How many of us would feel happier about paying our taxes if we felt the Government was as eager about spending the money wisely and carefully as it seems eager to collect taxes from us?

The amazing incredulous truth is that every penny of income tax the Government collects from us each year it spends on welfare benefits! …..and billions more besides!

The figures are :

Income tax collected each year £160 billion

Welfare benefit payments each year £169 billion

In an era when hundreds of thousands of people can travel to the UK and apparently find jobs with not too much trouble, it seems incredible that welfare benefit spending can be so high. So incredible, that the Government now feels compelled to do something about it. The Government announced its long awaited plans for welfare reform last week.

Under the new proposals anyone claiming unemployment benefit for more than a year will have to carry out at least four weeks of unpaid work. Those claiming benefit for more than two years will be compelled to work in the community full-time.

The plans - in a welfare green paper published on the 21st July 2008 - are based on tough American “work for dole” schemes.

The announcement was welcomed by the Conservatives who claimed that the Government had copied many of their ideas but pledged to support the legislation when voted on in Parliament. So support across Parliament for the reforms.

Also to be introduced

• Incapacity benefit will be replaced with a new “employment and support allowance”.
• Claimants will no longer be assessed by their own GPs but will have to go through an independent medical assessment to assess what work they can undertake.
• The new allowance will be a temporary benefit for all but the most severely disabled.
• Drug addicts will also have to disclose their dependency and will have to undergo treatment or forfeit their benefits.
• Single parents with children aged seven or more will also be expected to seek work.

The Work and Pensions Secretary, James Purnell, described the proposals as the biggest shake-up to welfare in Britain since the Beveridge report in 1942, which introduced benefits for families and the unemployed after the Second World War. Mr Purnell said: “The longer people claim, the more we will expect in return…Work works and it is only fair that we make sure a life on benefits is not an option.”

“We reached the situation in the 1980s where there were no requirements on people claiming unemployment benefit.”

” Incapacity Benefit ….traps people on benefits - it pays people more, the longer they stay on, without giving them the support to get back into work.”

The private sector will play a key role in the new welfare system. After a year of claiming unemployment benefit, claimants will be handed to selected private sector providers who will ensure they undertake a rigorous programme of training, job interviews and voluntary work. Claimants will be forced to carry out voluntary work if they are suspected of shirking offers of work. The private firms will receive bonuses of up to £50,000 for each claimant who is successfully returned to the workforce. The bonus will reduce if the claimant does not speedily return to work.

Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions, Chris Grayling said: “We very much agree with the package of reforms the Government is proposing. It’s particularly helpful that they’re bringing them forward now because we always expected the reforms to take a couple of years to prepare before being ready to yield results.”

“So in reality what this announcement means is that the next Government will inherit a set of proposals that have been turned into action and are ready to bring about real change to our welfare state.”

written by admin \\ tags: Welfare reform

Getting good people into your organisation is crucial, people are the business. If you want to attract the sort of job applicant who will require the minimum of training to get up to speed, who will be happy with their job, and who will fit into your workplace, then don’t underestimate the importance of knowing how to write a job advertisement. If it is flawed, the applicants will be unsuitable, you’ll waste time and money on the whole exercise and maybe end up with someone you really consider second best.

To get the right message across about what you require, pay attention to developing four aspects of your ad; responsibilities, requirements, the benefits you are offering and what type of person would fit in.

Assess and prioritise the job’s responsibilities

The job description is basically an outline of how the job fits in to the organisation. It should point out in broad terms the job’s goals, responsibilities and duties. This may sound obvious but often recruiters just draw up a laundry list of duties without carefully considering and prioritising them. Include only the core responsibilities. Jobs change over time and job descriptions go out of date. Preparing a recruitment advertisement provides an opportunity to reconsider the job and ascertain exactly what it involves and what sort of skills it requires. The better you understand the role, the clearer your ad will be.

