Tag Archives: human resources

Education, Education News, News

Bradford College Achieves West Yorkshire Fair Work Charter

Bradford College is one of the latest certified members of the new West Yorkshire Fair Work Charter.

Created by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin, the Charter is an ambitious new initiative that supports and celebrates great employers across the region.

The Charter welcomes employers of all sizes and across sectors who are committed to meaningful action, helping provide better pay, conditions, and opportunities for all.

Local employers, trade unions, and regional leaders helped to develop the initiative, overseen by a steering group. The Charter is guided by five themes: opportunity, security, wellbeing, fulfilment, and employee voice.

Bradford College met the criteria owing to its aspirational 2022-2026 strategic plan and the strategic objective to become an ‘employer of choice.’ Work is underway to boost staff engagement and attendance levels, offer outstanding learning and development, recruit and retain highly skilled and motivated staff, and offer a great place to work.

Sarah Cooper, Bradford College Director of People Services, said:

“We are delighted to be approved as an early joiner of the West Yorkshire Fair Work Charter. This endorsement of Bradford College’s employment practices commends our ambition of being an employer that offers an exceptional workplace.

“We recently updated all our HR policies and are investing more in learning and development and wellbeing activities – all examples of how we support existing and future employees. We look forward to building on this success and sharing best practice with other regional organisations.”

Mayor Tracy Brabin unveiled the West Yorkshire Fair Work Charter at the University of Bradford in November. More than 40 businesses and organisations pledged to improve the quality of work in West Yorkshire, with Bradford College being one of the few large employees in the city to achieve this status.

The West Yorkshire Fair Work Charter follows similar charters in other Mayoral Combined Authority areas, such as Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region. It is designed to be relevant to large organisations, but also small and medium-sized businesses which make up 99% of employers in the region.

Find out more about working for Bradford College:

www.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/about-us/jobs-at-bradford-college

Diversity, News

Global study reveals female staff continue to fare worse on numerous elements of the employee experience

A global survey of 11,000 deskless employees has revealed a continuing imbalance between men’s and women’s experiences in the workplace – with workforce management experts Quinyx calling for organisations to make 2022 a year of cultural transformation.

The Quinyx study – of sectors including retail, logistics and hospitality – found that women continue to fare worse than male colleagues on a range of factors relating to their employee experience.

These include overall happiness with their work environment, how comfortable they are speaking to bosses on issues such as pay, and whether they’ve gone to work sick as they’re not able to afford time off.

The UK findings revealed that just 27% of female workers are comfortable discussing pay rises or wage disparities with their managers, for example, and 46% of female employees don’t believe there are a lot of job opportunities open to them based on their skills (compared to 40% and 36% of male workers, respectively).

Additionally, in most of the 11 countries surveyed, including the UK, women are less likely than male workers to have received help with career progression from their managers – such as discussing specific steps towards promotion, or being provided with a mentor.

Quinyx chief HR officer Toma Pagojute said: “An employee’s overall experience is made up of numerous parts, and if women’s experiences are consistently falling short across the board, then we need to ask why.”

She added that the findings point to a need for “a sustained shift in organisations’ priorities” and that 2022 presents a unique opportunity for companies, following the disruptions of the last two years, to “redress the balance and get employee engagement and wellbeing right for everyone.”

The UK findings of the Quinyx State of the Deskless Workforce report also revealed: • 63% of female employees have considered quitting their job because they’re unhappy with their work environment (51% of male employees). This rises to 71% of female hospitality workers.

• Women are more likely to feel pressured by co-workers into taking shifts they don’t want to take (45% female / 33% male).

• 60% of female workers have been to work sick because they couldn’t afford to take time off (49% of male workers).

• Just 25% of female workers say their manager has shared specific steps towards their promotion, and 18% say their manager has identified a mentor for them (30% and 25% for male workers). Women working in transportation & warehousing and retail are even less likely to have discussed steps to promotion (13% and 19% respectively).

Toma continued: “Our research highlights a huge opportunity for organisations to make 2022 the year of significant workplace change. After the upheaval and uncertainty of the last two years, it’s time to move forward. We have a unique window now to re-set and create a sea change that can empower all workers, particularly women, who continue to feel the effects of long-term inequalities.

