouraging its people to go home early whilst they could, or to work from home if travel was really impossible for them. When I got home my wife told me of a radio report decrying companies who are telling their staff that if they don’t get to work in the bad weather they will lose pay. Two very different attitudes. (more…)

The news that an employee of the News of the World has been awarded almost £800,000 for unfair dismissal  following prolonged bullying at work will gladden anyone who suffers this form of abuse. Bullying and harassment are amongst the most widespread problems in the workplace and, due to their personal nature, amongst the most difficult to tackle. (more…)