Specify the requirements exactly

Spell out your requirements clearly and precisely. How many recruitment ads include the requirement ‘strong communication skills’? Running a sales presentation, talking to customers and writing up a proposal are all communication skills but there’s a lot of difference between what’s involved in each. Ask yourself “To what purpose will this communication skill be used?” and write up the ad accordingly. Instead of ‘good communication skills’ it could be ‘ability to develop and present an effective sales presentation’; instead of ‘computer literate’ specify ‘proficient with Microsoft Word, Excel and QuickBooks’ if that is what the job entails using.

The same precision should be used in listing any required certification and personal capabilities for performing the job such as the ability to lift a certain amount of weight, drive certain types of vehicle on the job or use particular types of machinery. It can also be used to specify the type of experience required, such as ‘experience handling accounts worth over £2 million a year’.

Include the benefits, not just the salary

Don’t mention only the monetary reward. While that may be the bottom line it is often just one of the things a candidate is interested in. Job development opportunities such as training or travel, challenging assignments and career advancement potential can attract great candidates interested not just in getting a job, but in making a wise career move. For others a retirement scheme or health benefits package may be important. Applicants for a position in a particular organisation should be interested in what that industry does. So, for instance, offers of discount travel for team members would attract candidates for a travel agency job.

Attract best-fit candidates, not just the best qualified

The message about ‘what type of person would enjoy working here’ will come across in what you say in the ad. The specifications might include ‘feeling comfortable in a multicultural, cooperative environment’. The conditions could mention that dress is generally informal. The benefits might include an annual office ski vacation. All these say something about the organisation and provide the would-be applicant with an idea of how comfortable they’d feel in the workplace.

Your recruitment ad is more than just a job description - it’s a marketing exercise that has to attract a pool of suitably qualified applicants who will fit into your organisation. A poorly written recruitment ad could mean being swamped with unsuitable applicants or it could result in too few responses - both of which waste your time and money.

written by admin \\ tags: HR

Currently there’s a lot of buzz in business circles about the value of using social networking services (SNS) as a channel to drive sales, promote brand and network for business opportunities. Much of it comes from marketers who are excited about the target marketing possibilities of these sites — they gather so much data about individuals that marketers are able to profile very specific demographics. At the same time, IT security companies post regular warnings about the potential for damage that social networking can pose to business computer systems.

The huge uptake of SNS membership and the increasing spend by some major consumer product companies on these sites provides a sense of ‘normalcy’ about them that could prove dangerous to the unwary user. Mainstream acceptance hasn’t been matched by efforts to improve security. It’s not unknown for fraudsters to gather, piecemeal from a number of company employee profiles, sufficient information to access company intranets or launch malware attacks against company computers.

Increasingly the question is being posed — should employees be allowed to access SNS over their organisation’s computers? Many major corporations who need to maintain absolute security over client data, their records and their reputation, such as financial institutions, have answered with a firm ‘No’ and simply locked them out of company computers.

But with social networking being viewed by many employees as just another form of communication essentially no different from email or instant messaging, employers may be put under pressure to provide access or face an employee backlash. If you intend to allow employees to use social networking from work computers you would be well advised to proceed with caution. Here’s how to minimise the risks.

Develop an acceptable use policy: According to experts, the first step is to develop policies and train employees. If you don’t have policies in place for SNS use (along with blogs, wikis, and their like), then you’re leaving yourself at risk.

Define the times when social networking is acceptable: Social networking is addictive and unrestricted access inevitably results in employees spending more and more time online checking out what their friends are up to. Assign only out-of-work periods (lunch break, before or after their work hours) as times in which employees can social network.

Mandate the use of privacy settings: SNS sites are notoriously short on privacy. In their profiles users can enter a host of information including their name, address, phone number, email and their workplace. A privacy level can be assigned to each field of information restricting who can access it, though few users appear aware of this. Mandate that any business related information is assigned the highest privacy setting the site provides.

