November - HR Review

Workplace Stress
Increased stress and anxiety in the workplace, reportedly costing the economy ?28bn, could be one of the reasons for greater use of temporary agency workers, says the industry.
Aside from a cross-sector skills shortage, the demand for temporary agency staff in recent years could have been intensified by work-related mental illness. There is a good possibility that employee absenteeism due to work-related mental illness has contributed to the high demand for temporary agency workers, particularly in sectors like care, which can be extremely stressful for its staff

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has reported how more than 13m working days a year are lost because of work-related stress, anxiety and depression.


Working Styles
More women believe that women have to be better than men in the workplace than their male counterparts, according to new research.
The survey reveals that 45% of working women agree with the statement that ?women have to be better than men to succeed in the workplace?, compared with just 26% of men.

The survey also reveals that :

? Most men and women (88%) prefer to work in roughly equally mixed teams

? Both men and women favour mostly male teams (21.6%) over mainly female teams (8.1%).

? There is a greater likelihood that women have experienced conflict in the workplace (55%) than men (46%).


UK Jobs Market sees rise at fastest rate for two years
New research published today has revealed a rise in both temporary and staff appointments during October. The latest report on jobs by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG reveals a third consecutive month of growth in both permanent placements and temp billings. This is the sharpest rise in two years and sixteen months respectively.
Moreover, October has seen a rise in the number of job vacancies, with the demand for permanent staff growing for the first time in seventeen months. Permanent salaries fell marginally in October and at the slowest pace in the current thirteen-month period of decline.
Kevin Green, Chief Executive, REC, comments: ?These figures show that the UK jobs market is on the road to recovery, with signs of improvement for the third month in a row. The demand for permanent recruitment is returning as employers start to hire people at an accelerating rate.?


Home Grown
British employees have more respect for leaders who have worked their way up an organisation, according to new research which discovered that two thirds (66%) of respondents thought that leaders who had been developed internally were good or very good leaders. This is compared to 51% of employees who held the same opinion of CEOs recruited from outside the organisation.
However, just over a third (38%) of companies surveyed have leaders that have been promoted internally, with 35% of future leaders identified and nurtured through leadership programs.
The research comments: ?In difficult times, employees turn to their leaders for direction. They put their trust in leadership?s ability to do the best for an organisation and see it and the employees through the hard times. To have the right people in place at the right time, companies must have a robust talent management strategy - enabling leaders who strengthen an organisation to be identified, developed, and retained.?