Jaluch Limited

London tube workers striking again….

Last week London tube workers walked out in protest at disciplinary action being taken against a colleague after '33 years of unblemished service'. The driver concerned had left a passenger on the platform after she had injured her leg in a door.

On the ASLEF website one driver wrote: In this instance the passenger was at fault, this sort of thing happens every day. So, if you do something idiotic you expect someone else to be held accountable?

My question of the day is how can responsible employers instil a sense a responsibility in staff members – no matter who is at fault – when our whole society is about blaming others and not taking individual responsibility for what you do?

As it happens, I understand the starting salary of a tube driver is over £40K. As a passenger for that sort of money, I would expect quite a high degree of responsibility to be taken by drivers in caring for all passengers. But what on earth can tube drivers bosses do to instil the required sense of responsibility?

And at what sort of salary do you expect staff in your business to start demonstrating personal responsibility for what happens in their area? And do your staff take on this responsibility or is the issue of taking on responsibility (or not taking on full responsibility!) a growing area of concern across the whole of the UK?

I once came across someone whose favourite saying seemed to be ‘you do what you do’. From that I always understood him to mean that as a result of doing what you do, you then have to live with the outcomes or take responsibility for how things then pan out.

I like this saying. Yes, the passenger might have tried to board the tube too late, but that is a different issue and the driver wasn’t disciplined for her moment of madness. But my understanding from the subsequent disciplinary action of the driver was that the driver left her on the platform – presumably against whatever procedures are in place for looking after injured passengers.

You do what you do. The driver drove off and left her. The consequences were disciplinary action. As a fellow ASLEF member you cannot say that the driver was not responsible because the passenger shouldn’t have been foolhardy and got herself injured in the first place.

Take responsibility. If we are to create a society of adults – rather than adults acting like needy children - and to show the world how the UK can lead its way out of this recession, we need every employee we can get who takes real responsibility at work.

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Throughout our lives we are all faced at times with a dilemma… do we put up and shut up and accept the situation facing us, or do we kick off and potentially escalate the situation and argument because we feel it is right and proper to do so.

Recently I have heard of a headmistress who shredded a number (i.e. all of them) of unfavourable reports put in a sealed box by parents for the Ofsted inspectors. I have, rightly or wrongly, and after much deliberation, chosen to say nothing.

And I have also listened to a friend talking to me about her job whereby her hours and job have been changed without her agreement, but I chose not to flag up to her that they had no legal right to do that. I felt she had enough on her plate without starting an employment law battle with her employer.

Was I right? Was I wrong? I don’t know and in any case, there is seldom a clear answer to such questions.

But today I read of the CPS pursuing a case at Tribunal that has to date cost the tax payer £1 million. My question of the day therefore is that when it comes to corporate or organisational decisions about what to pursue and what not to pursue, how do you put in place sensible decision making processes to ensure full consideration of the rights and wrongs, likely outcomes, likely costs etc of pursuing a specific path?

In the case of the CPS, the article states that the spokeswoman said “it was the duty of a public body to take independent legal advice when faced with litigation and to assess the advice and act accordingly… and the CPS had acted ‘responsibly and reasonably’ at all times”. They may think they have acted reasonably, but it has cost you and me over £1 million pounds to date.

So, in this case, who is defining ‘reasonable’ and does this CPS spokeswoman actually understand the value of money? Does she know how many people have to contribute through their taxes to create a pile of money that equates to £1 million? Perhaps she thinks its monopoly money that can just be reprinted or reordered at will.

Often I feel my children do not understand the value of money and I am sure many of you have experienced the same. So I try to teach them the value of money so they are ready for adulthood. But how as an employer can you manage staff who did not learn these crucial lessons as children or, worse still, who learnt them as children, but as adults have now forgotten them?

Throughout our lives we are all faced at times with a dilemma… do we put up and shut up and accept the situation facing us, or do we kick off and potentially escalate the situation and argument because we feel it is right and proper to do so.

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This is an interesting article I read a week or so ago about youth unemployment.

It doesn’t take much to work out that when jobs are being cut, those with absolutely no work experience on their CVs are going to find it really, really challenging to get their first job and show the world what they are made of. Add to this the fact that so many colleges and universities still fail to understand the crucial link between education and employability, then you can understand why youth unemployment is becoming an ever increasing problem.

However, it is my experience that if you look hard enough in life, you can usually find that every cloud has a silver lining and the silver lining in this instance is for those employers who have their eyes open and their brains engaged. For out there, in the UK wilderness, is a fantastic pool of talent just looking for an opportunity through a work placement or some other really cost effective mechanism to put something sensible on their CV. So how many of these recent grads. are you employing at present?

From those MDs and CEOs I have spoken to recently, what appears crucial is to avoid any of the frustrations that come with recruiting staff who then take too long to become effective. Here are a few tips to getting some serious value out of your work-placements: 

• Have an unbelievably clear job/project spec. that is simple and straightforward and focussed on achieving one particular project. Write it, then simplify it, then simplify it again!
• Next get a lecturer at a nearby college to look over your project spec. to advise on how they would expect a recent grad to approach the project. You may find this helps you to revise it and simplify it to achieve your goals.
• You may also want to speak to the appropriate person at a local college or university to see if they will support you during the process of employing and managing a recent graduate. If someone is there to help you, why on earth would you want to do it the hard way?
• Appoint one youth friendly manager from your organisation to meet every day with your newbies to ensure they are on track and focussed.
• Find one off projects for them that require little on the job training eg IT projects, technology training for other staff, web design projects, marketing projects, research projects etc.
• Take time out to rethink or rewrite any procedures for doing certain tasks. Taking time to get these in order now, could save you hours of management time if you are recruiting someone with no experience.
• And finally, WIIFT – What’s in it for them? To keep them motivated, keep asking yourself WIIFT? See what you can do to both get your project done, whilst giving them something substantial to put on their CV. It has to be a two way street for it to be successful.

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I recently read that 25% of job applicants are illiterate (choose to believe it or not).

Now I read that 32% of new employees either only skim read their employment contracts, or don’t bother reading them at all. Clearly taking their new job seriously then!?

(And no, I won’t humiliate here those UK employers who are identified in this report as leaving 12% of all employees without any contract at all….shocking!! And crazy given how exposed it leaves you!)

But with comments on the illiteracy and/or laziness of employees I suppose I am left with the overwhelming impression that rather than our children needing nannying, perhaps it is some members of the modern workforce of today instead that need nannies.

Perhaps one way forward to support any lazy new employees would be to employ a reader so that on their induction day they can sit comfortably in a chair with a cup of coffee and their ‘reader’ can read all their employment documents to them. What do you think? We wouldn’t want to make them work too hard on their first day, would we?

And for when these new employees are taking a break from having to listen to their ‘reader’ we could also employ testers in the workplace kitchens and next to vending machines so that their coffees and teas can be tested for the right temperature to avoid anyone getting a nasty burn on their first day when glugging a bit too fast.

And why stop there? I think someone could be employed to wash their hands in the toilets just in case reading signs such as ‘now please wash your hands’ is also beyond them.

And finally, one role the public sector forgot to fill over recent years when trying to appoint for every non job available was that of form filler. Wouldn’t it be great if there was someone at work to fill in all our induction paperwork for us, or to sort our self cert forms when we’re sick on our second day at work. I think that would be a really valuable role in every workplace.

Who needs literate employees? I think bosses need to learn to compensate more…and to find solutions to modern day problems rather than bleat about what’s not working!! Haha.

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