Set guidelines for chatting about work related matters: It’s very natural for people to talk about work, and that talk often gets into messages posted to social networking sites. The business’ reputation could be put at risk by inappropriate comments by employees. Criticism by disgruntled employees or jokes that could be misunderstood by people outside the organisation can do irreparable damage. Spell out the principles for business related chat such as the need to maintain client confidentiality, the contexts in which your organisation’s name can be used and the inappropriateness of making disparaging remarks about fellow workers.

Point out the IT threats: Malicious code is being embedded in Web 2.0 links. Employees casually clicking on links could lead them to malware that will infect work computers. Train employees in the company’s IT security policies to make them aware of what’s allowed and what they’re prohibited from doing.

Make improper use a disciplinary matter: Make it clear there will be consequences for posting unacceptable comments or business information on social networking sites and detail the disciplinary action that will be imposed.

written by admin \\ tags: Security

The difference between working with engaged people and a group of alienated, uninterested ones isn’t just the difference in productivity you can expect from each – it gets right down to making the difference between feeling you want to go in to work or stay away to avoid becoming depressed by the unenthusiastic atmosphere.

Managers can’t force employees to be motivated but they can contribute to creating an environment that encourages and promotes them to feel self-motivated. Motivation is getting people to do what you want them to do because THEY WANT to do it. The right sort of environment can be summed up in 4 words: security, involvement, responsibility and appreciation.

Making employees feel secure

If you think you can motivate people by instilling fear in them then think again. Over the short term, fear can keep people at a task, if not exactly ‘motivate’ them to do it. But all the while they are being fearful they are plotting how to get back at you. And that doesn’t make for a productive workplace.

The boss who openly threatens to fire employees when they make a mistake or blames individuals when things go wrong is creating a fear culture. On a less obvious level, tolerating things like sexist behaviour or racist slurs in the workplace equally creates a sense of fear in the target.

The workplace should be a level playing field where every team member is treated fairly and respectfully so as to build a constructive atmosphere free of fear. You can go a long way towards creating that sort of environment by clarifying your expectations about how people are to behave (including yourself) in a written company code of conduct or through clearly defined policies about ‘how we do things around here’. Clearly defined expectations also form the basis for consistent decision making in other areas of importance to your employees such as fair performance appraisal for deciding promotions.

Getting them involved

People are more motivated when they feel ‘in the loop’ of what is going on. The key here is good communication. Employees can’t work to achieve the business’ goals if they don’t know what those goals are. You need to communicate your vision and goals for the business to them so they don’t feel like they are working in a vacuum. Better still, provide opportunities for them to actively contribute to the business through regular team meetings and promote the contribution of suggestions that could help improve the business. Suggestion schemes encourage engagement and can result in valuable ideas for everything from improving operations and developing new products to providing better customer service.

Empowering your people

If you find yourself micromanaging your employees by constantly telling them what to do you can be certain that you are having a detrimental effect on their motivation. Being given responsibility for something is an important motivator for humans. Your intentions may be good but your ‘help’ is likely to be perceived as lack of trust.

Managers interested in keeping their employees motivated should set the ground rules and expectations and then allow them to get on with their job. Shift your focus from making sure that specific tasks are completed correctly to establishing standards and expectations. Where the standards aren’t being met, the way to fix the situation isn’t to constantly look over their shoulder and direct them, it’s to help them improve their performance through a coaching or training programme. Most employees actually want to learn new skills, gain new experience, build their personal attributes and take on new challenges, all of which improve motivation.

Showing appreciation for effort

Public and private praise can work wonders in keeping people motivated. Achievement in any area considered important by the company, such as an outstanding sales record, contributing a valuable suggestion or providing great customer service, should earn some form of appreciation. And don’t overlook opportunities to build morale by celebrating the business’ wins, like getting that new contract. These only happen because of the combined effort of your many individual employees.