“There’s a lot to address, but if organisations put people at the forefront of business strategy and operations, and managers lead by example by considering employee engagement at every step, then changes will start to become ingrained.

“Moreover, in light of understaffing issues that continue to affect many industries, it’s in businesses’ best interests to look after staff and help retain them.”

Toma’s advice for organisations looking to improve employee engagement and wellbeing in 2022, is:

  1. Adopt a flexible approach. Our research shows that more than half of UK employees have missed out on planned leisure time and events due to work; additionally, around a third say they would prefer a flexible schedule over higher pay. The pandemic brought greater awareness of the possibilities of flexible working for office-based roles but we would love to see flexible approaches being considered for deskless workers too. The recent announcement of a four-day week trial is positive – and while this isn’t an option for all, it’s encouraging that the dialogue is changing.

An initial step might be introducing a company-wide respect policy, so staff know that requests for time off or to change shifts will be received without judgement.

  1. Really get to know your staff. It’s great that employers are bringing in policies such as ‘stay interviews’; some are even checking in on staff sleep habits to ensure wellbeing. Sleep check-ins are optional, of course, but promoting the link between health and wellbeing, and how people feel and perform at work can only be a positive step. Managers might also want to introduce wellness days – giving staff flexibility to take leave when they need to focus on their wellness, aside from their traditional holidays.
  2. Utilise technology – workforce management software lets managers see where staffing gaps need plugging and where resource can be better spent. Using tools that enable employees to implement shift changes themselves might feel like relinquishing control but can give business leaders more time to focus on the bigger picture.
  3. Reward great performance and loyalty. Only half of UK workers say they feel that their work is valued by their manager, with most of these believing their boss sees them as a disposable or temporary resource. Regular acknowledgements and rewards don’t need to be big or expensive and can go a long way when it comes to staff retention.
  4. Make your people your priority. Ultimately, employees are any business’s best asset. Employee engagement and wellbeing needs to be at the heart of everyday operations and ingrained throughout a business’s culture if we are to see a significant change.
News

Nadine Warburton joins The SEO Works to lead people plan

Sheffield based digital marketing agency The SEO Works has welcomed Nadine Warburton to its team as HR Manager.

Warburton, who previously ran HR at Split the Bills, will be responsible for driving The SEO Works’ people plan, talent attraction and overall HR procedures.

Nadine said: “I’m really excited to have joined the team at such a key stage in The SEO Work’s journey. The agency has built a positive workplace culture and offers an attractive employee value proposition, but there is still a great deal of opportunity to own and develop this further, with the support of a people focused leadership team.

We have lots of people related projects on the horizon, including the acceleration of our apprenticeship programme, the review of our onboarding journey and the implementation of a HR Management System, to name a few. Our people plan is going to keep us incredibly busy over the coming months and I can’t wait to get stuck in.”

Managing Director Ben Foster added: “Our people are our greatest asset and we want to ensure we’re attracting the best candidates, as well as ensuring our team continues to feel valued and has opportunities to enhance their career whilst with us. 

Nadine’s past experience in a growing tech company really resonated with us and we’re delighted someone of her calibre has joined us during this crucial time of growth.”

The agency has welcomed 18 new starters across several departments in the past six months, with more recruits set to continue.

The SEO Works specialises in SEO, PPC, Web and Paid Social advertising and has many clients within the Luxury items and Ecommerce sector, including Decathlon, TJ Hughes, Denby, Rab, Towsure and many others.

News

Kazakhstani university uses experience of European partners to develop new Master in HR Management

Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Business (NU GSB) has launched a new graduate programme which will train middle and senior HR managers – the Master in Human Resource Management (MHRM).

The academic plan for the new programme was developed by NU GSB together with industry experts and international partner universities in collaboration with the Erasmus+ project. This has allowed the school to use the resources and experience of European partners for the development of the programme.

The MHRM programme caters for those in work as it will allow students to keep their jobs while obtaining new knowledge with classes running over weekends. The classes will be conducted in English with simultaneous translation into Russian. A two-week international internship at one of the European partner universities of Nazarbayev University is also one of the highlights of the programme. In addition, the programme provides its students with an opportunity to obtain certification in the field of HR management.

