Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?  Lots of lovely free labour and in return, you show them exactly how to do the job you’re not paying them for.  You’ll pay them their expenses, won’t you, to make sure they’re not out of pocket.  In the meantime, you’ll moan about clients who expect you to put design briefs together, attend numerous meetings and generally carry out work for which they have no intention of paying you.  Oh.  Is that the sound of the proverbial penny dropping?

No one likes doing work they’re not going to get paid for unless they’re a volunteer.  Normally if that’s the case then the person volunteering does so for a good cause, not solely to line someone else’s pockets.  Most people consider that to be exploitation. 

Unfortunately, we appear to have gained a culture of unpaid internships here in the UK.  I’ve heard stories of airlines having pilots work for them for free as they need to keep up their flying hours for their licences while they look for work.  It’s well known that  unpaid internships are rife in the publishing industry and also in the fashion industry.  I’ve heard that some employers use excuses for free labour like “you must be self-employed” and “we only pay expenses for work experience”. 

I’m often asked for a quick way to work out people’s holiday entitlements so here goes.  Please note that this applies to people working fixed hours only.

 Every employee working fixed hours is entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday (this includes their Bank Holiday/Public Holiday entitlement).

 To work out exactly how many days each employee is entitled to per year:

Today, the story that’s caught my attention is this one about the HR Executive “forced out of his job” over his LinkedIn CV and, judging by the number of times I’ve seen it mentioned on LinkedIn and on my Twitter stream, it’s a story that’s getting a lot of attention. 

In a nutshell, the company disciplined the employee for his use of LinkedIn, specifically for ticking the “interested in career opportunities” option and also for disclosing confidential information about the company.  The dispute led to the employee resigning and taking a claim for constructive dismissal. 

I’ll be following the case with interest because I think it has wider implications for employers and the usual attempts to “control” social media use by their employees.  I wonder if the Tribunal will consider the employer’s actions reasonable in this case? 

Last week, Jason and I went to a Christmas party with most of our friends who regularly attend tweet ups with us.  The evening was great fun and it was even better to be surounded by good friends.  Here are a few of the pics from the evening (the ones I've been allowed to post!)

We all have them.  Those things that if a client or customer just did differently, or didn’t do at all, would make our lives so much easier.  Leaving aside for a moment the fact that if these issues were addressed we’d be living in Utopia and would have nothing to moan about (heaven forbid!), here’s the top 3 on my HR Christmas wish list:

Take notes

Of all things I wish for, this is top of my list.  I understand that taking notes can feel very formal and most small businesses don’t operate that way.  The problem arises when we need to rely on past events or conversations and there aren’t any notes to back them up.  This situation usually arises when there are disciplinary issues to be addressed and there’s no evidence trail to prove that conversations took place, improvements were discussed and agreed, etc. 

Two things that made me smile on Twitter today. One was the comment that “common sense isn’t actually all that common” (thanks @MrDLeighfield) and the other was this link to posters for new rules in workplaces.

If common sense really isn’t particularly common, perhaps the argument is that, far from being limited editions, these posters need to be mass produced and issued to every workplace for immediate display. Of the existing set, I particularly like the reminder that “nothing good comes from hitting ‘reply all’ “. Despite the fact that email etiquette is rapidly evolving, I think it’s safe to say that if you don’t know that the “reply all” function should be used sparingly, if at all, you clearly haven’t experienced the consequences of an ill-judged “reply all”. Even if you’ve only been an innocent bystander, caught in the crossfire of angry emails, it’s still an unpleasant experience and one which is, by and large, completely unnecessary.

I’m inviting your contributions for posters that should really be common sense but could easily find a place in this workplace series. Here's my contribution:

I’m busy. You’re busy. We’re all busy people. You’re probably thinking you’re too busy to read this.

Recently, I've noticed that some people wear the badge of "I'm too busy" with pride.  So, here’s what I’m wondering. When did “busy” become an excuse for rudeness? For not replying to invitations, to emails, to requests for help? Since when is the “busy card” really a "get out of jail free card", one that we play at every given opportunity and one that lets us off the hook without further consequences?

If you’re too busy to interact with people outside your organisation, what perception are you giving to your staff? Do they see you as “too busy”? Are they worried about bothering you with their questions and do they make mistakes as a result? Do they think you’re too busy to hear about their problems so they keep them hidden?

Lots of people use application forms when recruiting and why not? They can be great for collecting the information you need, not just the information the candidate wants you to have. It’s also useful to have details submitted in a standard format so you always know where to look for the candidate’s date of birth, for example.

Stop. Did you see anything wrong in that last sentence? If not, you may be inadvertently breaking the law when it comes to questions you can and can’t ask when recruiting. Here are my top dos and don’ts for application forms.

Don’t

 Since the implementation of the Equality Act in October 2010, it is illegal to ask questions about an applicant’s health prior to a post being offered.   This means that application forms, pre-employment health questionnaires and interview question sets are all affected and should be checked to ensure that they comply with the Equality Act. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions around asking questions about people's health while recruiting. 

Q. Does this mean we can’t ask a candidate anything at all about their health before making them an offer?

Sometimes on Twitter, really random conversations happen.  Someone tweeted me about a comment that was made about HR to the effect of HR being just internal PR.  Immediately, I was interested but saddened at the same time.  Little did I know that one tweet was going to lead me to a lady who writes under the pen name of Eva James and who has a blog called Bullied By the Boss.  I've been unable to read all her blog posts in one sitting as they stir up such conflicting emotions for me.  As a person who works to improve communication between employee and employer, who takes the ethos that HR has three principles - being fair, being consistent and being nice; I am both saddened and angered by what happened to Eva.  Luckily for the rest of us, she detailed her experiences so we could understand.  So often we see bullying almost as a concept, something we all know should not be allowed to happen but when it does, how many of us can confront it and take the necessary steps to make it stop?  How many of us would prefer to bury our heads and pretend it's not really happening.. especially when it's the boss who's the bully?  

I asked Eva to write a guest blog for me to explain her view of HR.  She's chosen to open her blog with kudos to me for allowing her to guest blog.  On the contrary, I don't feel that I could have not asked her to write about her take on HR.  Kudos to me?  More like kudos to her for standing up to be counted. 

All comments and debate welcomed!