While some employees will be innately more passionate about their jobs and careers than others, organisational structures and management styles that deliberately foster engagement with their work play a key role in raising the motivational barometer.

written by admin \\ tags: Motivating

Looked around your office lately? Familiarity can blind us to the obvious so you probably didn’t notice anything in particular. Try looking at it from an employee’s point of view. How do you think it makes them feel? It’s no surprise that surveys report a direct link between the quality of the working environment and the effectiveness of the people who work in it. So is yours the sort of environment that would likely motivate and inspire your employees to work productively?

Take a walk around keeping these three fundamental principles of productive workplace design in mind and check how your premises rate.

Principle 1: the workspace should promote health and well-being

Daylight is invariably cited by employees as a crucial factor for a good working environment. It is widely accepted that one way of improving the health and morale of workers is by providing good internal lighting and access to natural daylight. Good lighting has even been linked to reductions in absenteeism. Don’t block off windows with equipment or make them inaccessible by building office spaces around them all. Use ceiling mounted lights with a luminosity level that achieves adequate illumination without glare or reflection to reduce eyestrain. Accent lights can be used to help create moods and highlight and define different areas of the office. Cleverly combining natural light and illumination can recreate that ‘feel good’ factor of a sunny day and spur employee productivity.

There’s nothing like physical pain to distract people from their work. Poor ergonomics is the root cause of most back pain, migraines, sore fingers, wrists and stiff necks. Ergonomic seating and adjustable work surfaces mean workers are more comfortable for longer periods and require fewer breaks. Properly set up computer workstations minimise discomfort and the likelihood of developing repetitive stress injuries.

Principle 2: the workplace should be a pleasant place to work in

Office decoration provides the backdrop to work activity. It can inspire or depress us. Drab colours are dispiriting. Office walls can be painted in schemes that make the environment cheerful and fresh. You can develop a colour scheme that reflects your brand and does a little promoting or you might select a scheme that reflects the spirit of your business. If you work in a traditionally conservative industry such as financial or legal services, you’re better off choosing a neutral colour. If your business employs more creative types such as designers or artists, then prefer more energising colours. Colour also has the ability to make a space appear larger or smaller and the occupant feel more or less claustrophobic.

Bare walls and an unrelieved vista of office equipment can make a workplace feel sterile and unlived-in. Photos, prints, or paintings on the walls and a few plants warm up your workspace and make it feel more comfortable and human. Maintain the same style of furniture throughout the office. Mismatched tables and chairs give the impression of having been thrown together and look rather cheap.

Physically, temperature can make or break our ability to concentrate and get on with a task. Decent temperature control and ventilation systems that keep employees comfortable also keep them productive.

Principle 3: workplace layout should support work activity

Office design can be used to enhance moods, speed up task completion and encourage interaction between employees. Employees become frustrated and annoyed when their office isn’t designed to support them in carrying out their job efficiently.

Efficient layout of workspaces allows for better and more efficient workflow. If someone has to get up from their seat to reach for a file or access information, more time and effort are expended. Multiply these tasks dozens if not hundreds of times a day and the time wasted not only distresses the employee, it really cuts into productive work time.

Tools and equipment should be close by to those who use them and employee’s workplaces located close to others in the same work group. To arrive at the most suitable arrangement you need to have analysed just how groups relate to and interact with one another and how work flows from one group to another.

While the Cube has become the symbol of modern office layout it has drawbacks for certain kinds of work where the task demands visual privacy and freedom from the distractions of nearby noise and conversation. If the office is open, there should be places for sensitive conversations. Match workspace arrangement to the needs of the person using it. For example, an architect may require a private office for client meetings, software engineers work best in an open group environment where they can share ideas and issues whereas salespeople might be happy with just a hot-desk on those occasions when they come into the office.

An employee’s workplace is responsible for 24 per cent of their job satisfaction level. Poor workplace design is directly linked to increases in stress level and lower performance among employees. Creating a professional, functional and comfortable space will keep your people happy and productive.

Davies McLennon are Stockport Accountants

written by admin