“All of our faculty are world-class researchers. This means that our students will receive the most up-to-date knowledge in the field of HR, as well as get acquainted with people who will determine the strategy of human resource management in the future,” says Patrick Duparcq, Dean of the Graduate School of Business.

Undergraduates of the new programme will have the opportunity to work with real-life cases and study disciplines such as Labour Law, HR Analytics, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Business Ethics, Change Management, and more. On completion, graduates will have acquired the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are essential for human resource professionals to perform effectively in a wide range of public and private sector settings.

 

COVID-19, Furlough, HR News, Mental Health at Work, News

Five HR changes to watch out for in 2021, from caseflowhr

After a turbulent 2020, in which many HR professionals had to call upon new skills and completely transform their processes, the team behind disruptive HR tech platform caseflowhr has pulled together five changes to watch out for to support planning in 2021.

1. Mental health
2. IR35 legislation
3. Brexit and immigration
4. Coronavirus Job Retention System (furlough)
5. Pregnancy and maternity discrimination

With so many changes in the horizon, it is no wonder that many HR teams are looking for support. Indeed, getting employee relations (ER) wrong can have significant impact on morale, culture, productivity, and even the bottom line. The new caseflowhr platform has been designed on the back of transformation, bot-driven technology to provide guided pathways for HR teams through both simple and complex ER cases.

Greg Hartigan, Co-founder and Managing Director of caseflowhr, comments: “HR professionals are being called upon to support workforce’s which have been through unprecedented times. Already under pressure to do more with less, they will need to step up and provide unheard of levels of individual and team support, as well as managing significant cultural change. Getting out from under mountains of admin and engaging with the people in the business will be essential. Caseflowhr has been designed by HR professionals for HR professionals.”

Mental health –

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 will, of course, have physical health implications on our workforce’s, but the unknown long-term mental health impact is likely to present a huge need for proactive and sensitive responses from HR and people management teams.

The Centre for Mental Health predicts that up to 10 million people (20% of the UK population) may need new or additional mental health support because of the pandemic. Research from the Mental Health Foundation in November 2020 suggests almost half of the UK population had felt anxious or worried in the previous two weeks.

HR professionals will need to consider workplace culture and how to support workforce’s which have been fundamentally changed by the pandemic.

IR35 legislation –

Already familiar to those in the public sector, the off-payroll regulations will be rolled out to private sector organisations in 2021. There was a brief reprieve due to COVID-19; however, organisations will need to get their employment contracts in order to ensure they are behaving appropriately when it comes to tax for individual contractors employed via personal service companies.

Brexit and immigration –

Employers should encourage existing team members from the European Economic Area to apply for settled or pre-settled status if they have not done so already. The deadline for applying is 30 June 2021. There are also implications for recruitment following the introduction of a new points-based immigration system in the UK on 1 January 2021, with individuals moving to the UK for work required to pay for a visa, as well as a healthcare surcharge.

Corona-virus Job Retention Scheme (furlough) –

The Corona-virus Job Retention Scheme has been extended to 30 April 2021, allowing employers to claim 80% of an employee’s salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month. Employers can furlough employees for any number of hours and work pattern but will need to understand the implications for National Insurance and pension payments. While the scheme will be reviewed again as it nears the end date, organisations need to consider how they will respond to either further extensions or the scheme coming to an end.

It is also worth noting that April 2021 will also see changes to the National Living Wage, National Minimum Wage and Statutory Sick Pay come into force. All of these will have implications on organisations’ wage bills. A wider COVID-19 economic support budget is also scheduled for 3 March 2021.

Pregnancy and maternity discrimination –

The Employment Bill introduced in the Queen’s Speech in December 2019 included reference to extending the redundancy protection rights for pregnant employees and new parents, as well as making flexible working the default position. Timings for these consultations are still to be confirmed. However, it is likely that employers will need to continue to approach flexible working and redundancy with sensitivity and an awareness of the context of COVID-19, while preparing for any further changes.

How caseflowhr can help – 

HR technology is becoming an essential feature of organisations, filling in the communications and operational gaps created by the pandemic, remote working, and increasingly dispersed workforce’s. Caseflowhr combines employment law expertise with the skill of an employee relations (ER) practitioner to create an on-demand digital employee relations specialist that is both disruptive and trans-formative, freeing up time for HR professionals to put the people back into people management.

Appointments, News

Personio hires Transferwise’s Ross Seychell as Chief People Officer, further expanding executive team

Personio, the provider of an all-in-one HR software solution for SMEs, has appointed Ross Seychell as Chief People Officer. Starting in November 2020, the former Transferwise CPO will be tasked with driving Personio’s people strategy and employee experience to support organisational and business growth across Europe. Seychell will play a pivotal role in executing Personio’s company and product strategy from an HR perspective, to support Personio in becoming the leading European HR platform for SMEs.

While primarily based in London, in one of Personio’s four European offices, Seychell will spend half of his time at the Munich headquarters where the majority of the company’s HR team is located.

Seychell brings more than twenty years of experience in developing and implementing people strategies that add value to fast growing global businesses. Before joining Personio, he spent over two years as CPO at Transferwise, where he supported company growth and long-term business strategy while overseeing the fintech’s growth from 800 to 2,400 employees. Transferwise’s valuation more than tripled to over $5bn during Seychell’s time in the business.

Hanno Renner, co-founder and CEO of Personio: “HR is the backbone of any business, but in an HR-focused company like ours, the Chief People Officer is especially important. Personio is currently growing by over 30 new colleagues each month, which makes the people function even more important to support this growth from an organisational perspective. That’s why I’m very happy that Ross is joining the Personio team on our journey to becoming Europe’s leading HR platform for SMEs. Not only is he a great fit for our culture and core values, he’s also extremely experienced in quickly scaling international teams in thriving businesses. At Personio he’ll be integral in defining our business and product strategy in a way that maximises customer value and thereby continues to drive our rapid growth.”

Ross Seychell: “Being an HR professional, I know first hand how challenging it is for HR teams to create value in parallel with the demands of day to day operational workload. Having the right technology allows these teams to focus more of their time with employees and delivering people strategies. Personio is the only tool I know of that is so clearly dedicated to the needs of its customers – namely small and medium-sized enterprises – so when Hanno asked me to join the team, it was a very easy decision to make. I’m really excited to be part of this extremely talented team of people in a company that’s dedicated to driving excellence in people operations and strategy.”

The third high-profile executive to join Personio’s leadership team in just eight months, Seychell’s appointment follows the arrival of Geraldine MacCarthy from Dropbox as CRO and Birgit Haderer from Zalando as CFO earlier this year. Besides these new joiners, the company’s executive team also includes two original founders, Hanno Renner (CEO) and Roman Schumacher (Chief Product Officer), as well as Jonas Rieke (COO) who helped build the company from the beginning, as well as Sebastian Enderlein (VP Engineering) who joined Personio last year after twelve years in Silicon Valley at Uber and Salesforce.

News

Okta and Salesforce Partner to Build Trust with Work.com

Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKTA), the leading independent provider of identity for the enterprise, and Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, today at Okta Showcase, announced a partnership and new integration between the Okta Identity Cloud and Salesforce Work.com designed to help organisations and communities build trust with their employees and customers.
Innovative, forward-looking organisations across every industry have long understood the importance of investing in technology to reduce costs, drive operational efficiency, and accelerate business growth, revenue, and profit. As COVID-19 forced companies around the world to rely on technology to work remotely and virtually connect with customers, the pandemic not only accelerated the digital transformation of every organisation, but it has also showcased the importance of trust in technology.

To foster trust and resiliency across their customer bases, Okta will integrate the Okta Identity Cloud, its independent and neutral platform, with Salesforce Work.com, a set of solutions from Salesforce designed to help businesses and organisations around the world reopen safely, which includes shift management; manual contact tracing; emergency response management; and more. The Okta Identity Cloud will help leaders across HR, Workplace, and IT organisations to quickly and securely deploy Work.com while also providing security and protection for these solutions regardless of location.

“Okta is the identity company that stands for trust, and that has taken on new weight during the pandemic. We’ve helped organisations move to remote work and keep their people employed and productive, even when they can’t be in an office. We’re also giving organisations the solutions and tools to build secure, seamless customer experiences, empowering them to still generate revenue and drive growth,” said Todd McKinnon, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Okta. “We take our responsibility as a business enabler seriously, and so does Salesforce. We look forward to partnering closely to provide our customers with secure, delightful experiences so they can safely and effectively engage with their communities, now and into the future.”

“The new normal demands a new way to work, and as technology companies, it’s our job to reduce as much friction as possible for companies so they can treat their employees like valued customers,” said Sarah Franklin, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Platform, Trailhead and AppExchange, Salesforce. “We’re excited for Okta to integrate with Work.com to make reopening even easier for our customers and to help them with long-term business resilience and continuity. Together, we’ll increase IT productivity and provide employees with a seamless experience.”

By combining identity management from Okta with Salesforce’s solutions to meet new workplace challenges, the two companies will help to provide organisations with a secure, automated, and seamless experience. The partnership is designed to offer customers the ability to:

• Streamline the end user experience to increase productivity: Leveraging their existing identity providers or corporate directories such as Active Directory, Salesforce customers may enable employees to sign-in to Work.com with a single click. At a time when organisations are increasingly relying on contractors and partners, customers may offer this seamless experience to third parties by integrating with partner directories or storing identity information in Okta Universal Directory, which can increase productivity across their extended enterprise.
• Increase time to value and security with automated provisioning: With Okta Lifecycle Management, IT administrators may synchronise data from HR systems, such as Workday, to Work.com to automatically create users in Work.com, helping organisations to quickly and securely deploy Work.com while reducing the burden on IT teams. By leveraging Okta Workflows, IT administrators can take this automated provisioning a step further by assigning users in specific roles to Salesforce Permission Set Groups, introducing granular controls for which tasks and records those users can access within Work.com.
• Protect sensitive data by enforcing tighter controls: The integration between the Okta Identity Cloud and Work.com is designed to enable IT leaders to easily provision and deprovision users, establish fine-grained controls for permissions, and enforce multi-factor authentication for specific users or groups with potential access to sensitive data in Work.com while helping to provide security and protection for their organisations.

Organisations, such as CarMax, which leverage both the Okta Identity Cloud and Salesforce platform to deliver secure and seamless experiences for their people will benefit from the expanded partnership.

“As the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, we’ve revolutionised car buying by giving our customers an honest, high integrity and transparent experience that’s truly on their terms. We expect the same from our technology providers, and Okta and Salesforce are trusted partners. We leverage both the Okta Identity Cloud and the Salesforce platform to deliver a personalised, secure customer experience,” said Shamim Mohammad, Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Technology Officer, CarMax. “Salesforce is foundational for all of CarMax’s customer interactions and provides a 360-degree view of our customers so we can seamlessly integrate our store and online experiences, and Okta is the secure entry point for any customer engagement with CarMax. We look forward to seeing how they’ll work together to drive further innovations in the customer experience.”
For more information about the Work.com integration visit: www.okta.com/partners/Salesforce/Work

HR News, HR Software, News

HR software provider Personio takes the paper out of paperwork with new integrated e-signature capability

Personio, the all-in-one HR software solution for SMEs, is helping to streamline HR processes with the launch today of its new integrated e-signature capability, allowing businesses to save more time and resources whilst minimising their environmental impact.
While many HR softwares currently require documents to be printed out, signed manually and scanned to access and share them digitally, Personio’s new feature allows businesses to fully digitise key administrative processes, such as those used in recruitment or Human Resource Management (HRM) – providing a vital service at a time when many are managing a remote workforce.

Using Personio, recruiters – and their candidates – can create, send and receive offer documents and contracts. Meanwhile, HR managers, supervisors, employees and other stakeholders can take the paper out of ‘paperwork’, making their processes more productive and sustainable.

Personio’s new e-signature technology has been created in partnership with SignaturIT, European specialists in e-signatures..